OTTAWA - All that was missing was fisticuffs, or maybe a member of Parliament dropping his trousers and mooning his opponents.
The House of Commons and its environs devolved into a scene of schoolyard taunts, shrill denunciations, partisan knee-capping, and procedural constipation Wednesday as the spring session ground toward its summer recess.
A cameo appearance by Jerry Springer, the trashy king of American daytime talk television, would not have been out of place. Even by the raucous standards set in this minority parliament, it was a wild day.
Deputy speaker Royal Galipeau - a Conservative whose parliamentary position makes him responsible for keeping the peace - charged over to Liberal MP David McGuinty in the middle of question period and launched a finger-wagging tirade.
Environment Minister John Baird strode to an open microphone in the Commons foyer and delivered a teeth-baring, unsolicited four-minute tirade accusing the Liberals of being sneaky, sleazy and underhanded - and various combinations thereof.
NDP Leader Jack Layton slammed the government for "churlish retribution" on parliamentary scheduling, while Diane Finley, the seldom-heard immigration minister, emerged to introduce legislation targeting foreign exotic dancers while smearing an old Liberal opponent.
"Thanks to today's amendments, the good old days of Liberal 'Strippergate' will be a thing of the past," Finley told the Commons, a sly reference to former minister Judy Sgro and her misfortunes in the citizenship file.
"If they are truly serious about this they wouldn't be resorting to a cheap political dig at a former Liberal cabinet minister," New Democrat MP Irene Mathyssen spat outside the House.
Behind all the bluster was some serious non-business. The Commons rises for a week-long break next week, and few observers think it will last long into June when MPs return.
So New Democrats are livid that the government abruptly changed the timetable for debating an NDP motion to revive the Clean Air Act. Instead of receiving eight hours of debate Thursday, it will now get only a couple of hours attention Friday.
Layton said the motion was bumped to punish the NDP for insisting on a recorded vote Tuesday on the budget implementation bill. The vote embarrassed some Altantic and Saskatchewan Tory MPs who were compelled to support the budget despite vicious opposition in their home provinces.
"Canadians should be furious at this," said Layton of Wednesday's machinations.
"It may seem like inside parliamentary procedure but what it is is arrogance. It is a rejection of the dignity and respect which is owed to parliamentarians, it's childish and it's completely unacceptable as far as we're concerned."
In the Liberal-dominated Senate, the Tories were filibustering a Liberal private member's bill which would compel the government to come up with a plan within 60 days for meeting the Kyoto targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions.
An elaborate game of procedural cat-and-mouse, initiated by the government, momentarily allowed Liberal senators to outfox the Tories late Tuesday when they quickly agreed to skip clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.
That sent Baird into paroxysms of outrage.
"This is the Stephane Dion team: sleazy, underhanded and untrustworthy," Baird concluded his rant.
Dion said the various manoeuvres reveal that the government has no respect for parliamentary institutions and is determined to get its own way, even at the expense of paralyzing proceedings.
"More and more the government shows that (Prime Minister Stephen Harper's) unable to respect the fact that he's a minority government. It will show to Canadians, indeed, what kind of majority government they would be."
All three opposition parties are livid the government won't choose a new chair for the Commons committee on official languages, after the opposition majority joined forces to vote out the old one.
It was that issue that sparked the confrontation between Galipeau and McGuinty in the Commons.
McGuinty said Galipeau was in "an out of control, enraged fury."
He said the deputy speaker "flipped out . . . and ran across the floor and stood over me and was gesticulating and pointing his finger, grabbed me by the shoulder, repeated several times something about coward or cowardice."
Only when he realized his diatribe was being caught on camera did Galipeau beat a hasty retreat.
Galipeau admitted he lost his cool but denied he was threatening in any way.
"Yes, I was pretty upset but I was only upset because I was surprised . . . How can I be threatening to (McGuinty). He's bigger than I am, he's stronger than I am, he's younger than I am."
