The QP Clip: Harper pooh-poohs Trudeau’s gambit

No one quite knew how to respond to Justin Trudeau’s big idea: rid the Senate of Liberals. Or at least stop calling them Liberal Senators, even if they still call themselves a Liberal Senate caucus.

And then, during this afternoon’s Question Period, when Trudeau asked the Prime Minister if he’d follow the Liberals’ lead and go non-partisan in the Senate, Stephen Harper basically made fun of his Liberal foe. He relished the opportunity to criticize the halved Liberal caucus, and in the process, looked more confident than he has in ages. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair was also pretty happy to talk about taking the partisanship out of the Senate, and he and the PM engaged in a competition to see who could smile more indignantly about their various positions on Senate reform. Their benches joined in the revelry, and smiling faces greeted smiling faces as the leaders exchanged one-liners. The odd man out, after he stole the news cycle this morning, was Trudeau.

Perhaps the Liberal leader is playing a long game, and knows something no one else knows. The morning was all his. The afternoon was not. And still, he has no senators.