QP: Selling shares, ad nauseam

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While the PM was in Toronto and Bill Morneau in Montreal, it was promising to be an insufferable day in Question Period. Andrew Scheer led off, accusing Morneau of evading Canadian taxes while labelling small businesses as tax cheats (not true), and Bardish Chagger got to stand up to read that Morneau followed the advice of the Ethics Commissioner and that they trust her. Scheer tried again, and Chagger read that they are making changes to their proposals based on what Canadians told them, and hey, lower small business taxes! Scheer switched to English to worry that Morneau didn’t place his shares into a blind trust, and Chagger read another trite statement. They went another round, Chagger trying to play up small business week, and then another round again. Guy Caron was up next, leading for the NDP, raising the supposed conflicts of interest that Morneau was involved in — per the letter that Nathan Cullen sent to the Ethics Commissioner — and Chagger reminded him that they cleared everything with the Commissioner and after another round of the same in French, Cullen got up to reiterate and tried to get Duclos to respond based on pension legislation that could, theoretically, benefit Morneau’s family company, but Chagger gave her stock response. When Cullen chastised her for responding instead of Duclos, the response didn’t change.

Round two, and Pierre Poilievre, Lisa Raitt, and Gérard Deltell selectively quoted the Ethics Commissioner on Morneau’s shares not being in a blind trust (Lightbound: He worked with the Ethics Commissioner and he’s committed to public service). Ruth Ellen Brosseau and Tracey Ramsey railed about the American demand to kill Supply Management (Poissant: We support Supply Management, and the US demands are unacceptable). Marilyn Gladu, Alain Rayes, and Mark Strahl returned to Morneau’s supposed conflict of interest (Lightbound: Same answer). Don Davies demanded negotiations with provinces for universal pharmacare (Petitpas Taylor: We are taking bold action and are exploring a national formulary), and Brigitte Sansoucy demanded more action on opioids (Petitpas Taylor: We are responding in an evidence-based manner).

Round three saw questions on Supply Management under NAFTA talks, the Phoenix pay system, the Bombardier sale of a stake to the C Series and what that means for the government loan (Bains: The repayment terms have not changed), employee discounts, cooperative housing funding, atrocities being committed against the Rohingya (DeCourcey: We have engaged directly with the Myanmar Commander-in-Chief), and bankruptcy of a regional employer.

Overall, it was a pretty insufferable day, where the Conservatives employed their well-worn strategy of asking the exact same question over, and over, and over, and over again – and were rewarded with it with those repetitive questions being clipped on Power & Politics. So thank the producers of that show for encouraging them to keep up this terrible strategy. Andrew Scheer also used the terrible line of insisting that Morneau was being shielded from answering questions today, which is one of those utterly disingenuous lines when Morneau wasn’t even present, and Scheer was playing on the fact that he couldn’t say that Monreau was absent, so he created a false scenario about it for the people at home who get no wide shots to see that he wasn’t there. It’s petty and it’s kind of gross, and it’s debasing to the kinds of debates we should be having.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Lisa Raitt for a blue jacket with a white blouse and black slacks, and to Navdeep Bains for a tailored black suit with a white shirt, and an orange turban and tie. Style citations go out to David Yurdiga for a black suit with a light teal shirt and an indigo tie, and to Anju Dhillon for a gold top with a maroon jacket and black slacks.