QP: Demanding new national plans

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With the stay-at-home order lifted in Ontario, we had a whole five Liberals in the Chamber, including Justin Trudeau, for what that’s worth, Erin O’Toole led off, worried that the government had no plan for the economic recovery, to which Trudeau replied that the best economic recovery plan is a healthy population, which they were doing everything to support. O’Toole then raised the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s new economic recovery task force, demanding a national strategy for rapid testing — never mind that this is a provincial responsibility. Trudeau reminded him that they delivered some 19 million rapid tests to provinces, and that O’Toole himself was opposed to a national strategy on long-term care, so he wasn’t exactly being consistent. O’Toole then pivoted to vaccinations, complaining Canada was lagging, to which Trudeau reminded him of the hundreds of thousands of doses arriving this week and every week, and that we were well on track to six million doses by the end of March. O’Toole repeated the question in French, got the same answer, and then demanded a plan for three hundred thousand doses delivered per day, to which Trudeau gave his rote assurances on the portfolio and everyone being vaccinated by September.

For the Bloc, Yves-François Blanchet raised a Quebec scientist who developed a potential vaccine but did not get federal funding, calling it a slight against Quebec, to which Trudeau reminded him that they took the recommendations of science. Blanchet then demanded the full contracts were published, and Trudeau chided him, saying that he knows full well that there are confidentiality agreements, and they were transparent with the contracts, and the delivery dates.

Jagmeet Singh then rose for the NDP, and in French, he demanded leadership on vaccinations, and that all resources would be deployed into it, to which Trudeau assured him that it was what they were already doing. Singh switched to English to demand that the prime minister stop “hiding behind jurisdictional issues” and demanded funding for federal vaccinations sites. Trudeau chided Singh and the NDP for not understanding the constitution.

Round two, and Ed Fast decried the declining investment in factories and equipment (Freeland: Congratulations on your new role, and please end your delaying tactics on Bill C-14), and he quoted David Dodge about a lack of plans (Freeland: Let me highlight the IMF’s report on the Canadian economy which praised our early actions in this pandemic), Gérard Deltell moaned about job losses (Freeland: Passing Bill C-14 would help the unemployed), and he gave false comparisons about unemployment rates (Freeland: Let me tell you about that IMF report), and Tracy Gray raised fears about Buy American policies without any irony (Ng: We are engaging with the Americans in a Team Canada approach).

Alain Therrien returned to that Quebec vaccine candidate (Champagne: Here is the timeline of our investment in bio-manufacturing including for Quebec firms).

James Cumming raised an interview with a Huawei executive before demanding they be banned from Canada (Champagne: We will be guided by national security on 5G and our timetable will not be dictated by the opposition; the grants they received were given by an arm’s-length council), and Michael Chong demanded the government recognise that a genocide is taking place in China against the Uyghurs (Garneau: We are looking at all of the available evidence), and demanded that the government ask the Olympic organisers to move the games away from Beijing (Garneau: Same answer).

Daniel Blaikie raised the problems of COVID long-haulers who can’t get other sick benefits (Qualtrough: We are continued to extending the EI sickness benefit to 26 weeks), and Niki Ashton raised a First Nation’s lawsuit about their drinking water (Miller: We have to respect the process, and we are supporting the repairs and upgrades to their water system).

Round three saw questions on the new COVID variants vis-à-vis vaccinations (Hajdu: We are working with provinces and territories in all of their efforts to contain the virus), a CEO complaining they can’t get government funding (Champagne: We invested in an unprecedented way in bio-manufacturing), demanding that the new surface combatants be given to Davie Shipyards (Anand: Davie is very important to us, and we have given them contracts when the previous government excluded them), data necessary for guiding the recovery (Hajdu: All of the data we are collecting is on our website), vaccinating healthcare workers serving First Nations (Hajdu: The National Council laid out guidelines that the provinces can use for guidance), hunting and angling being left out of the economic recovery (Monsef: Our strategy has three pillars which includes these sectors), if tourism operators can get assurance about international arrivals can happen this summer (Joly: We have launched supports for these sectors), changes to the rent assistance programme (Freeland: We are trying to strike the right balance between assistance and the integrity of the programme), land border testing requirements (Hajdu: We have been acting with provinces and territories, and we shipped millions of rapid tests to provinces), uncoordinated provincial responses to the virus (Hajdu: We already have an intergovernmental advisory committee).

Overall, it was a fairly meh day, but hey, we got to see the prime minister in the flesh for all of twenty minutes, and it was more than just Mark Gerretsen in the Liberal benches for a change, so that was nice. The Chamber still was borderline when it came to quorum, however, as too many MPs continue to stay away rather than work sensibly and safely in Ottawa. Three opposition parties seem to have some level of confusion or disrespect for basic federalism, whether it’s trying to blur the lines of who is responsible for vaccine rollouts from the Conservatives, or the NDP trying to do an end-run around the provinces with their US Democrats-inspired demand for federal vaccination sites, and now the Greens griping that there isn’t national harmonisation when it comes to various health measures across the country. (Seriously, the NDP’s policy development is now 98% lifted from the Democrats’ playbook these days, and they keep trying to wedge them into some kind of Canadian context, no matter how inappropriate that may be). Trying to score points by ignoring that federalism is a Thing is very tiresome, but it seems to be working, considering how much of the media continues to look to Trudeau to act like the premiers’ father rather than hold the premiers to account for their ineptitude. What a way to govern a country.

Sartorial snaps and citations remain on hiatus until there are more MPs in the Chamber, or other egregious offenders.

2 thoughts on “QP: Demanding new national plans”

  1. What is interesting about the vaccine talk is how the CBC is treating the question, clearly comparing Canada’s response to the USA. Apparently things are going swimmingly in the USA. What is sad about all this is how the media is constantly attacking the Gov. and not mentioning the role of the Premiers. PEI is doing very well with vaccines but again CBC Susan Bonner had a way of phrasing it as if we were running short which is far from the truth. What can you do, stop listening to the news.

  2. If Trudeau succumbed to the Tools demand that he divulge the terms of the vaccine agreements then the Tool would say once the manufacturers didn’t send the contracted doses to Canada that Trudeau didn’t follow the terms of the contract. Can’t win scenario. Just hope that Canadians are wiser and aren’t duped by this Tory’s lies and deception. Makes one wonder though when confronted by the right wingnuts in the states who}Half} still think that T rump won in a landslide. I am always leery of consensus by my peers. Nice to see you back J.B.

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