Passive Aggressive Order Paper Question Watch - Brian Jean vs. Hedy Fry

From today's Order Paper, two questions that tell you pretty much all you need to know about the state of interparty relations in the House of Commons these days:

Q-385 -- December 12, 2011 -- Mr. Jean (Fort McMurray--Athabasca) -- For questions Q-1 through Q-376 on the Order Paper, what is the estimated cost of the government's response to each question?

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Q-401 -- December 13, 2011 -- Ms. Fry (Vancouver Centre) -- What is the estimated cost of the government's response to question 385 on the Order Paper?

The first question, submitted by Conservative backbencher Brian Jean, refers to Qs 1-376, all but one of which were, of course, submitted by a member of an opposition party.

Given that fact, it's not terribly difficult to figure out Jean's motivation -- or, alternately, the motivation of whoever it was that came up with the question in the first place.

Once the government eventually replies, presumably with a sufficiently eyebrow-raising estimate of the total cost, Jean will promptly excoriate the opposition for wasting exactly that amount of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Heck, he's probably already written up the members' statement that he's planning to deliver, which now requires only the insertion of the exact figure before it's ready to go. 

The second question, of course, is Hedy Fry's way of letting Jean know that when it comes to Order Paper silly buggers, two can play at that game.

Finally, not remotely connected to either of the above questions but worth including if only because it made me do a double take during my morning perusal of the Order Paper, what has to be the most intriguing Q of the session so far, courtesy of Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis:

 Q-4042 -- December 13, 2011 -- Mr. Karygiannis (Scarborough--Agincourt) -- With regard to the purchase of cosmetics by Minister's offices since 2008: (a) how much money has each Ministers' office spent on (i) cosmetics, (ii) hair products, (iii) beauty supplies; (b) what were the dates of each purchase; and (c) what were the brands and names of the individual products purchased?