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38-year-old homeless tour guide Karim stands at the Prague’s main railway station during his tour in Prague November 20, 2012. Karim works for a student-run tour agency Pragulic as a tour guide that shows tourists the sides of Prague that sightseers would normally avoid. Picture taken November 20, 2012. To match CZECH-HOMELESS/TOUR REUTERS/Petr Josek (CZECH REPUBLIC - Tags: SOCIETY POVERTY TRAVEL) Petr Josek Snr/Reuters
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QP Live: All the parties are fighting a theme war

Join us for your daily dose of political theatre. Tweet about the madness at #QP.
By Nick Taylor-Vaisey

Yesterday, not a single unpredictable utterance emanated from the House of Commons. Everyone played to character, and the House welcomed a few new characters. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair ran the gamut in his opening round of questions, not unexpected given what must have been a difficult few weeks for the opposition leader. So many weeks away, so many questions to ask. Alas, Mulcair and his troops eventually returned to the Senate scandal, where they’re at home and where they’ll stay put.

The Liberals, for their part, have pivoted away from the Senate—no middle-class votes to be won there!—and zeroed in on the government’s fledgling Canada Job Grant (fledgling may be too generous a term, since that implies existence, which the job grants have not yet achieved). Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper argued about notions, and Trudeau said the feds should butt out of job training and, c’mon, let provinces who allegedly hate this program do their own things, man. Probably, the Liberals aren’t finished telling the government that it should butt out and let the provinces do their own things.

Senate! Job grants! Corruption! Middle class! Themes!

Maclean’s is your home for the daily political theatre that is Question Period, when MPs trade barbs and take names for 45 minutes every day. If you’ve never watched, check out our primer, which we produced with J-Source. Today, QP runs from 2:15 p.m. until just past 3. We tell you who to watch, we stream it live, and we liveblog all the action. The whole thing only matters if you participate. Chime in on Twitter with #QP.

HOT SEAT

On Senate expenses, the Prime Minister will answer his share of questions and his designated answerer, whomever that is today, will field the rest. On an array of other issues, expect to hear from Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, Employment Minister Jason Kenney and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (or his parliamentary secretary), among others.

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