The benches were spare as the Commons was on a skeleton crew for today’s somewhat unusual session. That said, all of the leaders were present, so that makes things a little more worthwhile. Andrew a Scheer led off, still with mini-lectern on desk, and in the absence of applause, he read a statement about the mass-shooting in Nova Scotia, before asking the prime minister for an update on the situation. Trudeau stood up to read his own statement about the situation and whom he has reached out to. Scheer then turned to the question of the supply of ventilators in the country, to which Trudeau read that they have sent 400 to provinces, and that Canadian companies would start supplying 30,000 new ones by May. Scheer then worried about the information coming out of China, to which Trudeau read that from the beginning they followed the best public health advice and recited a timeline going back to early January as to when they first started reacting to the outbreak in Wuhan. Scheer asked about three planes which reportedly returned from China empty, to which Trudeau recited by rote that they have teams on the ground in China to coordinate the procurement and shipment of necessary equipment but there are challenges because of global competition. Scheer asked about the cuts to pandemic preparedness, and the disposal of protective equipment, to which a Trudeau said that they looked into the situation and that equipment had expired five years previous and that they need to come up with better systems to manage these stockpiles. Yves-François Blanchet was up next, and worried about the fate of seniors during this time, to which Trudeau read that seniors need support and that the government was working to protect their income security with existing measures and extended programmes delivered through the United Way. Blanchet was unimpressed, and wanted a clear, written response to the Bloc’s suggestions, to which Trudeau assured him they were continuing to work on measures that were proposed by the opposition. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and he worried about students who are not eligible for CERB, to which Trudeau read that they made changes to the Canada Summer Jobs Programme, and the wage subsidy to help employers hire students. Singh demanded that the CERB be made universal, for which Trudeau reiterated that they were looking at ways to support students who don’t qualify for the CERB, with more initiatives on the way. 

The utter lack of applause makes this #QP a very surreal experience.

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 20, 2020

Round two, and John Brassard worried about the intelligence around the emergence of the pandemic in China, and demanded to know when PCO prepared a briefing note to the PM (Freeland: The intelligence community has been deeply involved since the beginning, and briefings were shared and discussed at an Incident Response Group meeting), and the supplies shipped to China (Hajdu: The equipment we supplied was nearly expired but could find use in Wuhan), Joël Godin worried how many irregular migrants arrived in Canada since the outbreak of the pandemic (Blair: We implemented significant new restrictions as part of our agreement with the Americans, and fewer than 10 individuals have since crossed the border and were then turned back), and he worried about rents (Fortier: Many business owners have offered their tenants rent breaks, and we are working with the provinces to bring forward the commercial rent assistance programme), and Tom Kmiec worried why dividends were not considered income for the assistance programme (Ng: We have a variety of supports available), and the programme deployment by BDC and EDC (Ng: Over a quarter of a million business owners saw their loans approved as of Friday). Andréanne Larouche twice demanded more assistance for seniors (Fortier: We are enriching some benefits and reduced some fees to allow funds to remain more stable), and wanted a dedicated Service Canada line for seniors (Hussen: We are dispatching Service Canada liaisons to communities to ensure people can get the help they need). Leona Alleslev demanded the government be ready to relaunch the economy at the earliest opportunity (Hajdu: This needs to be a coordinated, national plan and we are working with provinces and territories to address the many facets of it), and John Williamson wondered about the availability of testing (Hajdu: We are working to increase lab capacity and have approved ten new testing kits to accelerate testing). Alexandre Boulerice worried about our pandemic preparation compared to South Korea (Hajdu: We have been ramping up our ability to produce new equipment as we race to procure equipment from abroad), and wanted to copy the idea from Poland and Denmark to refuse help to companies registered in tax havens (Fortier: Some bafflegab about helping Canadians).

Round three saw questions on the forestry sector (Freeland: This is an essential industry, and we are working to support them), help for the tourism sector (Ng: We are making investments through the regional development agencies to help this sector), the plight of the oil sector (Freeland: We are far from indifferent, and we announced unprecedented support last week), grain and oil seed farmers (Bibeau: I am speaking to the industry every day, and have made $2 billion available), the coming “bankruptcy pandemic” and how that affects pensions (Fortier: We have implemented emergency measures, and will look at how we can continue to support retirees in the coming weeks), investigating China (Freeland: Yeah democracy over authoritarian regimes), House committees not being able to get some documents (Rodriguez: We are trying to make committees work as well as we can), potential spread of infection coming over the land borders in places like Detroit (Blair: We are taking all measures), emergency business benefits not working for northern communities (Ng: We have announced support through the regional development agencies), help for students (Duclos: Here are the measures we have introduced so far), Service Canada locations remaining closed (Hussen: We have redeployed staff for online and by phone and have dispatched community liaison officers, and will make extraordinary attempts for appointments in person for those who still need them), making benefits universal (Hussen: CERB was faster for getting more money for those who needed it). 

Most ministers have been providing substantive answers.
The Minister for Middle Class™️ Prosperity®️ is not one of them. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 20, 2020

Immediately following QP, there was a moment of silence for the victims of the mass-shooting in Nova Scotia, followed by speeches of condolences from each of the parties.

Overall, it was a bit of a surreal experience where there was no applause, no heckling, and everyone was sober and grave in their questions and responses. Well, almost everyone. There was still some of the attempts to find villains in China and the WHO, which were fairly deftly swatted aside, but most everyone was showing that this was how grown-up parliaments are able to behave. How much of that was because this was in the shadow of the mass-shooting in Nova Scotia, and the Conservatives being on their best behaviour to prove a point, remains to be seen, particularly as shortly after this was over, the motion passed that there would only be one sitting per week on Wednesdays – which is likely to have an extended Committee of the Whole session instead of QP. Nevertheless, this was an extremely interesting exercise in how we can absolutely make a skeleton parliament work in the face of a pandemic.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Catherine McKenna for a red and grey patterned wrap dress, and to Justin Trudeau for a slim-cut black suit with a crisp white shirt and black tie. Style citations go out to John Williamson for a dark grey suit, with a lighter grey tie a pink gingham shirt, and to Mary Ng for green smock dress with big brass buttons.