OTTAWA - There's a reason they call it Parliament's summer recess.
The parallels to schoolyard antics are never so striking as in the final days before the House of Commons rises for its three-month summer break.
The rush of last-minute reports, frenetic legislative paper-shuffling, exuberant invective and rhetorical stink bombs, culminating in a finger-pointing variation of "your dog ate my homework," all signal an imminent, merciful end to the third session of Canada's 40th Parliament.
Class is expected to be formally dismissed Thursday afternoon or evening.
It can't come soon enough. After a spring session that's been called one of the least productive on record, Wednesday on Parliament Hill had all the hallmarks of session-ender madness.
Bill C-23, a bill to reform the pardons system, was totemic.
The bill whose legislative goal -- eliminating pardons for dangerous sex offenders -- enjoys all-party and cross-country support, managed to engulf the House of Commons in some of the most bitter, partisan name-calling of the year. It all came to an amicable resolution once the TV cameras were turned off.
The juvenile antics were everywhere.
The prelude to the daily question period in the Commons was fogged with the MP equivalent of schoolboys cupping hands in their armpits and squeezing to replicate a gaseous expulsion.
Conservative MPs managed to twice raise the 10-year-old Liberal sponsorship scandal, Liberals groused about Conservative summit spending and a New Democrat excoriated the government for neglecting women's issues.
Speaker Peter Milliken finally brought matters to a halt when he admonished Tory backbencher Andrew Saxton for a sweeping denunciation of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
"The member knows that personal attacks are not permitted," Milliken said in his best schoolmarm voice, while Saxton retreated to his Commons seat, smirking.
With the air suitably blue in the chamber, question period commenced.
Foreign aid, G8 and G20 spending, ministerial responsibility and the power of Parliament were all bruited about aimlessly before Prime Minister Stephen Harper took the day's end-of-session non-sequitur prize.
Harper, in response to NDP Leader Jack Layton's third consecutive question on Afghan detainees, accused NDP deputy leader Libby Davies of making anti-Israel "statements that could have been made by Hamas, Hezbollah or anybody else," then segued sideways into a passing shot on pardons reform.
The remainder of question period was notable mostly for the insults. "Sit down, you clown!" a voice from the Liberal ranks bellowed at Conservative minister John Baird. "Kiss and make up!" a Conservative taunted Liberal Denis Coderre, who is still on the outs with party leadership.
Conservatives who came into the afternoon accusing the opposition of "gutting" the pardons bill managed to have two backbenchers ask identically worded, leading questions on the issue of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.
"Neither victims nor law-abiding Canadians think it is acceptable for notorious criminals to be pardoned while the opposition continues to play political games in Ottawa," Tories Greg Rickford and Cathy McLeod intoned no more than three minutes apart.
Tsering Dorjee, a native of India who now lives in Calgary, was paying a visit to her daughter in Ottawa and decided she would take in her first question period.
"I expected something a little more peaceful," she said diplomatically as she left the storied chamber.
Outside the Commons, there was an avalanche of end-of-session paper.
The 2009-10 annual report by Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson was released at 3:38 p.m. Committee reports poured out. The long-awaited Air India inquiry report will be made public Thursday.
By just after 6 p.m., Toews had emerged from negotiations to say all-party agreement had been reached on the pardons legislation.
Dorjee said she has watched India's parliamentarians in action on TV, and pronounced it "quite similar" to the Canadian version.
"I guess this is how it's done," she said with a slight grimace.
