QP: Sob stories about carbon taxes

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While the PM was present today, following a meeting with the Prince of Monaco, Andrew Scheer was absent, yet again. Alain Rayes led off, listing off a torqued and misleading litany of supposed ills of carbon taxation — numbers that did not reflect reality — to which a Justin Trudeau noted that while the previous government didn’t take action, his government would do so. Rayes railed on about cancelled tax credits before trying to wedge it into another carbon tax question, and Trudeau reiterated his answer. Pierre Poilievre took over, accusing the Pm of having lived “most of his life” in government-owned mansions and of living in the lap of luxury while raising taxes on everyone, but his mention of BC in his preamble set Trudeau off on an explanation of how BC’s decade-old carbon tax has led to economic growth and lower emissions. Poilievre gave another list of disingenuous accusations, and Trudeau noted that everting in that was wrong before launching into a well-worn list of things his government accomplished. They went another round of the very same before Guy Caron got up for the NDP, railing about tax havens and the registration of corporations in Canada. Trudeau took up a script to read that they had international treaties to share data with partners, and that they reached agreements with provincial and territorial governments to have transparency on who own corporations. Caron asked again in English, got the same answer, and then Tracey Ramsey railed about secret negotiations around NAFTA. Trudeau noted that an agreement in principle was about the broad strokes being agreed to so that they could move forward to a legal scrub. Karine Trudel asked the same in French, but got a much blander response about trade.

Round two, and Candice Bergen, Jacques Gourde, Mark Warawa, and Ed Fast gave sob stories about families paying higher fuel costs with a carbon tax (Wilkinson: You’re making climate change a partisan issue). Pierre Nantel and Charlie Angus worried about former Liberal staffers working for web giants (Joly: We have a lobbying commissioner; Bains: PIPEDA applies to private companies and the Privacy Commissioner is watching). Pierre Paul-Hus gave a carefully torqued question around whether the US counts as a Safe Third Country for asylum seekers (Garneau: You are trying to confuse issues, and you cut $390 million from CBSA), and Alice Wong tried to worry about “legitimate” refugees not jumping over the border (Hussen: You cut the IRB, and we inherited a huge backlog from you), and Michelle Rempel worried expedited work permits for irregular asylum seekers were impacting Canadians looking for work (Hussen: You didn’t make the necessary investments in immigration processing). Hélène Laverdière and Matthew Dubé demanded the Safe Third Country Agreement be suspended (Garneau: We made new announcements of measures we are taking; Hussen: The UN refugee agency monitors compliance.).

Round three saw questions on foreign funding in elections and voter ID (Brison: There are measures in the bill to ensure just that), postal banking (Qualtrough: We have a new vision for Canada Post), open net salmon farms (LeBlanc: We are taking reports under advisement), the Arctic surf clam fishery (LeBlanc: We ensured that Indigenous communities had access to the fishery), repairs at a harbour (LeBlanc: We have taken note of this concern, and I hope to have good news in a few weeks), renewing VIA’s fleet without a job creation requirement (Garneau: We have federal requirements whenever a federal contract is issued, which includes NAFTA and WTO obligations), icebreaker contracts (Qualtrough: We are negotiating with Davie Shipyard), asylum seekers from Latin America (Garneau: We have few coming from there), and mental health and addictions treatment in Nunavut (Philpott: We put $7.7 million in the budget and funded a feasibility study). 

Overall, I see that we’re back to accusations about the prime minister’s personal wealth versus “ordinary Canadians,” because the party that keeps accusing the government of engaging in class warfare never seems to tire of engaging it in. Go figure. That the Conservatives would continuously grouse about the cancellation of tax credits (which, I will remind you, tend to be inefficient and impossible for parliamentarians to track as expenditures), particularly the transit tax credit that didn’t achieve any actual carbon reductions, versus the imposition of a carbon price was a bit much for a party that claims to believe in the free market. That they tried to make it about sob stories while ignoring the fact that provinces are well able to design mitigation measures for low-income and rural Canadians, is yet more of a disingenuous frame being applied to the issue at hand. And while the PM did note that everything that the Conservative said was wrong, he simply took the opportunity to fall back to a platitude about actions they’ve taken rather than deconstructing at least one of the lies to show how it’s a lie and how pervasive it is. I would have preferred the latter, but what do I know about political strategy or messaging? I’d just like a little more honesty in the discourse.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Blake Richards for a tailored dark grey suit with a white shirt and blue tie, and to Kamal Khera for an off-white top with a black leather jacket. Style citations go out to Pam Damoff for a white dress with pink florals and a lace fuchsia long sweater, and to Robert Kitchen for a grey-brown jacket with a windowpane pattern with khaki slacks, a bright blue shirt and a dark blue polkadot tie. Special mention goes out to Michel Picard for a purple jacket with a white shirt and pocket square and pink tie.