The second day of the fall sitting, and the Conservative Members’ Statements were beyond hysterical. Thomas Mulcair led off, and demanded to know how many Canadian Forces’ members were in Iraq. Harper responded that it was 69. Mulcair railed on about military deployments needing the approval of the House — undercutting his own accountability role given the practice of Crown Prerogatives. Harper reminded him that the current mission was not the same as the 2003 war. Mulcair changed topics, and asked if Harper would hide behind parliamentary privilege to avoid testifying at the Duffy trial. Harper suggested that Mulcair would be an expert witness on the misuse of public funds. Mulcair, after some hubbub, wondered why Harper didn’t fire anyone involved in the “bribery” of Duffy, but Harper hit back that Mulcair should probably fire himself. Mulcair changed topics again and mentioned a report on the Champlain Bridge that said that a toll would make traffic surge on other bridges instead. Harper reminded him that they were still in a contracting process. Justin Trudeau was up next, and returned to the problems with the EI tax credits which incentivize firing instead of hiring employees. Harper shot back with a couple of non-sequiturs about the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and Trudeau musing about cancelling income splitting. Trudeau shot back with a different quote about the CFIB and called on him to give a break on premiums. Harper read a quote from the CFIB, and accused Trudeau of wanting to raise rates.

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