QP: “Soviet” StatsCan

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With Justin Trudeau off to Churchill and Vancouver, Andrew Scheer also decided to be elsewhere. That left Gérard Deltell to lead off, and he immediately launched into an attack on the Statistics Canada plan to use financial transaction data. François-Philippe Champagne responded with a script about how StatsCan already deals with Canadians’ personal data appropriately, that the Privacy Commissioner was working with them, and that the Conservatives were fear-mongering. Deltell tried again, got the same answer, and when Mark Strahl took over in English, Champagne repeated his spiel in English. Strahl railed about how often there have been personal data beaches by the government, and Champagne responded by reading his points with more vigour. Strahl angrily made a point about consent, and Champagne angrily repeated his own points. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and demanded a GHG reduction plan. Dominic LeBlanc responded that hot air about climate change wasn’t coming from his side of the chamber, that they did have a plan that they were implementing. Caron repeated the question in French, and LeBlanc reiterated that they took the issue seriously, unlike the Conservatives. Linda Duncan trolled for support for her motion about tougher GHG targets, but LeBlanc wouldn’t indicate support, but pumped up his own party’s plan instead. Alexandre Boulerice returned Caron’s first question and Quebeckers threatening to take the government to court over climate change, and LeBlanc responded that Quebec has been a leader on climate change.

Round two, and Dan Albas, Sylvie Boucher, Kelly Block, Arnold Viersen, and Ron Lieper (Lametti: These powers are legal and were used during your time in government 84 times; The data is anonymised so you can stop fear-mongering). Karine Trudel and Ruth Ellen Brosseau worried about Supply Management under the newly ratified TPP (MacAulay: We are forming working groups to ensure that compensation is full and fair; MacGregor as committee vice-chair: [cut off]). Pierre Poilievre concern trolled about job losses due to carbon taxes (LeBlanc: When Conservatives are in dire straights, they seek endorsement from the Fords; Fraser: We have cut small business taxes, and you are distorting the facts). Murray Rankin asked about advance directives for medical assistance in dying per a woman in Halifax (Petitpas Taylor: If I could have given her consent I would have, but all of Parliament made this law to protect all Canadians), and Hélène Laverdière demanded an end to Saudi arms sales (Leslie: We are undertaking a review).

Round three saw questions on the new immigration plans as it relates to irregular arrivals (Schiefke: We invested in CBSA after your government cut it), spending plans on immigration advertising (DeCourcey: We value immigration and you are just dog-whistling), CRA clawing back benefits (Schrute: We realise that sometimes it takes people time to get documentation and will work with them), Quebec content not showing up on Netflix (Fillmore: We made historical investments), calling the Clerk of the Privy Council to committee (Zimmer, as committee chair: The motion brought forward by opposition members was voted down by Liberal members), the Mark Norman case (Goodale: These questions are inappropriate), sentencing reform (Wilson-Raybould: We are not watering down any sentences but giving prosecutors more discretion), Canada Post labour dispute (Cuzner: We believe in collective bargaining and have a mediator on the ground), demanding that bill C-69 be scrapped (Lefebvre: We will take no lessons), Quebec immigration numbers (LeBlanc: We look forward to looking forward with the Quebec government about immigration), housing shortages in Nunavut (Duclos: The National Housing Strategy is investing $240 million in Nunavut alone).

Overall, while the day was again fairly standard in terms of just how ridiculously torqued and disingenuous the questions around StatsCan and carbon taxes were (and again, with insufficient pushback from government), the big drama was around asking friendly questions to committee chairs and vice-chairs. The NDP first employed the tactic to try and get a friendly response on their Supply Management bugaboo, which resulted in a bit of procedural confusion because normally only committee chairs can be asked questions around things like the agenda of the committee, and when Alistair MacGregor responded with a bunch of talking points before getting to the agenda portion of his response, he was shouted down for not answering on the agenda. Likewise, when the Conservatives later asked one of their own committee chairs about their motion to call the Clerk of the Privy Council before them to answer for a somewhat mischievous question of their own, Bob Zimmer stood up to say that the motion had been defeated by the Liberals on the committee, to Liberal heckles that it wasn’t a question or answer about the committee agenda. While there is a utility to asking committee chairs questions, this tactic of asking vice-chairs from your own party to give a friendly response should be nipped in the bud. QP is about holding the government to account, and while committees have a role to play in that, asking their ostensibly neutral chairs to give a response to try and shame the government is not how they are supposed to be deployed. It’s borderline abusive of procedure, and diminishes the role that they are supposed to play in QP, which is why the Speaker needs to very careful in what he allows for questions to chairs, lest this start being abused on a frequent basis.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Kirsty Duncan for a purple leather jacket with a black top and slacks, and to Seamus O’Regan for a black three-piece suit with a blue striped shirt, a black striped tie and a grey pocket square). Style citations go out to Kevin Waugh for a red jacket with a blue windowpane pattern, with a white shirt and blue tie, and to Karine Trudel for a black top and trousers with a black baseball jacket with orange florals. Dishonourable mention glues out to Cathy Wagantall for a yellow sweater with a black top and slacks.