QP: Worries about the status of French

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None of the leaders were present in the chamber today, nor was the deputy prime minister present. Candice Bergen led off, and after a litany of false narratives about the state of the economy pre-pandemic, she worried about the state of the Keystone XL pipeline. Paul Lefebvre insisted that the government was unwavering in its support for the project and raised the project in the first call with Joe Biden. Bergen felt this wasn’t good enough and recited some false talking points about the old Bill C-69, to which Lefebvre repeated that Trudeau raised the matter with Biden and that Canada’s current climate plan was a point in their favour. Bergen remained unsatisfied, and repeated the question again, to which Lefebvre quoted Joe Clark slamming the Harper record on the environment. Gérard Deltell was up next, and he chastised something that Montreal MP Emmanuella Lambropoulos made about the decline of French in that city, to which Mélanie Joly assured him that they took the protection of French very seriously. Deltell complained that Official Languages Act had not yet been updated, to which Joly said they would be modernising it in due course. Claude DeBellefeuille led off for the Bloc, and she raised false narratives about judicial appointments, to which David Lametti assured her that they have an independent process based on merit and diversity. DeBellefeuille was not mollified, and repeated the question, and got the same answer. Jagmeet Singh appeared by video from his car, and in French, he demanded national standards for long-term care, to which Patty Hajdu reminded him they are working with provinces and territories on just that, and they gave them more money in the Safe Restart Plan. Singh switched to English to repeat false narratives about the ownership of Revera long-term care homes (they are not actually federally-owned, and insisting otherwise is being utterly disingenuous), to which Hajdu repeated her response.

Round two, and Pierre Paul-Hus repeated a falsehood about the contract with Baylis Medical, and then raised an undisclosed contract around medical gowns (MacKinnon: I want to thank this company for their fast work), Todd Doherty demanded a national suicide prevention hotline (Hajdu: I want to work with you on getting supports to people), and Michelle Rempel Garner gave a selective reading of how testing and tracing works jurisdictionally (Hajdu: Here are the rapid tests we’ve distributed). Mario Beaulieu raised the fears of the decline of French (Joly: We committed in the Throne Speech to modernise the Official Languages Act), and demanding Bill 101 apply to federally regulated workplace (Rodriguez: We acknowledge there is a decline and importance of supporting French). Shannon Stubbs demanded action on China’s “Operation Foxhunt” (Blair: We have taken action to prevent Canadians from threats; Oliphant: Canada is taking strong representations against the actions of China, and we always stand up for a Canadians). Gord Johns demanded that commercial rent assistance be backdated to April (Ng: We are working to support small businesses), and Rachel Blaney demanded the ability for people to stay home and beat the pandemic (Hajdu: We have been supporting Canadians throughout the pandemic).

Round three saw questions on banning Huawei (Bains: We are working with allies and national security agencies), the Yonge subway extension (McKenna: We look forward to receiving a business case), taxing web giants (Guilbeault: We are making changes to the Broadcasting Act), demanding rural broadband immediately (Monsef: Our new investment includes flexibility for different streams), compliance audits for farmers getting federal supports (Bibeau: We are assisting farmers), rapid testing so that airlines can attract customers again (Garneau: We are working on an aid package for airlines, and there is a pilot project underway), painting the Quebec City Bridge (McKenna: We appointed a special negotiator and our common goal is to see the bridge has a long-term plan), the spread of COVID in First Nations and Inuit communities (Miller: The surge capacity of the government is there), pharmacare versus vaccine procurement (Bains: We are investing in Canadian ingenuity and creativity).

Overall, the day was fairly usual, but having a parliamentary secretary answer off the top rather than a minister during the leaders’ round seems like a bit of a break from the established decorum. I would also like to propose that we ban ministers from answering questions to the phrase “I’m proud of what our government has done,” or variations thereof. It’s not an answer. Stop using it as a crutch. I would like this judicial appointments non-story to die as soon as possible, because it’s not an actual scandal – it’s a deliberate misreading of the process, fuelled by press stories that don’t understand how Responsible Government works, while the government won’t actually articulate that (instead, responding about how proud they are of their system and their appointments), which means that this continues to churn over, and over, and over again, with the same ridiculous nonsense. There are issues with the judicial appointment process in this country – vetting by PMO once selections have been forwarded is not one of them. But hey, the opposition will play its silly games because nobody will actually call them out on what they’re saying.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Martin Champoux for a dark blue-grey suit with a pink shirt and a lighter blue patterned tie, and to Shannon Stubbs for a black dress with a grey geometric pattern with a black jacket. Style citations go out to Kelly Block for a light brown sleeveless overall dress over a white patterned collared shirt, and to Rob Morrison for a boxy light blue jacket and tie with a white shirt and black slacks. Dishonourable mentions go out to Deb Schulte for a black suit with a lemon yellow top, and Anju Dhillon for a bright yellow jacket with black slacks.

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