QP: Demanding an admission of failure

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As rain threaten outside, Justin Trudeau was back in the House of Commons for another day of Question Period, with one other Liberal behind him, and you would be right if you guessed that it was once again Mark Gerretsen. Erin O’Toole led off by pointing to other American outlets which are concern trolling about the situation in Canada, and blamed the rollout of vaccines for the third wave — which is a huge falsehood — and demanded and admission of failure. Trudeau called this out as disinformation, citing our place in the rankings and that delivery schedules were rolling along even if Moderna is occasionally a day or two behind. O’Toole quoted the head of Toronto’s university health network saying this is the worst place in the pandemic and he blamed the slow rollout of vaccines instead of murderclown premiers, to which Trudeau stated that they were doing what they could to support provinces. O’Toole switched to French to repeated his first question, got the same answer, and then repeated the question on doctors in French, and again got the same answer.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and raised the bailout of Air Canada, accusing the government of trying to break regional airlines, for which Trudeau insisted there will be further assistance for the aerospace industry. Blanchet was not mollified, but Trudeau replied with further assurances that they are supporting the sector. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, he decried the current state of the pandemic, and demanded a new plan to fight it, for which Trudeau stated that in some areas of the country it is bad and that they are doing what they can to help affected provinces. Singh switched to English to decry the cancellation of vaccinations appointments in Scarborough, which is a question of provincial jurisdiction, not federal. Trudeau stated that things were bad in Ontario and that they were trying to offer what assistance they can to the Ford government. 

Round two, and Richard Martel raised the CNN piece and tried to goad Trudeau into denouncing it as “fake news” (Trudeau: We are working with the provinces in harmony), and insisted that the procurement was a failure (Trudeau: We are third in the G20), and Michelle Rempel Garner concern trolled that people can’t trust the government because of changing advice (Trudeau: We have followed advice and have supported provinces along the way; You are simply giving misinformation).

Yves Perron railed about challenges facing testing temporary foreign workers (Trudeau: We are aware of challenges and are working with Quebec to solve them).

Michael Barrett gave a rambling speech about ethics (Trudeau: While you are focused on personal partisan attacks, we are focused on helping Canadians), Luc Berthold tried to make the rising cost of consultations as Liberals lining their friends’ pockets (Trudeau: We are here to deliver for Canadians and we depend on experts to tell us how to get it done).

Lindsay Mathyssen raised the layoffs at Laurentian University (Trudeau: We are following this situation and are in direct contact with the province about it, and we are prepared to work with them, as it falls under their jurisdiction), and Charlie Angus wondered why the government didn’t do more about the situation (Trudeau: We stood up for the future of the francophone university in Ontario, and we are waiting for a plan from Ontario for Laurentian).

Round three saw questions on the defence committee shutting down the study on the General Vance allegations (Trudeau: Committees are fully independent), Revenue Quebec getting more from the Panama Papers than a the CRA did and why not turn over single tax forms to them (Trudeau: CRA has been present and engaged in this pandemic to support people, and this is not the time to play sovereignty games), rumours of threats to the funding of the Halifax Security Forum (Trudeau: The minister has addressed this, and the government has always supported the forum, and I have always supported Taiwan), China blocking the investigation into the origins of COVID and using that to demand WHO reform (Trudeau: We have common concerns about the study, and support a transparency and independent analysis), supporting Taiwan’s participation in an upcoming forum (Trudeau: We welcome their participation), the Mi’kmaq fishery (Trudeau: Reconciliation is about recognising rights that are not granted by government but have been decided decades ago, and we are working with them to ensure we move forward), preventing the closure of air control towers (Trudeau: We are monitoring NavCanada’s deliberations).

Overall,  the rhetoric tends to get overheated on days when Trudeau is answering all of the questions, but today crossed a few lines with complete outright disinformation on the part of several MPs, Erin O’Toole and Michelle Rempel Garner most especially. O’Toole promulgating the notion that anyone could have vaccinated their way out of the pandemic without public health measures is simply a lie – and a mathematical impossibility – but he is determined to repeat it enough times that people think it’s true. As for Rempel Garner, her cherry-picking facts and statements to present an image of contradiction and confusion and then accusing the government of undermining trust, when it’s what she is deliberately and actively engaged in doing just that, is quite simply galling. There is plenty to hold this government to account for in how things have been handled, but a simple disinformation campaign should be beyond the pale. And yet here we are. Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh has once again proved that he never should have left Queen’s Park as he continues to concern himself of matters related to that jurisdiction. It shouldn’t be this hard to hold the right level of government to account for things that are their responsibility, and yet…

There was also a bit of post-QP drama as there was a point of order raised about the fact that one unnamed male MP – who apparently has a good physique – was shirtless while on Zoom, and MPs needed yet another reminder about the dress code for when they are attending “virtual Parliament.” They should not need reminders, but they also shouldn’t need reminders not to heckle into Zoom or interject, because that causes injuries to the interpreters, but they just do not care. It’s really disheartening.

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

2 thoughts on “QP: Demanding an admission of failure”

  1. Joke Tapper needs to register as a foreign agent at this point. Rempel Garner picked up his idiotic and childish insult that people online pushing back at him for ignoring the provinces were the cult of “Tru-Anon” (cf. QAnon). I’m really bothered by what appears to be a foreign media blitz attacking Trudeau, chiefly from the U.S. but also the U.K. Why in order to “succeed” must one tear someone else down, especially by putting forth half-truths, mistruths and outright lies? I expect this from the Cons and now the Dippers, and Canada’s biased MSM, but something smells rotten in the state of America and the mother country for their press outfits to be doing such a coordinated attack on the Canadian prime minister and his government. Who has him in the crosshairs and why?

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