QP: Blaming the wrong government for deaths

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It was another day of a nearly-empty chamber, and today there were a mere two Liberals on their benches, rather than just one, which is outrageous. Candice Bergen led off on video, accusing the government of being responsible for deaths in long-term care facilities because of the vaccine delays — with no mention of the culpability of provincial governments in their failures to manage the pandemic. Chrystia Freeland, also by video, insisted that Canada was one of the leading countries for vaccine rollouts. Bergen then blamed the cancellation of surgeries on the lack of vaccines — completely false — and Freeland repeated her assurances that Canada was among the best performers thus far and doing more. Bergen tried one last time to blame the federal government for the failures of the provinces, and Freeland again repeated her same assurances of Canada doing comparatively well on vaccines among allies. Richard Martel took over to lament that the government had not brought forward the bill to close the loopholes on sick benefits for debate but wanted them to pass it in one fell swoop, and Freeland assured him they were trying to correct an error. Martel was not mollified, insisting they needed to study the bill, but Freeland insisted that they wanted to close the loophole immediately and it was unfortunate that the opposition would not let them. Yves-François Blanchet took over on behalf of the Bloc, and wanted debate and amendments to the bill so that it could be retroactive, and Freeland assured him that the bill was not designed to encourage Canadians to ignore the guidelines to avoid travel. Blanchet was not impressed and thundered about closing the borders, but Freeland pivoted and invited Blanchet to apologise for his comments about Omar Alghabra. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he demanded immediate vaccines to protect seniors, for which Freeland calmly read her talking points about vaccine contracts and our record to date. Singh switched to English to demand for-profit long-term care be made public, starting with Revera, whose relationship be deliberately misconstrued. Freeland calmly stated that she shared his anguish and they were looking at best practices for long-term care.

Round two, and Michelle Rempel Garner worried that the EU were considering banning exports of vaccines (Ng: There is no ban on exports, and we have been speaking with our EU counterparts to ensure that the supply chains remain open), Pierre Paul-Hus repeated the concern in French (Ng: Same answer), and if the PM had called the president to the European Commission (Ng: We are in touch with EU officials), and Rosemarie Falk gave more disingenuous concern about seniors’ deaths because of vaccine delays (MacKinnon: We have been upfront with the delays to these doses). Xavier Barsalou-Duval complained that the prime minister didn’t announce anything at his press conference and demanded that Quebec be able  punish those who break quarantine laws (Alghabra: We have tough restrictions and more are being considered; Hajdu: We encourage law enforcement officers to use their tools to monitor quarantine). Tracy Gray worried about “Buy America” provisions (Ng: The PM has been engaged with president Biden to protect Canadian industry), Greg McLean demanded more tantrums from the PM on Keystone XL (O’Regan: We are not happy about this decision and I had weekly calls to make the case, but the president made a decision to honour his campaign commitment). Charlie Angus demanded immediate action on inequalities for First Nations children in care (Miller: We are sorting out the competing lawsuits), and Rachel Blaney railed about concerns about the jurisdiction of the CHRT in their order about Jordan’s Principle (Miller: The appeal of this order will not prejudice Indigenous children, and supports are available, but this has to do with three competing lawsuits from the same groups of plaintiffs).

Round three saw questions on China’s treatment of Uyghurs (Garneau: We need an independence body to verify the claims), whether the PM assured Julie Payette her pension was secured before she resigned (LeBlanc: This is all in legislation so you shouldn’t invent things), how much had been spent on Bill Morneau’s aborted OECD bid (Garneau: We are disappointed with this result), whether the prime minister tried to get the Americans to send is Pfizer doses (MacKinnon: Our schedule remains unaffected by these temporary delays), the Parole Board’s failures that resulted in a murder while a convicted murder was on day parole (Blair: Correctional Services and the Parole Board have accepted the recommendations of the report), the rollout of the highly affected sectors programme (Ng: We are working to get these businesses the help they need), subsidies to cruise ship repairs (MacKinnon: Yay Canadian shipbuilders), rapid testing in long-term care homes (Hajdu: We have secured them for provinces), working toward a three-digit suicide prevention hotline (Hajdu: My department is working on this), vaccine deliveries (MacKinnon: Shipments will ramp up to the end of Q3), use of the Emergencies Act (Lametti: You know full well there are conditions in the Act that have not been met).

Overall, I am going to repeat my complaint about the lack of MPs in the Chamber today – two Liberals instead of just one, which is as bad. There were two women in the Chamber today – that’s it. One person of colour (unless I missed someone). How is this even remotely acceptable on top of the fact that the lack of bodies – the bare minimum to maintain quorum – is showing complete contempt for Parliament. Yes, there is a pandemic, but Parliament is essential, and this depopulation is completely beyond the pale for what should be acceptable. I also find myself completely exasperated by the disingenuous lines of question today from all opposition parties on blaming the federal government for the explicit failures of the provinces. Vaccines were never the solution to stopping the carnage in long-term care facilities – premiers getting off their asses and doing something about it always has been, and they have failed, and for all opposition parties to try and pin this on the federal government is utterly galling. To say that the federal government is responsible for the deaths of seniors is outright ghoulish. This was a shameful display – when we can’t hold the right people to account, then there is no accountability. Blaming the wrong order of government is letting the premiers get away with negligent homicide. I also found it gobsmacking that Jody Wilson-Raybould, who should know better, is trying to get the government to use the Emergencies Act to take over areas of provincial responsibility, as though this was a single pandemic across the country and all conditions were equal, or that the federal government had the necessary competence or capacity to run provincial responses. They don’t. We need to get away from this fantasy notion that this is some kind of cure-all for the pandemic. It’s not.

Sartorially speaking, I am forgoing snaps for lack of examples in the Chamber. Style citations go out to Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay for a black suit over a black shirt with a busy gold and silver haphazard pattern, with a dark green speckled tie, and to Claude DeBellefeuille for a black sleeveless tunic with florals over a tan long-sleeved top and black slacks.

7 thoughts on “QP: Blaming the wrong government for deaths”

  1. How many times do we have to say…. the idiots on the Con side don’t understand that it IS THE PROVINCES that are in charge of LT residences. It is just a way of slamming Trudeau and they know they can get away with it because their constituency is also ignorant. Right wingers and ignorance go together like religion and the belief in magic. But that is the Con way. Unfortunately this will never end!

    • It’s also why “Liberal Twitter” gets annoyed by Singh proving the validity of horseshoe theory, and why NDP diehards get so prickly when dear leader is called out (correctly) for behaving like a Con. There’s no way he’s this ignorant. He’s deliberately obfuscating, because in the NDP’s world of red rose revolutions, the constitution is just a bothersome hindrance. He and JWR are a disgrace to the profession of law.

  2. I’m sure all those pundits who aided JWR’s bid to run Trudeau out on a rail will apologize any day now, for believing her BS sob story about “improper pressure” and ignoring the government’s assertions that she didn’t play nicely with others and had a mentality of “l’etat est moi.” Any moment now, they’ll admit they were wrong, and apologize to Trudeau for their months-long smear campaign. The same media that ran interference for all those “resistance” premiers who have blood on their hands. will absolutely demonstrate contrition over their brilliant hot takes being steaming piles of… something else. Right?

    Gee, it’s wintertime, sure are a lot of crickets chirping for this time of year.

  4. So you’re punishing them by forgoing snaps? Or the best-dressed MPs are staying home?

  5. Pingback: Roundup: Ghoulish misdirection | Routine Proceedings

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