QP: A minister for divination?

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Justin Trudeau was in town and on another “virtual” tour while his deputy was in the Commons in his stead. Erin O’Toole led off with his script on a mini-lectern, and he tried to tease out a contradiction in the status of the pandemic early warning system, to which Chrystia Freeland slowly and calmly stated that it was the time to focus on the second wave, but post-mortems should come later as one should not change the plane’s engine after taking off. O’Toole was not mollified, and tried again, but Freeland was not dissuaded in her calm dismissal. O’Toole tried to delve into news reporting about Freeland disagreeing on closing borders earlier in the pandemic, and Freeland calmly walked through the history of the Canada-US border closure. O’Toole switched to French to decry the terrorist attack in France earlier this morning and accused the prime minister of not taking it seriously, to which Freeland corrected him and said that all Canadians are horrified by the attack and they show solidarity with France. O’Toole wondered what happened to the promised de-radicalisation centres, to which Freeland calmly stated that they never failed to step up and show leadership, and that Canada stands with France. Stéphane Bergeron led for the Bloc, even though Yves-François Blanchet was present, and he demanded an official apology for the October Crisis, to which Freeland reminded him of the period in question and of the family of the Quebec politician who was killed by extremists. Andréanne Larouche tried again, and Freeland gave a paean to democracy and the space for disagreements. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he decried the situation in long-term care facilities but wondered where the national standards were, and Freeland slowly explained that they need to work with provinces and territories as the second wave has hit. Singh switched to English to decry that the worst problems were in for-profit homes, and made an allusion to the falsehood that the federal government owns some of these facilities. Freeland agreed that they can’t turn a blind eye to the conditions in long-term care facilities, and that the country needs to do better.

Round two, and Shannon Stubbs worried about another American executive that got a quarantine exemption (Champagne: There are not two sets of rules, and decisions on exemptions are only issued after sign-off from public health), Pierre Poilievre blustered about debt-fuelled spending (Freeland: Here’s what TD Economics said about our plan; Our recovery is stronger than in other countries because we got it right), and Luc Berthold accused the government of ignoring the Official Languages Commissioner’s concerns about the public service (Joly: We thank him for his report and we agree that we need to do better). Rhéal Fortin, Charoline Desboiens, and Yves Perron returned to the demand for an apology for the October Crisis (Rodriguez: We have the privilege of living in a democratic society, and we need to look at history in context and not cherry-picking events; If you love Quebec, you should seek to unite it not divide it). Pierre Paul-Hus asked about the CanSino vaccine candidate that was stopped at the border (Bains: They got no government money), rapid tests for Quebec (Hajdu: I was wrong and it’s actually 450,000 tests that have been delivered to Quebec). Leah Gazan repeated the falsehood about so-called federally-owned long-term care homes and demanded that for-profit homes be ended as though that were federal jurisdiction (Hajdu: We have concerns and are working with provinces), and Don Davies made a similar demand to ending for-profit care (Hajdu: Providers need to live up to obligations and we are  working with provinces).

Round three saw questions on Service Canada not issuing notices that keeps severance packages in limbo (Qualtrough: I will look into this issue), rapid testing (Hajdu: Nearly 1.2 million have been deployed in the past few weeks), a constituent in need of catastrophic drug coverage (Hajdu: I will speak to you about this afterwards), yet more demands of the October Crisis (Rodriguez: Yes, there were arrests, but there were also bombs and assassinations), saving the airline industry (Garneau: We are working on solutions), rural broadband (Monsef: Canadians deserve access and we are making partnerships with Swift), the Baylis Medical non-story (Anand: We have taken every effort to procure supplies from domestic suppliers), American tariffs on blueberries (Bibeau: We are standing up for our producers, and have raised the issue with the Administration), rapid housing funds (Hussen: This is focusing on the top 15 municipalities that have the highest numbers of homeless), Pacific salmon stocks (Jordan: We put a number of initiatives in place and are basing them on science), long-term care facilities (Hajdu: We are working with provinces), and if the prime minister plans to invoke the Emergencies Act to deal with the pandemic (Rodriguez: It depends on the provinces).

Overall, it was less of a clown show than it was yesterday, but it was still devoid of serious questions. I will note that Chrystia Freeland’s use of calm, measured tones make it difficult for the opposition to get a rise out of her, and it deflates much of their hyperbolic tone, which is a welcome change in the tenor of the exchanges. Otherwise, little in terms of content has changed  – the Conservatives still carry on with trying to create a revised history of the early days of the pandemic and to shriek incoherently about the economy; the Bloc carried on with their demands for an apology for the October Crisis, including making some fairly racist and offensive comparisons; and the NDP continue to lie about jurisdictional issues and the ownership of certain long-term care facilities. On top of that, there were multiple demands today for divination from the government, such as when exactly will COVID vaccines be ready when they’re still in clinical trials, or the exact date that the federal government will conclude an agreement with the provinces on long-term care standards. That they think they’ll get serious answers from these questions belies that they either don’t understand what they’re asking, or if they do, that they’re trying to create misinformation about what the government is doing or able to do, and that’s possibly even more problematic than simple ignorance.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Navdeep Bains for a light grey suit with a white shirt and a light purple turban and tie, and to Chrystia Freeland for a short-sleeved black dress. Style citations go out to Rosemarie Falk for a black dress with pink and white florals with a black bolero-cut sweater, and to Bob Zimmer for a dark grey suit with a blue and white checkerboard shirt and a navy tie.

2 thoughts on “QP: A minister for divination?”

  1. Another day in the “commons” without any opposition member suggesting any positive ideas for making Canada a better place while suffering through a brutal pandemic. I hope that Canadians remember this when they go to the polls. Also think it is way past time for the government to put out a civics primer outlining what affairs are under provincial responsibility as opposed to Federal. This may help the populace, the MP’s not so much.

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