The so-called house of sober second thought witnessed the kind of contest normally associated with first-grade birthday parties, as a showdown erupted over seating arrangements this week.

The newly elected chair of the Senate banking committee, Conservative Irving Gerstein, didn't want the vice-chair, Liberal Celine Hervieux-Payette, sitting next to him.

When he asked her to step away from the head table, she refused.

So Gerstein, elected this week as chair, called a vote to kick Payette out of her chair.

With a Conservative majority on the committee, the motion passed Wednesday and the game of partisan musical chairs ended with Payette being forced to grab a seat farther away.

The Quebec senator remains vice-chair of the committee. Payette said she couldn't understand what Gerstein's problem was, and suggested that as his seatmate she could have helped him sometimes with translation, because he doesn't speak French.

"I found it unfortunate -- I'd say even a bit indecent," she said in an interview Thursday.

"We're supposed to work in a non-partisan way on the banking committee. I've been here 17 years; he's been here three. We have traditions....

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The crown and jewel of the Conservatives Economic Action Plan.