Following Monday’s fairly dismal attendance, the benches were full and all of the leaders were present for Question Period today. Andrew Scheer led off, concern trolling about the StatsCan plans to access financial transaction data, and Justin Trudeau read a script about evidence-based policy. Scheer listed off a number of data breaches by the government, to which Trudeau read that the Conservatives were pretending to be opposed to StatsCan data including the long form census, while they would protect the privacy of Canadians. Scheer insisted this wasn’t about evidence but it was about violating fundamental rights, and this time Trudeau reiterated his same responses without a script. Scheer switched to French to ask what duties absent MP Nicola Di Iorio was assigned, to which Trudeau took a script to say that the MP indicated that he would resign in January and that he indicated what he was working on. Scheer tried again in English, and Trudeau read the English lines in response. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he demanded the government support their motion on spending the full Veteran’s Affairs budget (which is a deliberate misunderstanding of what those lapsed funds represent), and Trudeau picked up a script to read the list of things they’ve done for Veterans. Caron switched to French to ask about the accidental underpayment of veterans’ benefits, to which Trudeau read some more pabulum about their increased financial support in the face of Conservative cuts, and added that they were supporting the motion. Daniel Johns stood up to repeat both questions, and Trudeau read the English versions of his same two pabulum scripts.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1059895812619038720

These questions about lapses funds at Veterans Affairs deliberately misunderstands how those funds work.
Trudeau just reads some pabulum rather than explaining this. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 6, 2018

Round two, and Alain Rayes, Peter Kent, and Lisa Raitt returned to the mendaciously framed StatsCan questions (Bains: Personal information will be removed, and their personal information cannot be shared with anyone; This section of the Statistics Act was used 84 times under the Harper government). Karine Trudel and Brian Masse worried about Rona store closures (Bains: During the takeover, we ensured jobs were protected and the head office remains in Canada). Pierre Poilievre gave some disingenuous concern over taxes being raised with carbon taxes (McKenna: You’re obsessed with our plan because you don’t have one of your own). Sheila Malcolmson and Peter Julian worried about the pay equity bill not protecting precarious workers (Hajdu: We’re proud to take this seriously).

According to the NDP, the government should be able to tell Lowe’s they’re not allowed to close stores. Not sure how they plan to do that. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 6, 2018

Round three saw questions on a prison needle exchange (Goodale: These programs are used elsewhere with no problem and they prevent the spread of disease), the costs of government services for irregular border crossers (Blair: The numbers have dropped and there are only 35 claimants left in temporary housing), the announced poverty reduction bill (Duclos: We started with the Canada Child Benefit, and have other measures that will have helped 600,000 Canadians), Canada Post’s labour tactics (Qualtrough: When a collective agreement expires, some of the supplemental benefits expire with it), Adrienne Clarkson’s expenses (Rodriguez: Canadians expect transparency, and we have looked at this programme and will take the appropriate action), the fleet of vehicles bought for the G7 versus local businesses demanding compensation for disruptions (Leslie: Compensation for local businesses haven’t changed), the Mark Norman trial (Goodale: We don’t litigate these matters in the House of Commons), prompt payment legislation (Qualtrough: Yes, we will bring it forward), a consular case (DeCourcey: We can’t speak about this publicly, but we take inter-country adoptions seriously), the Rona closures (Bains: We are asking Lowe’s to take their commitments seriously and are monitoring the situation), and steel imports from China (Morneau: There is a process that if there is something that can’t be produced in Canada they can get an exception, which happened in this case).

Once again, it would be great if ministers would answer questions without announcing how proud they are. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 6, 2018

It’s Governors General, not “Governor Generals.”
Yes, this matters. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 6, 2018

Overall, if there were minor improvements in responses yesterday, they had pretty much all backslid today as the PM in particular delivered some particularly pathetic responses in the form of scripted pabulum that didn’t push back against the narrative that the Conservatives have been trying to build on any of their issues, and Catherine McKenna also needs to be called out for not meaningfully pushing back against Pierre Poilievre’s disingenuous constructs. Simply asking where his plan was is not pushing back against his false construct of the government’s carbon plan, and it’s really disappointing to see because I know she can do better, and I’ve seen much better responses from her in media scrums than we get in QP. Meanwhile, the NDP were somewhat bizarrely not taking yes for an answer regarding their questions about their Supply Day motion on lapsed veterans affairs funds. They were given an answer yesterday that the government was supporting the motion, and yet they asked again today, knowing they’d get another yes, never mind the fact that their whole motion is built around this deliberate misunderstanding of how these funds work and why they lapse, meaning that the whole motion is a stunt, so the government’s support is pretty meaningless. I also found their questions on the Rona/Lowe’s closures to be a bit problematic because they seem to be insisting that the government not allow a private business to close stores, so unless they’re demanding that Rona be nationalised, I’m not sure what exactly they’re hoping the government does.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Celina Caesar-Chavannes for a light grey dress with dark grey half-sleeves, and to James Bezan for a black suit with a white shirt and a mint green tie and pocket square. Style citations go out to Darshan Kang for a brown checked jacket with a navy shirt, lilac paisley tie and a red turban, and to Karen Ludwig for a black dress with voluminous florals.