QP: Concern trolling about Daniel Jean

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While the memo went out cancelling travel for Conservative MPs, it apparently wasn’t received by Andrew Scheer, who was not present. That left it up to Candice Bergen to lead off, railing that the government forced them to vote for 21 hours in a “cover-up.” Justin Trudeau said that Scheer was offered a classified briefing by the public servants in PCO, and he declined. Bergen insisted that they wanted the same briefing that the media received, and Trudeau reiterated his answer, and that this was really about petty politics. Bergen retorted that members of the media aren’t sworn into Privy Council, and repeated her question. Trudeau said it was puzzling as to why Scheer turned town the briefing in order to play politics. Pierre Paul-Hus stoood is to repeat the question in French, and he got the same response in French as he did in English, with Trudeau digging in that the Conservatives would rather play politics than debate gun control. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, railing that only a small number of tax evasion files were opened by CRA, to which Trudeau took up a script to reminded him that they invested a billion dollars and have a thousand ongoing audits, and forty criminal investigations underway. Caron railed that KPMG was getting away while waitress’ tips are being targeted, and Trudeau gave some bland assurances that everyone will pay their fair share of taxes. Charlie Angus was up next, railing about the “close links” between Facebook, the Liberals, and actors identified in the current scandals. Trudeau took up a script to read some assurances that they respect privacy rights, and they are committed to ensuring Canadians can trust in our institutions. Angus demanded assurances that they would not balk at these actors being called to committee, but Trudeau read some more bland assurances.

Round two, and Erin O’Toole, Luc Berthold and Mark Strahl concern trolled that the National Security Advisor revealed classified information to the media (Goodale: An offer has been made to the leader of the opposition, after which further things can be discussed). Alexandre Boulerice and Karine Trudel accused the government of harming the Davie Shipyard workers through non-answers (Qualtrough: We are continuing with negotiations). Glen Motz, Sylvie Boucher, and John Brassard (Trudeau: We offered a full briefing to the leader of the opposition and he has refused so that he can play politics and delay discussion on the gun bill; Goodale: What the PM said). Sheri Benson and Marjoline Boutin-Sweet asked about the “rights based approach” to housing (Duclos: We announced the largest investment in housing in history, and it will be based on the right to housing).

Round three saw yet more demands for a briefing by Jean, the market share of Canadian wines under NAFTA (Leslie: The Americans have their own measures, and we will stand up for our industry), tariff threats from the Americans (Leslie: We worked hard to secure an exemption, and we will keep up that effort until they are fully lifted), updating Canadian organic agricultural standards (Poissant: We’re investing in agriculture!), and the arrest of a Catalonian leader (DeCourcey: We are monitoring the situation).

After QP, six Tsilhqot’in were welcomed onto the floor of the Commons in order to receive an apology for the deaths of six of their chiefs in pre-Confederation British Columbia. After Justin Trudeau gave his official apology, the Conservatives and NDP made their own remarks.

Overall, it was a terribly repetitive day, where the Conservatives used every one of their questions to ask the very same thing, leaving the NDP to raise actual issues (including at least one that the parliamentary secretary had no briefing notes for, meaning that he reply with pabulum rather than take the question under advisement as he perhaps should have). Nevertheless, the particular tactic of having as many member of caucus to ask the very same question in order to generate as many clips as possible for social media distribution is really, really frigging boring to watch, and ensures that this is simply about the pettiest of politics rather than actual accountability. That the government highlighted that they offered a classified briefing that Andrew Scheer turned down sets up the narrative that this is really about politics and not accountability, so we’ll see who can best communicate this message.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to James Bezan for a medium grey suit with a lavender shirt and dark purple tie and pocket square, and to Candice Bergen for a slim dark grey dress with half-sleeves. Style citations go out to Diane Lebouthillier for a burnt sienna smock tunic with a cream scarf with florals, and to Scott Reid for a black corduroy jacket with elbow patches, a navy paisley shirt with a black tie and grey slacks.

One thought on “QP: Concern trolling about Daniel Jean”

  1. If we are then to make a full reconciliation Nation to Nation maybe we should clear all non-natives from what is today Canada, that would be the logical conclusion to the PM’s speech. No pipelines, no more Provincial or Federal governments pack it all in and go back where you came from.

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