QP: Scheer’s debut reading

Posted on by

The day after the Conservative leadership results, the seating plan had changed to give front-row seats to most of the failed candidates, with Rona Ambrose to sit next to Scheer for the next few weeks. As well, the PM was still in Rome, and would not be here to spar with Scheer on his first sitting day in the new job. Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and launched into a rant in French about how the previous Trudeau government hurt his generation, and asked a rhetorical question about why the government was hurting Canadians. Bill Morneau first offered congratulations to Scheer for his election, and then reminded him that the economy was on the rebound. Scheer switched to English by reading complaints about people being nickled and dimed, to which Morneau repeated his congratulations in English and the positive economic indicators. When Scheer read questions about hiked taxes, Morneau reminded him that the first thing they did was lower taxes for the middle class. Scheer then changed topics and read a question about one of the surveillance planes in Iraq being withdrawn. Harjit Sajjan noted that Canada increased their contributions, and that rebalancing forces was a constant exercise. Scheer repeated his question in French and got the same answer. Irene Mathyssen was up for the NDP, railing about the Infrastructure Bank as a source of user fees. Amarjeet Sohi assured her the Bank was there to invest in the Infrastructure deficit. Alexandre Boulerice asked again in French, and Sohi reminded him that the Bank would be accountable to Parliament. Boulerice then switched to the question of lifetime pensions for wounded veterans, to which Sajjan insisted that they still planned to implement the pension. Mathyssen asked again in English, and Sajjan repeated that further details would be released later in the year.

Round two, and Maxime Bernier railed about the threat to cancel Super Hornets to protect Bombardier’s interests (Freeland: Aerospace jobs are important, and we will defend the interests of our industry), Kellie Leitch railed about the Infrastructure Bank (Sohi: We will build the Infrastructure that communities need), Erin O’Toole railed about the withdrawal of a surveillance aircraft from Iraq (Sajjan: It returns to Canada to fulfil obligations here, and the fight there is happening on the ground). Romeo Saganash and Georgina Jolibois asked about First Nations child welfare funding (Philpott: We are taking steps to ensure that all children get the care they need). Steven Blaney and Michael Chong accused the government of rigging the Official Languages Commissioner in favour of a donor (Joly: She was the best candidate for the job and can fulfill it with full impartiality). Randall Garrison and Hélène Laverdière asked about the situation of gay men in Chechnya (Freeland: I am personally working with Russian NGOs on this delicate situation).

Round three saw questions on carbon taxes, a potential CN Rail strike, the Coast Guard’s west coast dive team, parent supports for permanent legal guardians, accountability, the MMIW inquiry, a factory decamping to West Virginia, CRTC decisions, autism funding, licensed producers of medicinal cannabis, and recognizing Palestine as a state.

Overall, it was a slightly pathetic day, as all of the former leadership candidates lined up to get their turns to ask “tough” questions that didn’t all necessarily make sense (such as Kellie Leitch’s “Gomery 2.0” talking point, which was utter nonsense). The fact that all of the leadership candidates sans Deepak Obhrai (who I don’t recall seeing there) all got a kick at the feigned outrage can was some cheap theatre, especially since most of them were simply reiterating questions that Scheer asked in his round or stating points that he made in his speech that morning, making it all the more empty. Scheer himself was visibly reading his questions, and he completely blew his first question as being some kind of an empty rhetorical question that repeated his leadership slogans, which was yet another fairly sad indictment of the state of our parliament, and doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope for an improved state of affairs going forward.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Patty Hajdu for an off-white lapel-less jacket with a black scoop-necked top and slacks, and to Raj Grewal for a black three-piece suit with a light blue shirt and a red tie and turban. Style citations go out to Arif Virani for a tan suit with a white shirt and navy tie and pocket square, and to Cathy McLeod for a dark blue crocheted overcoat with a matching top and black slacks. Dishonourable mention goes out to Mariam Monsef for a mustard jacket with a black top.

2 thoughts on “QP: Scheer’s debut reading”

  1. What I do not understand about Scheer is why he thinks it is necessary to attack a dead man and his legacy, Pierre E. Trudeau was PM in another era and it is irrelevant to drag his ghost into today’s Parliament. Scheer may turn out to be a nasty piece of business dressed up as Mr Smily.

  2. What we saw from Andrew today was a continuation of Scheer nonsense. Obviously the Conservative Party has learned nothing about the Canadian people and still cling to the Harper mistaken policies of the past, which thankfully after ten years of abject failure we won’t have to defeat again until 2019. Plenty of time to have the outmoded platform by the right wingers skewered and dissected once more. The election will be fought out by the Liberals and the Tories as the NDP have totally lost their way. QP is irrelevant.

Comments are closed.