QP: Overwrought cheap outrage

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The Prime Minister having met with the Chinese Premier earlier in the day, he and the other leaders were now ready to go. Rona Ambrose, mini-lectern on desk, gave an overwrought tale of a single mother worried about losing her house and reading about the moving expenses of PMO staffers. Justin Trudeau noted that the rules were followed, and the PMO overall was smaller than in the Conservatives’ day. Ambrose launched into a somewhat misleading tirade about all of the things they government cancelled for families (conveniently ignoring the enhanced benefits that they replaced those programs with), and Trudeau thanked her for reminding Canadians about their helping the middle class. Ambrose went again another round in French, got the same answer, and Jason Kenney took over to lament policy changes in Alberta to denounce a “job-killing carbon tax.” Trudeau reminded him that he’s in Ottawa, not Alberta, and that farmers were pleased with the settlement of the canola issue with China. Kenney then gave one last go at trying to declare ISIS to be a genocide, and Trudeau chided him for political grandstanding on such an important issue. Thomas Mulcair got up next, and accused Trudeau of being a dictatorship apologist with respect to an extradition treaty with China. Trudeau noted that this was about a dialogue that allows them to bring up difficult cases, and they would not bend their principles for anyone. Mulcair went another round in French, got the same answer, and then moved onto the Site C Dam in BC. Trudeau noted the commitment to a renewed relationship with Indigenous communities, and when Mulcair pressed, Trudeau kept insisting that they were respecting and consulting.

Round two and Jacques Gourde, Candice Bergen and Karen Vecchio returned to hysterical denunciations about moving fees (Chagger: This policy was last changed in 2008, and it’s mostly legal fees and real estate fees). Pierre-Luc Dusseault and Guy Caron asked about tax havens in the Bahamas (Lebouthillier: We have put $440 million into CRA to fight tax evasion). Joël Godin and Blaine Calkins kept up on the moving expenses (Chagger: Same answers as before). Don Davies worried about the opioid crisis (Philpott: We are working with our partners to help deal with this) and Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet railed about the Phoenix pay debacle (Foote: It is unacceptable and we are working to fix it).

Round three saw questions on relations with Iran and China, marijuana mismanagement (Philpott: We don’t regulate illegal products, but we will regulate legal ones), Supreme Court representation from Atlantic Canada, Hamilton steel workers, Texas getting oil investment but not Canada, the closure of a feed lot in Alberta, post-secondary investment, violence against women, the moving expenses, “bullying” Quebec over user fees, and softwood lumber.

Overall, it was eye-rollingly terrible. Framing the questions about the moving expenses around all of those Alberta families losing their houses (Really? Is there a rash of mortgage defaults that has thus far escaped the news?) was over the top, and to equate the two reminds me of when your parents used to tell you to finish your dinner because “kids in China are starving,” as though there was some correlation. Trying to insinuate that these staffers only got the benefit because they are friends with the PM is smarmy and gross politics considering that it’s actually a compulsory benefit, and for people to insist that the rules be changed to outlaw or cap these benefits is tone deaf to the reality that they were collectively bargained for senior public servants, for whom political staff are given equivalent benefits to. Also, to insinuate that those staffers were millionaires because one of them sold a house worth $1 million in the Toronto housing market is ridiculous, and is the politics of cheap outrage at its pettiest. The only time we had a reasonable critique was when Michelle Rempel asked one last time late in QP, and going on the angle of judgment rather than smarm, but she too fell into that overwrought trap of the single mother with a mortgage she can’t meet. This all having been said, Bardish Chagger really should have done a better job of answering the questions with more than just “you put in these latest rules,” and while it was good that she at least mentioned legal and real estate fees today, there was still not enough context around how these rules came to be and the compulsory nature of them, or asking if the opposition is really asking if they want to divorce the benefits that political staff receives from those of senior public servants. In fact, saying that you were elected to “help the middle class” is the absolute wrong answer for this kind of a situation, when providing context to the situation is necessary if we want to ensure that this is a reasonable debate as opposed to a war of meaningless talking points.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Candice Bergen for a dark purple short-sleeved dress and to Navdeep Bains for a tailored black suit with a white shirt and purple tie and turban. Style citations goes out to David Tilson for a brown windowpane jacket with a white shirt and a fluorescent multi-coloured patterned tie, and to Cathy McLeod for a white sleeveless top under a white life long-sleeved overshirt and black skirt. Dishonourable mention goes out to Kim Rudd for a yellow dress with a black lace pattern and a black jacket.