There's been no shortage of quiet head-scratching amongst Commons watchers over yesterday's failed attempt by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to introduce a raft of terrorism-related report stage amendments to the omnicrime bill, only to see all five ruled out of order by House Speaker Andrew Scheer, who concluded that they should have been brought forward at committee. 

What makes the government's eleventh hour effort to amend its own bill even more puzzling, however, is what the speaker didn't mention, perhaps out of politeness, but more likely because he simply didn't know: namely, the fact that similar amendments had, in fact, been brought forward at committee, by Liberal MP -- and former justice minister -- Irwin Cotler, whereupon the Conservative majority on the other side of the table voted down each and every one. 

Members of Parliament who participate in Movember have split up into partisan teams, and at the top of the fundraising tally is the NDP. The NDP team (New-De-MO-crats) has raised, so far, more than $26,000, shooting it heads and shoulders above the Liberals at $13,000 and the Conservatives at $8,000.

More after the jump...

It's Wednesday, which means the Commons will be shuttered until this afternoon as the parties hold their usual weekly caucus meetings. 

When the Chamber reopens later today, the first item of business on the agenda will likely be a motion to impose time allocation on report stage and third reading of the omnibus crime bill, which will almost certainly require at least one vote and thirty minutes of bells, thus plunging the afternoon committee program into mild to medium disarray. 

Once that bit of now routine business is out of the way, MPs will resume consideration of the ffity opposition-proposed amendments that survived yesterday's ruling by the speaker, although how long they'll have to do so will, of course, be determined by the time allocation motion itself. 

Readers may recall Irwin Cotler bringing a question of privilege to the speaker over calls to his constituents implying he would be resigning. Hit the jump to see part of Tuesday's debate on the issue.

The government's bid to dismantle the gun registry will hit the final stage of committee consideration later this morning -- but will MPs manage to complete a full clause-by-clause review in time to send it back to the House for a final vote this week? 

As noted in Orders of the Day, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson heads to committee today to defend his department's supplementary estimates requests. 

As flagged by the Ottawa Citizen, there's something about the wording of these queries, which will be placed on the Order Paper by NDP heritage critic Tyrone Benskin, that seems oddly familiar.