It being a lovely Tuesday in the nation’s capital, the prime minister was indeed present and in the Chamber for Question Period, with only one other Liberal – Mark Gerretsen, of course – with him. Erin O’Toole led off in person, with his scripts in front of him, and he raised that sensationalised CNN report saying Canada was desperate for vaccines. Trudeau reminded him that Canada was third in the OECD for vaccinations and people needed to keep up public health measures. O’Toole insisted that no, the government’s rollout was too slow and confused, to which Trudeau pointed to the UK where higher vaccinations did not mean they had to let up lockdowns, and that while Conservatives don’t like masks and social distancing, people needed to keep it up). O’Toole then raised the American travel advisory — that was months old and applied to every other country in the world — for which Trudeau called out the bullshit for what it was, that the advisory was from last March, and that the Conservatives were only interested in making things up. O’Toole then repeated his first question about the CNN report in French, got the same answer, then he pivoted to vaccine rollouts in Quebec, and claimed that Trudeau said everything was on track yesterday and then we just learned there would be a Moderna delay. Trudeau castigated him for making things up after their conversation yesterday, stated what he told O’Toole about shipments and yes, Moderna may have a day or two delayed here and there.

Yves-François Blanchet raised Quebec’s Bill 99 having been found to be justifiable by the Auebec Court of Appeal, to which Trudeau dissembled about working well with the Quebec government. Blanchet noted that the Quebec bill would clash with the Clarity Act, and one of them had to go, and Trudeau dismissed this as posturing, that the Bloc would rather talk about sovereignty than fighting the third wave.

Jagmeet Singh led for the NDP, and in French, lamented that Canada was losing the race against the variants, to which Trudeau praised the number of doses that have arrived in Canada. Singh switched to English to demand “real action” by improving paid sick leave, for which Trudeau reminded him that they put in the programme months and they were working with provinces to boost their measures. 

And with the leader’s round over, Trudeau has left the Chamber. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 13, 2021

Round two, and Michelle Rempel Garner raised new concerns about AstraZeneca out of Australia, and if that would change the advice in Canada (Hajdu: Health Canada continues to monitor the situation; surely you are not trying to scare Canadians), Richard Martel asked what the government promised the Bloc to support them in shutting down the defence committee study (Rodriguez: It’s dishonourable for you to suggest people could be bought; Sajjan: We respect the work of the committee, and I appeared for over six hours), and James Bezan raised the media reports about the government allegedly threatening the Halifax Security Forum (Sajjan: That’s false, and they are independent, and we have supported the forum).

“You have fake feminist credentials!” cries MPs who have no feminist credentials of their own. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 13, 2021

Mario Simard demanded support for Quebec forestry (O’Regan: We have invested in forestry innovation in Quebec, in a strategic partnership, in market development, and promotion of the use of Canadian wood in non-traditional construction).

Ed Fast decried UBI as an expansion of the welfare state (Fraser: It’s hard to take lessons from your party on what happens at a convention when yours denied the existence of climate change), and if the budget would create permanent spending programmes (Fraser: When you were in government, you had the worst economic growth record), and Pierre Poilievre demanded a promise for no permanent new spending, but with added smarm (Fraser: Making public investment in those who need help can make economic sense).

Charlie Angus decried the massive cuts at Laurentian University and its francophone programming (Joly: We are very concerned, and I have had conversations with the Ontario government and demanded a plan to help), and Matthew Green decried the increase in the wealth of the purported 44 billionaires in Canada and demanded a wealth tax (Fraser: We have increased taxes on the wealthiest).

Round three saw questions on increased spending on consultants (Duclos: We are in an emergency and have to get the talent we need, but you are trying to spin a conspiracy theory), O’Toole got back up to whinge that Hajdu called out Rempel Garner (Hajdu: Conservatives have been playing a dangerous game, demanding tools like vaccines and then scaring people about using them), mobilising RCMP resources to Pikagikum First Nation (Blair: We don’t have jurisdiction there but are supporting Ontario), federal inaction on the aerospace industry (Rodriguez: Last night’s announcement was good for Quebec), students (Chagger: Our government will be there for students and it’s why we rolled out plenty of programmes for them), the problems with EI and Recovery Benefit interactions (Qualtrough: We have teams working on solving this problem), rumours of a home equity tax (Hussen: We have stated time and again this is not under consideration and any suggestion otherwise is false), the Mi’kmaq fishery dispute (Jordan: The measures we have put into place this year are flexible while we work to longer-term agreements; please stop spreading malicious rumours), allegations of workplace violence at the Val Cartier barracks (Sajjan: I will look into these allegations), Indigenous Services taking up to two years to process status cards (Miller: We have made significant investments in improving processing times, but times can vary with individual cases), and wealth taxes (Fraser: I can’t tell you what’s in the budget, but the very first thing we did in government is raise taxes on the wealthiest).

“Please stop spreading malicious rumours,” Bernadette Jordan says in response to a Conservative question. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 13, 2021

Overall, it was to be expected that Erin O’Toole would lead off on the CNN bit, because he was tweeting it up last night and trying to make a dog and pony show about it when it was pretty much sensationalism that contributed nothing new. But it’s on CNN, so that means something! Well, it means that Americans are once again looking to other countries to “prove” that they’re not such a complete basket case, because they all do this, and Canada is frequently the target. Why do you think there are so many JJ McCullough op-eds in the Washington Post full of complete misinformation? Americans love this stuff, which proves nothing. The fact that it’s CNN also plays into the whole culture war-LARPing that goes on in both conservative and progressive circles here in Canada, which is why O’Toole hyping this is particularly egregious. I will say that it was nice to see Trudeau actually pushing back on this and calling bullshit on it rather than just talking around it with feel-good talking points, and for him to actually be calling out O’Toole’s disinformation for a change. It does not happen often enough.

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1381803835153395713

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1381807245734912003

Meanwhile, let me once again make the point that I absolutely detest when MPs try to derisively cast aspersions on the government’s feminist credentials – particularly when it’s the Conservatives who have few of such credentials to back up their attempted moral superiority. The defence committee study was wound down both because certain opposition parties were trying to upend the constitutional norms of ministerial responsibility, and because victims groups were calling on it to be over as they were tired of being used to score cheap political points – something which doesn’t exactly bolster the “feminist credentials” of the Conservatives trying to score those points either. We also saw numerous other examples of questions based on rumours and misleading premises, be it the Halifax Security Forum, the supposed plans for a capital gains tax, or issues around the Mi’qmak fishery – but we did see the ministers pushing back, so that helped, but the fact that opposition members have been repeating “malicious rumours,” to quote one minister, with impunity, again reflects the poor level of discourse we’ve sunk to.

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