Amidst the various member’s statements on the Dec 6 anniversary, the Conservatives capped theirs off with a crass equation between stopping violence against women and their tough-on-crime agenda. No, seriously.
Michael Ignatieff kicked off question period by wondering how, on the anniversary of the Montreal massacre, the government could so casually delay the firearm regulations that would make guns easier to track? And John Baird got up and said he didn’t want to politicize the day (as if the previous member’s statement wasn’t crass politicking at all). Raymonde Folco followed up by asking more about the government’s intransigence over the gun registry, to which Vic Toews claimed that his party was the only one that cares about victims. Gilles Duceppe and Bernard Bigras asked about the government’s resistance to extending the Kyoto Accords, and Jack Layton followed up with all those fossil awards we keep racking up.
Scott Brison kicked off round two with a pair of questions regarding the confusion about deficit figures, while Bonne Crombie followed up with the tale of the PCO’s $7,400 refreshment tab. Christian Ouellet asked after emission standards, while Daniel Paillé returned to the question of the deficit projections. Francis Scarpaleggia and Pablo Rodriguez wondered about comments Dean Del Mastro made about killing the CBC (which James Moore turned around to say it was the Liberals who gutted the CBC), while Marc Garneau wondered about the costs to academia of the loss of the long-form census.
The remainder of QP saw questions around job figures, gun regulations, climate science funding, Afghan corruption, First Nations healthcare, the Cultural Capitals program, and funding for women’s shelters.
Sartorially speaking, I’ll give snaps to the stylistically similar Pablo Rodriguez and Siobhan Coady, who both wore crisp pink shirts with black suits (Rodriguez wearing a black striped tie as the major difference). The style citation goes out to Gordon O’Connor for his shades of greige ensemble, with a dishonourable mention to Colin Carrie for a naff Santa tie.
It seems that there is no clear destination for gifts to the prime minister and cabinet ministers from foreign dignitaries – and many of them are piling up in the attic of 24 Sussex. Maybe one day they’ll turn up in a museum, but for the time being, they’ll just gather dust.
It looks like only a fraction of Ontario’s stimulus funds have been spent, and oh, look – most of the projects had their approvals rushed without scrutiny. Because nobody saw that one coming.
And here is a great bit of retrospective on Michaëlle Jean’s term as Governor General.
Why you can trust Xtra
