QP: Weaponizing International Women’s Day

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For International Women’s Day, it was mostly women in the Chamber, except for the Liberals, though Catherine McKenna was present as a designated front-bench babysitter. Candice Bergen led off for the Conservatives by video, and she accused the government of covering up when they knew about the General Vance allegations, to which Harjit Sajjan stated that he disagreed with the statement, and he looks forward to setting the record straight when he has the right opportunity. Bergen stated that if Sajjan wasn’t part of the investigation, he was part of the cover-up, to which Sajjan repeated that he directed the allegations to the Privy Council Office, and they followed up. Bergen tried to make this an International Women’s Day issue, to which Sajjan started that no politician should be part of the investigation process but that they should be done independently. Gérard Deltell took over in French and asked the same thing, and Sajjan repeated that politicians should not be part of investigations and he looked forward to setting the record straight at committee. Deltell accused the government of lacking courage, for which Sajjan hit back by saying he wouldn’t take lessons from the Conservatives on gender rights.

Christine Normdin led off for the Bloc, and demanded increased health transfers for the provinces, to which Patty Hajdu reminded her of all the money that the government already transferred to the provinces for the pandemic. Normandin the claimed the government was abandoning the women in the healthcare system by not increasing transfers — another ham-fisted way of trying to wedge into International Women’s Day — and Hajdu countered with actions the government took including topping up the wages of essential workers, most of whom are women.

For the NDP, Jagmeet Singh led off by video, and in French, he demanded a plan to protect women in the Canadian Forces, for which Sajjan reminded him of the actions they have taken to reform the military justice system and victims rights. Singh repeated the question in English, and Sajjan reiterated that there should be an independent investigation process to ensure it has credibility.

Round two, and Leona Alleslev read another condemnation of Sajjan’s handling of the Vance allegations (Sajjan: I disagree with your statement but I agree there needs more work, that should have started long before our government), and raising the allegations that senior officers threatened one of the whistleblowers (Sajjan: No one in my office spoke to anyone involved and any insinuation otherwise is false), and Shannon Stubbs returned to allegations that he knew about the allegations three years ago and tried to make this an issue of security clearances (Sajjan: Immediate action was taken and Privy Council followed up), and she started yelling about the testimony of the former ombudsman (Sajjan: I disagree with his testimony and we need to ensure women report misconduct safely).

Kristina Michaud wondered how many people paid the fine to avoid quarantine hotels (Hajdu: We have some of the strongest measures), Marie-Hélène Gaudreau worried about people circumventing by landing in the US and taking a bus across the border (Rodriguez: We have some of the strictest measures in the world), Marilène Gill worried that tourists were getting around quarantine via Roxham Road (Rodriguez: We were taking action while the Bloc just ask questions).

Raquel Dancho returned to the whistleblower being threatened (Sajjan: The complaint was relayed to the right officials, and my staffers did not speak to him), and Karen Vecchio wondered why there was no action on the allegations of misconduct (Sajjan: We agree that more needs to be done, and we got action).

Lindsay Mathyssen also raised the very same allegations that the government ignored the misconduct report (Sajjan: We have more work to do, but here are things we have done), and Leah Gazan raised the murder of an Indigenous women in Winnipeg (Anandasangaree: We are working on the roadmap to implement the MMIW recommendations).

Round three saw yet more questions on the Vance allegations (Sajjan: The appropriate authorities were alerted and we have taken action), the Pfizer contract (Anand: Are you upset that we managed to get doses faster? Or are you upset that we got more doses than planned?) demands for more financial supports for seniors (Schulte: We have stepped up), the former military ombudsman’s testimony (Sajjan: No elected official should be part of an investigation, which is why I alerted PCO), the lack of the Canada-UK trade deal on the legislative agenda (Ng: I am proud of the continuity agreement, and I am looking forward to ensuring the agreement gets passed), international farm workers quarantining in Toronto (Hajdu: We are working with provinces, and we are making sure they have a safe place to quarantine and supports from provinces), the Senate amendments to Bill C-7 (Lametti: The Senate did its homework, and we have responded, and mental illness is an illness and needs to treated as such), the sexual assault in a quarantine hotel (Hajdu: We take the allegations seriously and are being investigation, and we have put new processes into place to ensure it doesn’t happen again), waiving intellectual property rights to vaccines (Gould: We have been open to this conversation and have been open to hearing from the proponents of this  idea), and another Indigenous person being killed by police during a “wellness check” (Blair: We welcome the appointment of an Indigenous voice to the independent investigation). 

Overall, it was a terribly repetitive day, where they would raise it being International Women’s Day, then accuse the government of not acting on the allegations against General Vance in one form or another, and Harjit Sajjan would insist he followed the correct procedures because elected officials shouldn’t be involved in investigations, but independent bodies should be. And he’s not wrong, but it took him several answers to make that point, and I’m not sure how effectively he made it. But they all kept asking the same question, over and over, again and again, so that they can take the clips of each (woman) MP asking it so they can start shitposting across social media that “this so-called feminist government didn’t take sexual misconduct seriously.” It’s so, so boring, but this is what the exercise has degenerated into. Otherwise, for optics sake, the Bloc only had women present in the Chamber today (and more MPs than usual of late), and the Conservatives also mostly had women present, with only a couple of men present, but of the very few Liberals in the Chamber (three or four), only one woman (McKenna) was present throughout, which again, makes you wonder how a government so obsessed about optics can miss the little things like this.

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