It being Wednesday, prime minister Justin Trudeau was present, and ready to answer — well, respond to — all questions put to him. Erin O’Toole led off, reading a script in French that was concerned about the world health information network and it being sidelined, which he blamed the prime minister directly for. Trudeau stood up and extemporaneously stated that they always had an eye out when it comes to infectious diseases and the Chief Public Health Officer was on the COVID file in December. O’Toole accused the government of reading press releases out of Beijing, and Trudeau disputed that, talking about being multilateral partners on this. O’Toole switched to English to repeat his first question, to which Trudeau accused him of drumming up alarmist political points before repeating his points about Dr. Tam being engaged early on. O’Toole added bombast to repeat the accusation, and Trudeau went on a tear about the Conservatives cutting science while his government invested in it. O’Toole then changed gears to talk about Senator Salma Ataullahjan’s candidacy for presidency of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, to which Trudeau said that governments don’t give endorsements but he wished her well. Yves-François Blanchet led off for the Bloc, raising the death of Joyce Echaquan, to which Trudeau stated that it was a reflection of systemic racism in Canada. Blanchet demanded the government do the work with the First Nations that the Quebec government was doing in response to the death, to which Trudeau first pointed out that Blanchet finally admitted that there was systemic racism in Quebec, before pointing out efforts the federal government was making. Jagmeet Singh was up next to lead for the NDP, and in French, he demanded that a future COVID vaccine be made freely available to Canadians, and Trudeau stated that they were working to ensure that it would be. Singh changed to English to reiterate the same question, insisting he wanted clarity, and Trudeau rambled about what a great job they have done on procurement to date.

Round two, and Richard Martel demanded help for the aerospace sector (Trudeau: We are there to help all affected industries to help them get through the pandemic), before Martel wondered why the government was still pushing their superclusters (Trudeau: We are investing because we want to help Canadian industry), Michelle Rempel Garner demanded an apology from the PM for “screwing up” the pandemic response (Trudeau: We have worked with provinces across party lines in order help for Canadians), and she demanded a date for when rapid tests would be available (Trudeau: No matter how much I disagree with you, we all care about Canadians deeply), John Brassard demanded a justification for legal fees in a dispute with the former veterans affairs minister (Trudeau: I can’t comment because of the settlement agreement, but here is what we did for veterans instead of your government’s cuts), and he accused the government of “rolling over” for “convicted terrorists” like Omar Khadr while fighting veterans in court (Trudeau: Same answer). Alain Therrien worried that someone arrested for an illegal casino was also a Liberal donor (Trudeau: We have the strictest political donor rules and we are more transparency than any other party). O’Toole was back up to demand a firm decision on banning Huawei (Trudeau: Here is how we are holding the Chinese government to account), and Trudeau’s failure to support Senator Ataullahjan apparently betraying his feminist credentials (Trudeau: Same answer about not endorsing candidates), and the role of domestic violence in the Nova Scotia shooting (Trudeau: It’s great that you are understanding this). Gord Johns demanded that the next rental benefit be tenant-driven (Trudeau: We worked with the provinces to create the commercial programme and we are working hard to come up with a new system to help with fixed costs), and Rachel Blaney demanded and end to the veterans backlog (Trudeau: We’ve invested nearly $10.5 billion in money for veterans since 2016).

John Brassard says the PM “rolled over” for Omar Khadr.
Because several Supreme Court decisions against the government is capitulation. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 7, 2020

Round three saw questions on the arrest of that illegal casino owner and his Liberal donations (Trudeau: We are the most transparent party when it comes to fundraising), a failed casino getting a government subsidy (Trudeau: Again with your petty political games), the Davie Shipyard getting icebreaker contracts (Trudeau: They are included in the shipbuilding strategy), the single-use plastic ban hurting Alberta (Trudeau: We committee to moving forward on the ban to harmful single-use plastics, and the Conservatives don’t care about the environment), victims of Flight PS752 calling for sanctions on Iranian officials (Trudeau: I sat down with them at the time, and I promised them that we will seek justice and compensation, and we need more answers from Iran), a particular quirk around people not getting benefits with job-sharing (Trudeau: I don’t know the details here, but can you send them to me and I’ll look into it), and selling military equipment to Turkey (Trudeau: We are aware of the allegations and we have suspended export permits to Turkey).

Overall, it was certainly a punchier day today, particularly on Trudeau’s part, while there was an underlying nastiness that was creeping out in many of the Conservatives’ questions – and I’m not sure just how exactly to characterize Pierre Poilievre’s particular stunt-du-jour, but juvenile and asinine both come to mind. The questions around an alleged Chinese gangster and his donations to the Liberal Party are the stuff of opposition research bureau wet dreams, where the most circumstantial of evidence is being used to convict, and for Michael Barrett to leap on this and warn about being careful about who one associates with would seem to be a bit short-sighted considering how many unsavoury characters that his own party has been associated with over the not-too-recent past (not to mention all of the calls from other parties demanding to know why Derek Sloan still has a seat in the party given some of his own outrageous comments in public). As for Trudeau’s responses, he was largely extemporaneous for most of the day and didn’t use too many scripts, which is good to see, though several of the responses today were just hitting back at the tone of the questions being asked rather than the substance, which is always the danger when you’re going on the attack in the way that they did.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Michelle Rempel Garner for a short-sleeved black dress with a gold diamond pattern in panels across the front and sleeves, and to Michael Barrett for a tailored navy suit and tie with a crisp white shirt. Style citations go out to Greg Fergus for a brown corduroy jacket with tan slacks, an off-white grid-patterned shirt and yellow tie, and to Rachael Harder for a flowing black dress with small blue and yellow florals across it.