There were four Liberals in the Chamber today, including Catherine McKenna as a designated front-bench babysitter, which we can’t seen in ages – praise be! Erin O’Toole led off, in person and with his script on his mini-lectern, and in a theatrically grave tone, worried about the Chief of Defence Staff and asked if the government was aware of any other senior command staff under investigation. Chrystia Freeland read a script that they take all allegations seriously. O’Toole then turned to the allegations of violence going on in quarantine hotels, essentially demanding the programme be shut down, and Freeland said that they were concerned by the reports. O’Toole demanded to know why the programme was still running, to which Freeland replied that it’s in place because no Canadian is safe from the pandemic, and no one should be travelling for non-essential reasons. O’Toole repeated the question in French, and Freeland said that if Conservatives don’t want to protect Canadians from COVID, it’s up to them, and repeated her concern about the allegations. O’Toole demanded a fix for the programme, for which Freeland recited that the government has some of the strictest border measures in the world.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he decried that this government wasn’t taking hotel quarantine seriously enough, for which Freeland repeated that these were some of the strongest measures in the world, and that people shouldn’t be travelling. Therrien again railed that the government wasn’t doing its work, and Freeland repeated her reassurances in a calm and measured tone.

For the NDP, Jagmeet Singh led off in French, and he whined that the NDP pharmacare bill was killed and accused the government of being in the thrall of Big Pharma, for which Freeland read the script that they have already done more than any government in a generation to lower drug prices, and they were negotiating with provinces. Singh repeated the baseless accusation in English, illustrated with a sob story out of Oakville, and Freeland repeated her same answer, adding details about the Canadian drug agency, establishing a national formulary, and a rare disease drug strategy.

Round two, and Richard Martel returned to the allegations of assault in quarantine hotels (Hajdu: With new variants, we need take more measures to protect Canadians; Rodriguez: We are concerned about what happened, but are you really asking us to shelve the plan and let people spread the virus), Shannon Stubbs repeated the demand to shut down the programme in English (Hajdu: This is under investigation, but the border measures are to protect Canadians), and the case of a woman extorted and assaulted by a quarantine compliance officer (Hajdu: I’m concerned you think we should stop border measures), and Michelle Rempel Garner called the incident of the woman in the quarantine hotel “misogyny” (Hajdu: These border measures are in place to protect Canadians, and this matter is under investigation), and Rempel Garner read the incident report into the record (Hajdu: These are serious allegations under investigation but the border measures are there for a reason).

Julie Vignola complained that Davie shipyard was not getting enough contracts (MacKinnon: We are involved in ongoing discussions with Davie to complete the work), and Marilène Gill recited the Auditor General’s report on First Nations drinking water (Miller: We share her commitment and are working to finish lifting all advisories).

Ed Fast complained that other countries are planning to re-open their economies before we are (Freeland: Job one is to protect Canadians, and 643,000 doses are arriving this week; It is our government support that is allowing Canadians to survive this pandemic and they would be worse off under Conservative austerity), and Pat Kelly complained about small business debt (I’m glad you want to help businesses, so pass our bill).

Pat Kelly says the federal government’s “failures” are prolonging lockdowns.
I think he meant the premiers, because they have not controlled the spread of the virus in their provinces. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) February 25, 2021

Taylor Bachrach read another sob story to complain about the lack of pharmacare (Hajdu: We are working on it, and here are the benchmarks), and Alexandre Boulerice said that all the unions in Quebec supported pharmacare (Hajdu: This needs to be done in collaboration with provinces).

Boulerice says all unions in Quebec support pharmacare.
Has he alerted François Legault, because he’s the one whose opinion matters. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) February 25, 2021

Round three saw questions on other military senior officers under investigation (Sajjan: We have no tolerance for sexual misconduct regardless of rank and position), job creation (Freeland: The single most important thing right now is to recover the jobs lost from COVID, and we have already recovered 71 percent of jobs lost to the pandemic), people not getting through to the CRA when they find out that fraudsters claimed CERB in their names (Lebouthillier: There has been an 83 percent increase in staff and an external firm has also been hired to help take calls; victims of fraud do not have to repay it), vaccine rollouts (MacKinnon: We are on track to get our contracted six million doses this quarter), an EI repayment demand (Qualtrough: We are not asking people to repay if they are unable), lack of support for the airline sector (Alghabra: I am in touch with the sector, and we are engaged with finalising a support package), travel advisors concerned they may need to repay past commissions (Alghabra: We are working on customised supports and commissions are part of the discussion around refunds), a job recovery plan for youth (Chagger: We are working to strengthen opportunities for young people), pharmacare (Hajdu: We have to work with provinces, and it’s what we are doing), people being shut out of benefits (Qualtrough: There can be a delay and we are working to address this).

Hajdu says that a transition office has been established to create the Canada Drug Agency and the national formulary. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) February 25, 2021

Overall, for a day in which the Auditor General released her latest series of reports, only one question – from the Bloc no less – actually raised her findings, so well done opposition parties with the whole “holding government to account” thing. I remember days when the AG would release a report and it would dominate QP, and the Auditor General would show up in the galleries to watch the proceedings. It’s been quite a while since that happened. The main focus was hotel quarantines, and the Conservatives demands to shut down the programme in light of reports of a sexual assault, which seems like they don’t take the pandemic seriously (along with the demands to re-open the economy – but only with vaccines, because it’s not like public health measures would actually be more effective in reducing case counts). I get that it’s important to ask questions about this incident and to demand accountability, but demanding to shut down the programme seems very, very problematic, in the face of new COVID variants that are now starting to spread through the communities. The NDP, meanwhile focused all of their questions once again on pharmacare, this time turning to sob stories of those who need the programme, trying to accuse the Liberals of voting against their own promise. Both Chrystia Freeland and Patty Hajdu did lay out the steps they are taking toward implementing it – with provincial negotiation – but probably not forcefully enough to counter the NDP’s narrative. Of course, the whole point of the NDP asking the questions they did was for the sake of social media clips, to drive cynicism about the Liberals’ progress on the file, but that is par for the course with QP these days.

Sartorial snaps and citations remain on hiatus for lack of a sufficient sample size.