Orders of the Day: Behold Your Billion Dollar (and counting) G8/20 Bill!

The leaders of G20 countries pose for a group shot in Toronto, June 27, 2010. (Dave Chidley/G8-G20)

Or, at least, the portions thereof that were released in the House in response to a request by Liberal MP Dan McTeague yesterday afternoon -- and which can be found in convenient Scribd format right here -- which will almost certainly be among the first items raised by the opposition during Question Period today.

Which, just as a reminder, kicks off at 11:15am today, what with it being a Friday and all. The prime minister, however, will not be in the House to take questions on the high cost of doing -- or at least hosting -- international business: instead, he's headed to Newfoundland to survey the damage wrought by Hurricane Igor. Then again, it's never a sure thing that any other party leaders will be in the House for the last QP of the week, although if still in town, one or more of them may well make an exception today.

As far as regular House business, the Chamber resumes debate on the bill to prevent prisoners from collecting federal pensions, which, by the way, turned out to be surprisingly lively, at least from the bits that I was able to catch yesterday afternoon; although it sounds like it will be given a unanimous nod of approval at second reading, the committee eventually charged with studying the bill may well delve deeper into the details than its its title, which styles it, in now typical talking-point-ready fashion, as the "Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act."

Finally, outside the precinct, Edmonton NDP MP Linda Duncan releases what would, in an alternate universe, have been her party's contribution to an environment committee report on oil sands development and water; the committee, alas, was unable to reach anything approaching consensus, and the whole thing was quietly kiboshed behind closed doors last June, thus rendering nearly two years of hearings -- including dozens of witnesses, and a fact-finding tour of affected areas -- officially moot. (For the record, the Liberals released their report last month.)

That's all for the moment, it seems -- keep an eye on the all-day liveblog for all the latest developments, as well as on-the-spot reports from the Hill.