QP: A chance to quote Oscar Wilde

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While the prime minister had committed to being at QP today, he was not in the Chamber — apparently deciding that he needs to set an example for Canadians by working from home. Erin O’Toole led off, script on mini-lectern, and he lied about what Chrystia Freeland said about Canada’s vote at the UN on a motion that some considered anti-Israel, falsely claiming that she compared it to an authoritarian regime. Justin Trudeau, appearing by video, said that the vote was about the right of self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians. O’Toole tried again, raising former Liberal MP Michael Levitt’s objections to the vote before he repeated the slander against Freeland, to which Trudeau repeated his explanation of the vote. O’Toole then changed topics and claimed that the prime minister “admitted” that Canada would be behind other countries in procuring the vaccines, to which Trudeau stated that Canada has the best vaccine portfolio in the world, and that things are still up in the air in terms of which vaccine will be first to get approval. O’Toole repeated the question in French, got the same response, and then O’Toole claimed that the Americans would start getting the vaccine “in weeks,” and got much the same response. Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and repeated the same accusation of later delivery of vaccines, to which Trudeau reminded him that Canada doesn’t have the ability to mass produce vaccines which is why they negotiated broader sourcing. Blanchet was not mollified, and accused the government of lecturing the provinces, to which Trudeau insisted that they were not lecturing, but working with them. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he also repeated the allegation that Canadians would be forced to wait for vaccines, and Trudeau repeated his rehearsed points about our vaccine portfolio and the need to flatten the curve which is why they provided rapid tests and PPE for provinces. Singh repeated his question in English, and Trudeau reiterated that they were working with provinces to ensure a seamless rollout.

Round two, and Candice Bergen railed about “Communist China” (Champagne: Our policy is to be firm but smart in standing up to China; We led in responding to Hong Kong), and Michelle Rempel wanted confirmation that Mexico would get vaccines before Canada (Hajdu: We have procured a diverse portfolio of vaccines; Three candidates are already in regulatory review and we are working with provinces on distribution). Mario Beaulieu demanded support for their bill to bring federally-regulated businesses under Quebec’s Bill 101 (Joly: We share a common goal in protecting the French fact in Quebec, but we have to respect the anglophone minority). Richard Martel and Alain Rayes complained that the Official Languages committee was blocking a motion to demand an updated Official Languages Act (Joly: A modernised act is coming; You can’t just say one thing to Quebec and not to Francophones elsewhere in the country). Taylor Bachrach worried about a particular racial profiling incident (Miller: It is not clear that Indigenous Services was involved, but we are investigating), and Brian Masse worried about his local airport having their control tower removed (Garneau: The number of passengers has reduced by about 90 percent, and NAVCan is reviewing service needs).

Round three saw questions on the the low number of applications for the LEEFF programme (Fraser: The contracts you mention only established the Crown Corporation that was administering the programme; You are putting forward falsehoods at the expense of Canadians), compensation for supply managed sectors (Bibeau: We have made one payment and another one is on the way — but fastidiously avoided giving a date), family reunification files (Mendicino: We are prioritising and allocation resources for spousal files), rural broadband (Monsef: Thanks to our fund, communities can reach out to us and we can determine which programme is best for them), demands for amendments to the assisted dying bill (Lametti: We consulted widely and heard from 300,000 people, and the ten-day waiting period only prolongs suffering), injured veterans being told they lost proof of eligibility (MacAulay: I will look into this situation), and trade deals with countries with poor records (Ng: Trade needs to represent the values of Canadians).

Overall, it was not a day that covered anyone in glory, as half-panicked questions demanding a date when Canada would receive vaccines that haven’t even completed Stage 3 trials were met with platitudes about the robustness of our vaccine portfolio, with only one brief mention that we don’t have mass manufacturing capacity in this country for some candidates which is why they went with the procurement route they did. This is fairly important information, but this government would rather fallback on happy platitudes than candour. And to that effect, we saw several occasions today where this government’s platitudes were used to put words in those ministers’ mouths – torqued to be lies in the case of Chrystia Freeland and the UN vote – and yet this government absolutely refuses to learn the lesson that this kind of pabulum doesn’t actually help anyone, and only makes the Conservatives’ jobs easier when it comes to lying about what was said. Why they can’t grasp this is maddening. There were two bright lights today – that there weren’t any more questions on the judicial appointments moral panic; and the verbal sparring from Freeland’s parliamentary secretary, Sean Fraser, who was able to give witty ripostes to Pierre Poilievre’s pack of lies, including a quote from Oscar Wilde to boot, but in the end, it comes back to this government’s inability to properly communicate that still has them shooting themselves in the foot, every time.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Michelle Rempel Garner for a black belted dress under a black jacket, and to Pablo Rodriguez for a fitted navy suit with a crisp white shirt and a purple tie. Style citations go out to Steven Guilbeault for a medium brown suit with a light blue shirt and pale yellow tie, and to Soraya Martinez Ferrada for a pale orange collared shirt with a black waistcoat.

4 thoughts on “QP: A chance to quote Oscar Wilde”

  2. Have you seen this twitter thread, about the capacity from Professor Amir Attaran. He seems to think we could make it but the Feds f-ed up and we will likely now get a vaccine months later than most countries, even developing ones. That seems unlikely to me when they have so many deals, but he makes an interesting (and terrifying) argument.

    https://twitter.com/profamirattaran/status/1331319472389406720

  3. Trudeau and co can be too nice to the cons at times, kind of like Biden/Obama and Republicans. It was Mulroney who privatized Connaught Labs way back in the ’80s, but it’s possible that Trudeau doesn’t want to “go there,” either because the Mulroneys are close friends or because it would blur the lines between Harper’s post-Reform iteration and the last of the now extinct PC PMs. (And also because there were a few Liberal governments in the middle.) Fact of the matter is this problem has been brewing for decades so for the cons to imply (or outright blatantly accuse) Trudeau of being at fault for a problem that started when he was in high school is yet another con lie. Then again, they blame him for the NEP from back when he was 8 years old, so I guess it’s the cons who have spent a long while rethinking (or distorting) space and time.

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