QP: Doomsaying and expense obsession

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Caucus day, and with Trudeau back from the UN, we had a full leadership deck today (minus Elizabeth May, who is travelling with the electoral reform committee). Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern on desk, doomsaying the economy and the looming catastrophes of a carbon tax and a CPP increase. Trudeau reminded her that they have lowered taxes for the middle class and noted that the previous record of not raising them on the wealthy didn’t work. Ambrose moved to the possible extradition treaty with China and that country’s human rights record. Trudeau noted that the dialogue they have established means they can raise difficult questions as well as investment opportunities, while they won’t lower the standards on extraditions. Ambrose worried about Chinese cyber-attacks, and Trudeau noted again that the dialogue allows them to raise difficult issues. Ambrose asked about the extradition treaty again in French, got the same answer, and ended her round asking about a peacekeeping missing in sub-Saharan Africa. Trudeau noted the responsibility that Canada has to the world, and said that they were considering the mission carefully in order to determine what the mission would be, but assured her they would be transparent. Thomas Mulcair was up next and demanded a vote on a peacekeeping mission. Trudeau noted this appreciation for the capacity of parliamentarians to raise issues, but didn’t deliver the necessary civics lesson about why a vote would undermine the role of the opposition. Mulcair touched on the extradition treaty with China, got the same answer that Ambrose got, and Mulcair moved onto a pair of questions about the climate targets not being more robust than those of the Conservatives. In both cases, Trudeau reminded him of their commitment to working with the provinces as they agreed to price carbon.

Round two, and Denis Lebel demanded action on a softwood lumber agreement (Lametti: The minister is hard at work on it), and Blaine Calkins and Karen Vecchio rat-packed questions on moving expenses (Chagger: These rules have been in place since 2008, which means you wrote them). Georgina Jolibois asked about the UNDRIP and the duty to consult Indigenous people (Bennet: We are doing everything we can across all departments to honour the commitment), and Charlie Angus demanded the justice minister asked about the duty to consult with Site C (Wilkinson: This is the purview of the environment minister and there are legally binding conditions on the proponent). Jacques Gourde and Alex Nuttall returned to the moving expenses (Chagger: Same answer in French to Gourde). Hélène Laverdière asked about voting in favour of nuclear disarmament at the UN (Goldsmith-Jones: That’s an oversimplification and the treaty did not bring the right parties to the table), and Irene Mathyssen read her outrage about veterans (Hehr: We thank the ombudsman for his report and we are working on helping veterans).

Round three saw questions on pipelines, government spending, softwood lumber, there being no peace to keep in Africa, Atlantic representation on the Supreme Court, CRTC appointments, relations with Iran, and Nunavut infrastructure.

Overall, there were no fireworks, but the Conservatives’ decision to go full-bore on the moving expenses issue, as though there was nothing else that concerned the country. I get that they’re trying hard to put this narrative of Liberal entitlement forward, but it’s cheap politics and petty outrage, particularly considering that rules have not been broken. Rather than make it about judgment, they give overwrought denunciations and lamentations for all of the workers in Alberta who’ve lost their jobs, and malign political staffers as “plush jobs” with the insinuation that they don’t pay taxes. The reality of those staffer jobs is that they are short-lived, they work tonnes of overtime without compensation, they and they are harried and highly stressful jobs with zero job security, many of them leaving better paying opportunities in the private sector where they would have stability. They had these very same senior staffers just months ago, so for them to treat the Liberal staffers as somehow different and worse is galling. That said, Bardish Chagger could have responded better than the prepared lines that she had before her, so hopefully she’ll get more fluid with her talking points on the issue sooner, and offer some of the context that the smarmy questions coming from Calkins and the like are ignoring.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Rona Ambrose for a black dress with a grey striped blazer, and to Frank Baylis for a black suit with a lavender shirt and purple tie and pocket square. Style citations go out to Mel Arnold for a black suit with a bright blue shirt and striped tie, and to Pam Goldsmith-Jones for a white belted dress that had black vertical stripes, big shoulders and a white collar and cuffs.

One thought on “QP: Doomsaying and expense obsession”

  1. On September 13 2016 Christine Lagarde the Managing Director of the IMF praised the Trudeau Liberals for their doctrine of infrastructure spending and their wonderful acceptance of 31 thousand Syrian refugees. This was met by a derisive statement to the press by Tory leadership hopeful Tony Clement the king of infrastructure spending, highlighted by Gazebo construction in his own riding, the text of which came directly out of the talking point encyclopedia of the Harper regimen..to whit. ” how can she say this and not tell the Canadian people how they are going to pay for it”. This was echoed by Lisa Raitt another contender for Leader of the Tories whose loser statement begs the question of who is going to pay for the eight consecutive deficits rung up by the Harper government to the tune of 670 billion dollars?
    What a bunch of political losers and hypocrites.

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