QP: Virtually ignoring the AG’s report

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While the day got started with a report by the Auditor General, which in any other parliament would be the subject matter by which Question Period would be seized with. But not this parliament, at this particular time, with these particular denizens therein. Andrew Scheer led off, raising the AG’s concerns about the CRA’s call centre performance, and Justin Trudeau praised the report that would help them do better, which they intended to do, but it also reminded the House that the previous government cut services over a decade. Scheer switched to English and tried to turn this into a question about how Stephen Bronfman picked up the call to get his tax issues cleared — utterly false — and Trudeau repeated his previous answer in English. Excited, Scheer’s cadence got breathier as he raced through a scripted question on the Ethics Commissioner to clearing Bill Morneau to table Bill C-27 — which is utterly absurd procedurally — and Trudeau reminded him that they work with the Ethics Commissioner and take her advice. After another round of the same in French, Scheer stumbled through an accusation that the Liberals don’t follow rules, and Trudeau stuck to his points about the Commissioner. Guy Caron led for the NDP, railing about the revelations from the AG on the Phoenix pay system, to which Trudeau reminded the House that the system was brought in by the previous government — to much uproar — and listed off who they were working with. Caron railed that there should be a refund for the system, and Trudeau listed mistakes the previous regime made, and promised that they were working to fix it. Alexandre Boulerice, making a telephone hand gesture, mimed a call to the CRA, and Trudeau noted that they were working on fixing things after a decade of cuts. Nathan Cullen took over for a round of the same in English, and got much the same answer.

Round two, and Alain Rayes, Shannon Stubbs, and Pierre Poilievre returned to the tired mendaciously framed questions about Morneau (Lightbound: Usual points about working with the Ethics Commissioner). Alexandre Boulerice railed about offshore tax havens (Lebouthillier: We are targeting tax avoidance), and Nathan Cullen railed about Bill C-27 (Lightbound: We follow the Commissioner). Maxime Bernier and Mark Strahl carried on with the false frames around Bill C-27 (Lightbound: Same answer). Brigitte Sansoucy and Rachel Blaney lamented child poverty (Duclos: We take this seriously and the Canada Child Benefit is helping).

Round three saw questions on national security threats by returning foreign fighters (Goodale: The next threat assessment report is coming in a few weeks), the possibility of more Haitian arrivals vis-à-vis the Safe Third Country Agreement (Cormier: We want ordered immigration and are launching more awareness campaigns), disability tax credits (Lebouthillier: The criteria have not changed), benefits for injured troops (Sajjan: We are committed to providing unprecedented support), TPP negotiations vis-à-vis Supply Management, VIA Rail service (Garneau: We are working with VIA to modernise passenger rail), the deficit, demanding a delay to cannabis legislation, and Bloc concern trolling about Kirpans on airplanes.

Overall, we got one — one — reasonable question from the Conservatives before we were back to the same mendaciously framed questions that, thanks to the Globe and Mail article on Bill C-27, were blatantly ignoring the very parliamentary norms around how legislation is introduced. (Note: That Globe story was similarly ignorant on how ministers introduce bills, which you would think would be a glaring problem). And we see this pattern over and over again – if it’s a story in the Globe, it’ll make QP, no matter if the story is a major reach, or if it’s completely fact-free (like this one was). And on a day when there was actual news from the Auditor General’s report, and plenty of substantive material to hold the government to account with, each party chose one headline from it and used that as an additional way to disingenuously frame the same tired story about Bill Morneau, or Stephen Bronfman as the case may be. Either way, actual issues of substance were once again ignored by the very people who are supposed to be holding the government to account, and we had yet another 45 minutes of mendaciousness over issues that have little to no actual basis to them. This is, frankly, embarrassing.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Marilyn Gladu for a black dress with a long black patterned jacket, and to Raj Grewal for a tailored navy three-piece suit, tie and turban with a light blue shirt and pocket square. Style citations go out to Andrew Scheer for a dark grey suit with too-short sleeves and a white shirt with a light teal and silver striped tie, and to Catherine McKenna for a multicoloured striped dress with a brown jacket and purple tights.

One thought on “QP: Virtually ignoring the AG’s report”

  1. Kind of find it hard to buy Robert Fife looking up all this stuff on Bill Morneau himself since been pointed out that it was all up on public websites. You usually complain about how the budget that Opposition Parties get is unused and they just run in QP with whatever is on the front page of The Globe and Mail. I wonder if someone within the Opposition Parties isn’t finding this stuff and instead of bringing it up in QP, feeds it to Robert Fife or whoever else since clearly helps give the story more legs at least with the other press.

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