Here's how Hansard records what followed:
"Hon. Peter Kent (Minister of the Environment, CPC): Mr. Speaker, if my hon. colleague had been in Durban she would have seen that Canada was among the leaders in the —"
"Some hon. members: Oh! Oh!"
"The Speaker: Order. We can deal with this after Question Period."
In the emotional high point of the session, Justin Trudeau reacted to Kent's comment by bellowing, "Oh you piece of s---," at the top of his lungs, setting off pandemonium in the Chamber, which is demurely recorded in Hansard as "Oh! Oh!"
After question period, Trudeau apologized for his bad language, then Kent rose to ask for an apology, like a badly programmed robot.
Trudeau flipped out because Kent had attacked Leslie for not going to the climate meeting in Durban, but Leslie didn't go to Durban because Kent personally denied her accreditation, breaking with the tradition that critics accompany the minister.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May had to get accreditation from Papua New Guinea to attend, and for her trouble she was rewarded by having Kent's parliamentary secretary, Michelle Rempel, twice attack her for missing debates in Ottawa.
I found Trudeau's outburst tremendously encouraging, because it showed that opposition MPs are finding new ways to draw public attention to this government's willingness to smear its opponents and stifle debate.
Two other MPs did so this session: NDP MP Pat Martin, who let loose an obscenity-laced string of tweets, and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who blew the whistle on the Tories when they called into his riding, telling voters that he was leaving politics, which was, as Speaker Andrew Scheer ruled, "reprehensible."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government often looks authoritarian and mendacious, and he's often accused of failing to respect Parliament, but when you look at all the stories about Trudeau cursing, you see that Parliament will continue to matter if MPs find ways to make it matter, and they will do that, because their careers depend on it.
Trudeau was owned by Jason Kenney in March when he complained that the government's new handbook for immigrants used the word "barbaric" to describe honour killings. On Thursday he showed that he has game, and other MPs will seek similar moments of foul-mouthed glory if the Tories provide the kind of opening that Kent did.
Meanwhile, Harper's team has been pushing platform items through the House, as they were elected to do. The wheat board is dead. The gun registry is next. The budget and crime bill have been passed, as has the bill that will add 30 seats to the Commons, giving Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta their due without being unfair to anyone, except the taxpayers, who will pick up the tab.
Harper had a big win with the border deal with the Americans, although we await the fine print.
Kenney continued his aggressive work at Citizenship and Immigration, pushing ahead with items that the opposition dislikes but can't complain about: banning veils at citizenship ceremonies and cracking down on immigration cheats.
The government was in damage-control mode defending Tony Clement's gazebos and Peter MacKay's helicopter ride, and it looked clumsy reacting to the crisis in Attawapiskat, but Harper used the occasion to agree to a summit meeting with First Nations leaders, an opportunity to start some overdue, unglamorous work on a crucial issue for Canada's future.
Harper has benefited from a divided opposition, but each of the parties can look back at the session with some individual satisfaction.
With only four MPs in the House, the Bloc Quebecois faces an uphill climb to relevance, but the polls are looking up and they have replaced Gilles Duceppe with Daniel Paille, a smart veteran.
He ought to look to interim Liberal leader Bob Rae for inspiration on how to revive a party that has been knocked to the canvas. Rae has great riffs, hard-won cunning and his diminished caucus has some of the best MPs in the House.
He is no doubt devising some scheme that would allow him to stay on as leader through the next election. The first step is moving the polls, which he is doing.
Things are tougher for the NDP, which has been struggling under interim leader Nycole Turmel, who is, as a Tory spinner put it, "virtually unclippable" in English.
Many of the NDP's stars are busy in the leadership race, although that has given newcomers a chance to get blooded. Leslie has done well, as has Alexandre Boulerice, and canny Charlie Angus repeatedly gored Clement, and pushed Attawapiskat to the top of the news for weeks.
The NDP was built around Jack Layton, and Layton is gone. This spring, after the party picks a new leader, and the Tories deliver a cost-cutting budget, we'll have a better idea of the health of our democracy, but for the moment it looks OK to me.
Origin
Source: Ottawa Citizen
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