QP: The ascribing of dubious motives

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With Justin Trudeau in Paris, and Andrew Scheer outlining his “vision” for the economy, it was up to Candice Bergen to lead off today, and she led off with the news of the formal arrests of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and called the prime minister a coward — and got censured for it — and demanded he do something for it. Mélanie Joly told her not to play games with their lives, and said that the minister was in touch with her counterparts and Canada’s international allies to secure their release. Bergen then pivoted to the Mark Norman case, compared his treatment to that of Omar Khadr, and demanded a personal apology by the prime minister. Diane Lebouthillier replied in French about the independence of the investigation and prosecution. Bergen said that Norman can’t tell his story because of military guidelines and demanded the government give him an exception, to which Lebouthillier responded that committees are independent, as were the others involved in the case. Pierre Paul-Hus accused Justin Trudeau of not respecting Quebec which was why they didn’t want that contract to go to the Davie Shipyard as it relates to the Norman case. Lebouthillier reminded him of the contracts that Davie has received. Paul-Hus accused the government of wanting to “destroy” Norman, and Lebouthillier reminded him again of the independence of the RCMP and public prosecutor. Peter Julian led off for the NDP, and demanded a public inquiry into money laundering, and Bill Blair noted that there were measures in the budget to combat it that the NDP voted against. Alexandre Boulerice tried again in French, got the same answer from Blair in English, before he railed about the climate emergency. Catherine McKenna stated that the government has a plan which protects jobs. Julian repeated the question in English, and got much the same response from McKenna.

Round two, and Cheryl Gallant demanded the defence committee vice-chair explain why their meeting on the Norman case was not being televised (Bezan: Liberals are blocking the request), and Bezan demanded that all Norman documents be made public (Cormier: Canadians can have full confidence of our legal institutions), Richard Martel demanded that Davie Shipyard build a second interim supply ship (Cormier: The Conservatives excluded Davie from the process and we have given them sixteen percent of contracts), and Leona Alleslev spun conspiracy theories about what happened to Norman (Cormier: General Vance will speak to Norman and determine next steps). Rebecca Blaney railed about First Nations on diesel vis-à-vis oil and gas subsidies (O’Regan: We are working with them but right now they need diesel subsidies). Alain Rayes accused the federal government of attacking provincial governments (Champagne: We are proud of funding more than 4000 projects across the country), and Alupa Clarke and Pat Kelly accused the government of not properly funding the Office of the Auditor General (Lightbound: We have given our Officers of Parliament the tools they need; Murray: We consider all of their requests carefully). Brian Masse demanded a gas price monitoring agency (Lightbound: We take consumer protection very seriously), and Pierre-Luc Dussealt demanded taxing web giants (O’Connell: This is not a Canadian problem alone, which is why we are working with international partners).

Round three saw questions PMO staffing (Chagger: Conservatives are used to patronage appointments and undermining the system, and continue to mislead Canadians; Why are you slandering people who can’t defend themselves?), climate change (McKenna: Our climate emergency motion is clear and not partisan), the escalator tax on alcohol (O’Connell: We lowered taxes for businesses and created a million new jobs), canola (Bibeau: I have been engaged on this file since the beginning), the investigative powers of the new responsible development ombudsman (Alghabra: We creates an office for corporate social responsibility, and we are consulting on the needed mechanisms), scrapping the tanker bill (Beech: We are proud of doing the work we’re doing to protect and restore the BC coastline, and we will work with the Senate on any amendments in the spirit of the bill), the Quebec “secularism” bill (Lametti: We will defend the Charter rights of people, but for the moment, this is a debate for the Quebec National Assembly), and housing and Internet projects in Nunavut (Champagne: We have already approved 21 projects and will continue to invest).

Overall, it was a bit of a strange day in terms of questions being all over the place, but it was noticeable as to how much nastier the tone is getting – witness Bergen calling Trudeau a coward off the top, and the assertions that Trudeau was somehow trying to “destroy” Mark Norman, the railing that the Liberals somehow disrespect Quebec, or the questions about Ben Chin being hired by PMO and the assertions being ascribed to it. There seems to be a bid to make things personal, and that isn’t good for the state of discourse. Speaking of the Ben Chin questions, it was a bit odd to watch Bardish Chagger offer disjointed word salad in response, given that she can usually give better non-answers to things, or could have hit back in so many ways. This was apparently not to be. As for the Conservatives’ questions, the tactic of asking a question to a committee vice-chair to punch at the government is one that needs to be used carefully (hell, disallowed if the chair is present), and yet they abused it by asking that question of Bezan, and had him stand up to ask the next question. Additionally, can I just say that trying to wedge in the “not as advertised” line is hackneyed and lame, and we should be taking exception to QP being used for partisan advertising. That’s an election slogan, not a means of holding government to account.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to David Lametti for a black suit wth a light pink shirt and a purple bow tie, and to Kelly Block for a white dress with black patterning and a black jacket. Style citations go out to Catherine McKenna for a black dress with vertical multicoloured slashes under a red jacket, and to Larry Miller for a black suit with a bright blue shirt and a navy and grey striped tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Iqra Khalid for a black top and slacks with a bright yellow jacket.