Commons civility extends to second day

MPs mostly continued to be on their best behaviour Tuesday, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared for his first session of question period since winning a majority government.

It was alsoHarper's first time facing NDP Leader Jack Layton directly across the aisle.

Layton was asked on his way into the Commons about the opportunity to face the prime minister as Opposition leader for the first time.

"The prime minister says we are two sword lengths apart.Well, I told him two canes," Layton said, holding up his now familiar walking stick.

In his opening question, Layton took on pending budget cuts, one day after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tabled his plan for the coming year and reiterated his goal of eliminating the deficit by 2014-15.

"What services will Canadians have to do without when the prime minister's finished cutting?" Layton asked.

Harper repeated his promise not to touch pensions or health transfers to the provinces and territories. The economy remains a top priority, Harper said.

"Canadians expect us to cut this kind of fat," Harper said.

The government is planning program reviews to see where they can trim spending, setting up a special cabinet committee for the purpose

MPs keep heckling to a minimum

While MPs mostly kept their cheering and jeering to the time between questions and answers, murmurs of disagreement started to pick up once the first leader's round of questioning was done.

Conservative MP Gordon O'Connor hushed his colleagues and pointed his finger at some of them when the volume started to riseas Liberal MP Hedy Fry was heckled.

There was one exchange that turned up the heat a bit.

Pat Martin, the NDP critic for the Canadian Wheat Board, asked why the government was planning to close the Western-basedmarketingboardwithout a vote by farmers. Accusing the government of an "ideological crusade," Martin loudly asked the governmentto table any research had done on the Wheat Board.

"Their majority doesn't mean they can run roughshod over democracy," he said.

David Anderson, parliamentary secretary to the minister of the Wheat Board, was heckled as he defended the decision to end the wheat and barley marketer as freedom of choice for farmers. But in his follow up reply, he couldn't resist taking a shot at Martin.

"We can see why the member's been moved off the portfolio that he had before, because he made as much of a fool of himself on that as he is on this issue," Anderson said, before being cut off by Speaker Andrew Scheer.

Anderson apologized to the House at the conclusion of question period and promised not to use such language again.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said after question period thatScheer's intervention was "a good sign."

But, he added, "I hope we don't lose some of the fun and the boisterousness and the exchanges in the House that are not a bad thing, they are a sign of life."

"I think there's a lot of false piety going on at the moment. We'll see what happens. I think the Speaker's decision to cut off somebody who was simply insulting another member is a good sign, we'll see if it continues. There's nothing more emphatic than the Speaker's control of the microphone."

Layton said it was a good decision to ensure decorum was respected in the House.

"I think it was a step in the right direction," he said.

"I was happy the Speaker acted."

The NDP have pledged not to heckle in the House of Commons. The Liberals have notmade thatpromise.