QP: Bigger deficit fears

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It being nearly the last day of the season, the benches were filling up, and both Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer were present. Scheer led off in French, worrying about the report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer who says the deficit could be bigger than anticipated. Trudeau stood up without a script, and talked about how much better off Canadians are now and how great the economy was doing. Scheer reiterted the question in English, and Trudeau deployed his talking points about bringing up the growth rate and the lowest unemployment rate in modern records. Scheer said that Trudeau doesn’t care about spending because he came from wealth, and Trudeau hit back with the $150 billion debt the Conservatives left with nothing to show for it. Scheer tried to respond by burnishing the Conservative record and accused Trudeau of squandering the good fortunes left to him, for which Trudeau listed the ways in which cuts made to ensure a “phoney” balanced budget hurt Canadians. Scheer tried to get pointed in his retort, that Trudeau was “darn right” that they were obsessed with treating taxpayer dollars with respect before repeating his slight about Trudeau’s family wealth, and Trudeau noted that Scheer was resorting to personal attacks because he had nothing else to offer. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he railed that trade deals meant that VIA Rail couldn’t prefer Bombardier for its fleet renewal. Trudeau took up a script to read that they wanted to ensure that people got the best value for money and that government interference would be bad for business. Caron changed topics to talk about the CUPW court challenge of the Canada Post back-to-work legislation, and Trudeau noted that they undid the labour law changes from the Conservatives and how they worked with labour to ensure tripartite agreements. Karine Trudel repeated the question in French, and Trudeau read that the litany of measures they took to ensure that negotiations kept going and that the recently appointed a new arbitrator to deal with the outstanding issues. Tracey Ramsey then repeated the VIA Rail question in English, for which Trudeau said that those trade deals mean that Canadian firms can access procurement in other countries.

Round two, and Lisa Raitt, Alain Rayes, and Pierre Poilievre returned to the PBO report on the deficit (O’Connell: Our commitment was to grow the economy, and now we are seeing wage growth and the lowest unemployment on record; It’s sad to see that you don’t think lifting children out of poverty isn’t progress; Your “roaring plan” had us in a technical recession in 2015). Ruth Ellen Brosseau and Charlie Angus wondered about Nicola Di Iorio’s status — while he did show up today, but this wasn’t government business (Chagger: Members are responsible to their constituents). Phil McColeman, Richard Martel and John Brassard worried about the backlog of veterans disability claims (O’Regan: Yesterday’s announcement was about ensuring the right supports are in place). Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet and Don Davies demanded a public health emergency around opioid deaths (Petitpas-Taylor: We are making huge investments with the provinces and territories, and we are finalising bilateral agreements to get the more resources, but declaring an emergency would offer no new tools). 

Round three saw questions on ISIS returnees in Canada (Goodale: The question’s preamble is bogus, and our security agencies are on the case), MP resignations (Chagger: Members are accountable to ridings), Liberal donors in the Paradise Papers (Lebouthillier: If you want to try to smear me, look at all of your donors whose names appeared in the Paradise Papers), the state of the corporate social responsibility ombudsman (Carr: We will name the successful candidate very soon), Bill C-69 (Sohi: We are working closely with the provinces, and we are working to save Trans Mountain; Garneau: We just had coastal BC chiefs here to express support for the tanker ban), carbon taxes (Fraser: You want pollution to be free), prisoner transfers (Goodale: He’s in a federal facility that specialises in sex offenders), lapsed spending at Veterans Affairs (O’Regan: We are giving new transition funds), demanding political interference in the VIA Rail contract (Garneau: You’re asking us to politically interfere and break our own laws, and that’s unacceptable), and changes to the Nutrition North programme not addressing the transparency problem (LeBlanc: We have been talking to the premiers about that, and more changes will he on the way).

Overall, it was a very scrappy day, and Trudeau and Scheer had a bit of a genuine back-and-forth for a couple of questions, Trudeau not using scripts in his responses to Scheer today (though he didn’t address the substance of the deficit questions fully). Otherwise, Trudeau left the actual punchy answers to Jennifer O’Connell, who is apparently the new brawler and the Liberal clapping ban was certainly not being obeyed as O’Connell did her partisan brawling. Otherwise, I will note that it was a largely new set of questions for most of the day, which was a bit of a refreshing change, but the demands for government interference in a procurement contract by a Crown Corporation were also curious (though not unexpected) if entirely problematic. I will also take aim at that backbench softball question that didn’t land because it was a speech with a question to be appended at the end that the MP in question didn’t get to before his time ran out. Seriously, this is ridiculous, and the backbench questions need to be completely rethought. Surely Liberal MPs have actual issues in their ridings that need to be addressed, but these softballs are an insult to our system and the role of backbenchers in holding government to account.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Jennifer O’Connell for a navy suit with a pink collared shirt, and to Scott Brison for a tailored dark grey three-piece suit with a light blue shirt and a brown patterned tie. Style citations go out to Robert Sopuck for his hateful brown corduroy jacket with a grey waistcoat, light blue shirt and orange tie, and to Mary Ng for a belted red and blue patterned top with a white collar and flared sleeves, paired with a faded red skirt. Dishonourable mentions go out to Deb Schulte for a bright yellow jacket with a black top and slacks.