QP: Parsing the minister’s answers

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A hot Thursday afternoon, and most of the leaders were gone, Thomas Mulcair excepted. Candice Bergen led off for the day, raising the lack of mention of China in Chrystia Freeland’s speech and the sale of a satellite company to China. Navdeep Bains responded that they take national security very seriously and and that the national security review board gave it a pass (and he said national security about twelve times). Bergen wondered why the sale went ahead without a comprehensive security review, and Bains insisted that the comprehensive review under the Investment Canada Act had been undertaken. Bergen insisted this was about appeasing China, and Bains insisted that the Act stipulates that all transactions are subjected to a national security review, and that included this one. Gérard Deltell then took a kick at the same can in French, twice, but Bains gave the very same answer. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and picked apart Bains’ answers, parsing the language particularly between a full review and a standard screening. Bains reiterated that they followed the law and did their due diligence and would take any advice from national security agencies. Mulcair tried again in French, raising a previous sale, and Bains reminded him that the previous process under the previous government had been botched. Mulcair then turned to the nuclear disarmament treaty and parsed the PM’s responses from yesterday. Bains got up again, and to reiterate the PM’s points about getting a fissile materials treaty underway instead. Mulcair tried again, and Bains read the same points that the PM made.

Round two, and Diane Watts turned to risk regarding the Infrastructure Bank (Sohi: The Bank is designed to shift risk to the private sector commensurate to their investment), Alain Rayes demanded the Bank be split out of C-44 (Sohi: Other countries leverage our pension funds), and Pierre Poilievre returned to the risk issue (Sohi: We are mobilising our own pension funds in our own country), and a violation of Access to Information laws (MacKinnon: We launched an investigation, and it has been referred to the Attorney General). François Choquette and Irene Mathyssen demanded genuine consultations on a new Official Languages Commissioner (Casey: We have a open, merit-based process). John Brassard and Jacques Gourde offered some bog-standard concern trolling about appointments (Chagger: We have an open, transparent, merit-based process), and Lisa Raitt returned to the Chinese sale (Bains: This was the same process as your government had). Fin Donnelly asked about salmon education (LeBlanc: We will always be there to support those volunteers), and Shiela Malcolmson worried about abandoned vessels (Garneau: We announced the oceans protection plan in November, and the recent announcement is just the beginning).

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Round three saw questions on the defence review, softwood lumber, marine debris clean-up, the transition plan for dairy farmers with CETA, a publicly available sex offender registry, GST on carbon taxes, training first responders, Parks Canada’s reconciliation initiatives, malaria drugs for troops, and French as a working language in the military.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the day. On the one hand, it was great to see Thomas Mulcair really parse the answers that the minister gave and take him to task over the language that was employed in order to get to the heart of the matter. This is the kind of thing we really should see more of. That having been said, it was yet another day where all opposition research came courtesy of the Globe and Mail, which, with all due respect to the Globe, is getting pathetic. Why do we have opposition research bureaux if everything comes directly from the media? Who is setting the agenda in parliament anyway? If it’s the media doing all of the hard lifting when it comes to accountability, why do we then have an opposition? I mean, seriously. You guys have jobs to do and should actually be doing them.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Joyce Murray for a white top with a wide lapel/collar and an aubergine jacket, and to Greg Fergus for a tailored black jacket with a light blue shirt and a black polka-dotted tie. Style citations go out to Arif Virani for a khaki jacket with a white shirt, black diamond patterned tie and navy pocket square, and to Kirsty Duncan for a multi-hued green leaf print dress with half-sleeves.