QP: Making noise for McKenna

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With Justin Trudeau off entertaining the prime minister of the Netherlands, and Andrew Scheer off to Calgary, it fell to Pierre Poilievre to lead off, decrying the “hypocrisy” of the carbon tax, and in response, Catherine McKenna said that pollution would no longer be free, and after raising extreme weather, she praised the carbon dividends that people would receive. Poilievre noted that there was a separate pricing system for major emitters — still bending the truth — to which McKenna said that everyone will pay for pollution including large industry, and the system for trade-exposed industries was the same followed in Quebec and California. Poilievre retorted that no matter where carbon pricing is implemented, governments win and people lose. McKenna responded by reading corporate praise for the carbon pricing system. Poilievre insisted that CEOs didn’t care because they have chauffeured limousines, to which McKenna reminded him that small businesses do get funds before she read some more praise. Poilievre demanded that small businesses get the same “exemption” as large emitters, and McKenna repeated that everyone pays carbon prices — before she read another quote. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he demanded the cancellation of the Saudi LAV contract. Marc Garneau stood up to read that the government was committed a stronger and more rigorous arms trade system and they were reviewing export permits. Caron asked again in French, and Garneau read the French version of the script. Hélène Laverdière reiterated the question again, raising the measures Germany has taken, and Garneau read a differently-worded version of the same script, and Laverdière switched to French to ask one final time, and Garneau this time put down the script to reiterate the very same points he made previously. 

Round two, and Ed Fast, Gérard Deltell, Kelly Block, Randy Hoback, David Anderson, and Alex Nuttall lamented the carbon price as a “tax on everything” (McKenna: Was pricing pollution, and here are some more quotes of praise; You have no plan; Farm fuels are exempt; You supported Patrick Brown and he supported a price on pollution). Irene Mathyssen wanted protection for workers in those LAV plants (Goldsmith-Jones: We are reviewing the existing permits to Saudi Arabia), and Alexandre Boulerice railed about pipelines (McKenna: Pollution is no longer free in Canada). Candice Bergen and Steven Blaney demanded answers about James Cudmore per the Mark Norman case (Goodale: This is a line of questioning related to a matter before the courts, and it is inappropriate to ask these questions). Tracey Ramsey demanded government action for media outlets (Fillmore: We are modernising the Broadcasting Act, and there will be no free rides), and Pierre Nantel demanded that music platforms contribute to Canadian Content (Fillmore: We are funding cultural industries).

Round three saw more questions on Mark Norman (Goodale: These matters should be dealt with in the courts), irregular border crossers (Blair: The numbers are not going up, and there is a firm plan in place), expunging cannabis convictions (Goodale: Pardons can be effective as well, and the effect of a pardon is protected by human rights legislation), the Champlain Bridge (Mendicino: We will open the bridge to traffic by June 2019 at the latest), Bill C-69 (Sohi: Your party failed to diversify our energy market), Huawei (Lametti: The 5G network is needed, and we will listen to the advise of national security advisors as to who can participate), the secrecy around anti-racism meetings (Anandasangaree: We are engaging communities to modernize our approach and develop concrete solutions), Supply Management (MacAulay: We protected the system and impacted farmers will be compensated), the LAV contract (Goldsmith-Jones: We are actively reviewing existing export permits).

Overall, it was a much more raucous day than usual, and the Speaker was much more vocal than he often needs to be, and whether or not that was simply because Catherine McKenna was the one giving most of the responses, and they seem to have a particular dislike for her (and I would add that some of the ugliest responses in my Twitter reply feed show up when McKenna retweets something of mine). That having been said, McKenna was actually doing well in terms of responses today, actually giving responses that countered the usual disinformation put forward by Pierre Poilievre, while trying to still score points about how other fiscal conservatives were in favour of the plan (and in fact scored a good hit against Alex Nuttall regarding his previous support for Patrick Brown), and she didn’t once utter her tired slogan about the environment and the economy going together, so well done there. Meanwhile, the Mark Norman questions are getting increasingly bizarre, and dare I say slanderous, and we saw our first invitation to take the comments outside of the Chamber, so this has the potential to get even uglier as it drags on.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to James Bezan for a dark grey suit with a white shirt, and black and blue tie and a blue pocket square, and to Jenny Kwan for a red and black patterned dress with half-sleeves. Style citations go out to Rachael Harder for a brown top with florals under a black vest dress, and to Stéphane Lauzon for a tan suit with a pink shirt and  maroon striped tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Anne Quach for a dark yellow jacket with a white top and black slacks. 

2 thoughts on “QP: Making noise for McKenna”

  1. It’s interesting that the Tories never talk about the thousands of employees in London ON whose jobs would be lost if the LAV deal were to be truncated. Considering they made the deal in the first place one would expect that the Scheer gang would know precisely what the cost of abrogating the Saudi deal would be. I think that the Liberals are between a rock and a hard place on this file. It is important that the Liberals start to combat the conservatives in more specific terms.

    • The Conservatives have been utterly silent on the Saudi Arabia file. It’s the NDP calling for the contract to be cancelled, despite that the jobs are in a riding they hold.

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