QP: Calling out the ramming through of bills

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Things were late in getting started thanks to a lengthy “hybrid” vote, and they skipped members’ statements in order to make up time (though Peter Julian made a valiant attempt to go through with them anyway). Candice Bergen once again led off, and she lamented that the government was “disinterested” in helping small businesses. Justin Trudeau listed assistance programmes that they had to help them, and did note that the commercial rent subsidy was not federal jurisdiction so it wasn’t working as well as they had hoped. Bergen then (correctly) railed that the government was ramming through emergency legislation without adequate consultation, to which Trudeau praised the collaboration between parties to get things right, before accusing the Conservatives of playing politics. Bergen lamented the government hiding from their scandals, to which Trudeau lashed out that the Conservatives wanted to deal with WE Charity while they government was dealing with the second wave. Gérard Deltell was up next, to quote a tweet from Andrew Leslie about the government limiting debate when it didn’t happen during the two world wars. Trudeau offered some bland reassurances about working together. Deltell lamented that debate was being limited again for C-4, for which Trudeau repeated the line about working together instead of playing petty politics, and gave a shoutout to Canadians to avoid the COVID Alert app. Alain Therrien was up for the Bloc, and he lamented that Quebec City and Montreal were back in the the “red zone” before he demanded higher health transfers, to which Trudeau pointed out that they did increase transfers and just sent them $19 billion in the Safe Restart Agreement. Therrien got shouty in his demand for transfers, and Trudeau reiterated that they did transfer billions already. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and in French, he lamented that the deficit was so high because he was afraid the government would lead to cuts, before demanding a wealth tax. Trudeau reminded him that the first thing that his government did was raise taxes on the top one percent, and that the NDP voted against it. Singh repeated the question in English, and Trudeau repeated his answer in English.

Round two, and Michelle Rempel and Pierre Paul-Hus demanded approval of rapid at-home tests (Hajdu: I share your enthusiasm for more testing, and we have been working with partners to make it available; We had doubled our regulatory capacity to approve tests when they are available and accurate), and Pierre Poilievre railed about the higher unemployment rate than in comparable countries (Freeland: Our policy is working, and our Triple A credit rating has been reaffirmed; You railed against big government programmes but the nine million Canadians who benefited from CERB feel otherwise). Claude DeBellefeuille repeated the demands for higher health transfers (Rodriguez: Here are ways we have spent on health in Quebec). Karen Vecchio asked the chair of PROC when the committee plans to resume their study on the WE Imbroglio (Sahota: The committee was complex and I am studying it with my procedural clerks), and Michael Barrett railed about the WE Imbroglio (Rodriguez: We are in the middle of a pandemic and you brought a motion to lose two hours debating on a former MP). Alexandre Boulerice demanded help for cultural industries in the second wave of the pandemic (Joly: We will be there as we have been over the past few months), and Niki Ashton demanded additional help for a remote First Nation (Marc Miller: We are concerned and monitoring the situation, and have deployed additional nurses and supplies).

Round three saw questions on a subway project without presenting a business case for it (McKenna: We have a bilateral agreement with the province, but we need a business case to ensure that tax dollars meet outcomes), the softwood lumber appeal by the Americans (O’Regan: We have support programmes in place; Ng: The American duties were ruled unfair and unfounded and we will work with the sector), health transfers (Rodriguez: We have been working with Quebec since day one and provided concrete assistance; the Bloc is out of step with Quebeckers), Service Canada slowdowns (Hussen: We hired an additional 1500 agents in our call centre), specialized foreign workers (Qualtrough: We understand the importance of these workers), help for northern Ontario (Joly: We nearly doubled they budget of FedNor and we have been there from the start of the pandemic), rural broadband (Monsef: A million households are on their way to getting this connection), help for small business (Ng: Thousands of small businesses have been getting support and we have been listening), and Treaty rights for First Nations (Jordan: We have been focused on the safety of people in the current dispute, and have respectful dialogue and are working so that the Mi’kmaq can exercise their treaty rights).

Overall, let me begin by pointing out just how very repetitive the Bloc have become with their one-note demands, as have Michelle Rempel Garner (give us rapid tests!) and Pierre Poilievre (one million missing jobs!), all of which are just vapid talking points that betray a lack of understanding with the situation they claim to be decrying. That being said, the ministers were fairly on their game today, and snaps to Chrystia Freeland for being able to actually spar with Poilievre, whereas her predecessor never could. I will point out that the Conservatives did have a perfectly valid point about this government ramming through emergency legislation through without proper processes, and they are doing so again today, and this is an ongoing problem that they merely shrug off and give some platitude about “working together.” A pandemic shouldn’t excuse abuse of process, particularly in a hung parliament, and yet here we are, because it keeps happening again and again.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Sukh Dhaliwal for a dark blue suit with a white shirt and a purple tie and pocket square, and to Michelle Rempel Garner for a black dress with half-sleeves. Style citations go out to Candice Bergen for a fuchsia dress with wizard sleeves, patterned with loud florals, and to Alain Therrien for a dark blue jacket with a white shirt, light blue tie, and blue jeans. 

2 thoughts on “QP: Calling out the ramming through of bills”

  2. I’m glad to see Trudeau “lashing out” for once in his life. He is too damn nice to these abusive saboteurs who are damn near obsessed with this smear campaign that is hell-bent on targeting not only him personally but his family, particularly his vulnerable mom. I say let them ram things through if the only thing the CPC is going to bring up for “debate” are these tired bullshxt attempts at manufacturing scandals and grandstanding for shoutrage and meme clips. If anyone is guilty of abusing parliamentary processes, it’s them. They literally wrote the book on it.

    Trudeau is trying to fxcking govern in the worst crisis since WW2 (when “debate” was had with a brand of respectable Conservatives that no longer exist), and these juvenile agents of chaos keep flinging shxt at the wall and throwing a spanner in the works. If they don’t like a policy, talk policy. They don’t, because they don’t have any credible policy arguments to justify stonewalling giving people aid so they can indulge their Trudeau derangement syndrome. Even the ones they attempt to give, are made entirely in bad faith. So they resort to this. They can fxck off. IDGAF about Hillary’s — er, Margaret’s speaking fees. I care about a pandemic. Let the Tory bxstards get logged off in the dark.

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