QP: Pushing hard to give Doug Ford some political cover

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In the shadow of the looming budget, I fully expected a day full of questions related to attempts to get the government to admit what was coming in a couple of hours’ time. Candice Bergen led off by video, accusing the federal government of prolonging the third wave by not having enough vaccines — as though premiers delaying proper public health measures were blameless. Anita Anand calmly gave a recounting of increasing vaccine shipments, which are more than originally planned. Bergen then lied and claimed the third wave was a result of the prime minister’s inaction, and Patty Hajdu reminded her that eight out of every ten dollars spent on fighting the pandemic came from the federal government, and listed the measures taken. Michael Chong took over and railed about Ontario’s situation and blamed vaccine shortages, and Patty Hajdu repeated her assurances, but on two hyperbolic follow-ups, Hajdu reminded him that vaccines alone were never enough to stop the third wave without strong public health measures.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc and and railed that federal parties used the wage subsidy, for which Sean Fraser reminded him that they took decisive action to help Canadians. Therrien stated that CRA is reporting fraudulent take-up of the wage subsidy, and Diane Lebouthillier reminded him that he voted against compliance audits, and that he should pick a lane.

Don Davies led for the NDP, and demanded that the federal government use the Emergencies Act to increase hospital capacity and implement paid sick leave in Ontario — which is both novel and would poison federalism. Patty Hajdu calmly responded that they have been working with the government of Ontario to provide whatever help they can. Lindsay Mathyssen repeated the demand, and got much the same response.

Round two, and Michelle Rempel Garner again blamed the federal government for the third wave in Ontario by not providing enough vaccines (Hajdu: We have stopped at nothing to help provinces; Anand: You told people we wouldn’t get vaccines until 2030), and Pierre Paul-Hus accused the government of not doing enough at the borders (Hajdu: We have some of the strongest measures in the world), and he complained about the price paid for AstraZeneca and that it was taking too long to arrive (Anand: Our contracts are confidential and we won’t risk breaching those contracts as other countries clamour for supply).

Yves Perron complained about the subcontractor testing temporary foreign workers in Quebec (Bibeau: We are working with industry and the province to find solutions), and Luc Desilets wanted the federal government to delay the tax filing deadline as the government of Quebec was doing for provincial taxes (Lebouthillier: He have told people we will be lenient).

Ed Fast tried to puzzle through the finance minister talking about child care while her mandate letter demanded no new permanent spending (Fraser: You seem to think it’s radical to ensure that we can get women to fully participate in the workforce), then complained about the size of the debt and deficit (Fraser: Your question rests on the assumption that our pandemic response was too expensive), and demanded a new fiscal anchor (Fraser: This betrays your world view that would see our economy get scarred).

Charlie Angus complained that the federal government wasn’t doing enough to help Laurentian University (Joly: We are concerned, and we are working with the Ontario government, whose jurisdiction this is, to find solutions), and Leah Gazan complained about Kevin Lamoureux sponsoring a petition about people saying mean things about police (Blair: Isn’t it great that police around Ontario rejected the increased powers that Ford wanted to give them?)

Round three saw questions on the inquiry into the Nova Scotia shooting (Blair: We listened to the families, and the public inquiry is ongoing), one million Canadians being cut off from their CRA online account and extending the filing deadline (Lebouthillier: We will continue to be there, but I will encourage people to file online), increasing EI sickness benefits (Kusmierczyk: We have increased the period but there is more that can be done), and demanding a royal recommendation for their bill on the issue (Kusmierczyk: We made paid sick leave a priority during the pandemic), prawn fisheries (Jordan: You are politicising a Supreme Court-affirmed right for Indigenous fisheries, and we are working toward long-term agreements and you are the only one weeks to be confused), and the Discovery Islands fisheries decision (Jordan: The decision to phase out fish farms by 2022 was not easy but it was made in consultation with First Nations), vaccines for Ontario (Hajdu: We have given help to provinces; Anand: We are exceeding our vaccination targets), securing the border (Hajdu: We have some of the strongest measures, including quarantine hotels), soldiers deployed to Latvia without vaccines (Sajjan: The Surgeon General has a plan on prioritising vaccinations), a tugboat sinking and a lack of regulations (Alghabra: We are working to address this situation, and we look forward to your input), and commissions to travel agencies (Alghabra: In the Air Canada agreement, we protected these commissions).

Overall, it was a little bit grotesque to see how hard the Conservatives were pushing these very false narratives about the viability of vaccinating out of the third wave (which, let us be clear, is a mathematical impossibility because the virus grows exponentially and vaccinations happens in a linear fashion), and pinning the blame solely on the federal government rather than premiers who refused to implement tougher public health measures in spite of the fact that they were warned the spread of variants would create a disaster – and nowhere is this more apparent than in Doug Ford’s Ontario. There seems to be a belief that vaccines can come out of thin air, that scaling up global-scale manufacturing can happen overnight, that there would never be supply-chain issues, and above all, that Canada somehow deserves these doses more than any other country in the world when we haven’t been hit nearly as hard as many other countries. It’s pitching for the vaccine fairy – and it would be great if the federal ministers could actually point this out this out once in a while rather than the bland assurances that they are working with provinces, or counting doses delivered. The other notable issue of the day was they had to basically suspend for a few minutes because of yet another technical issue, and it’s getting so tiresome that so much time gets eaten up with this every day when Parliament could have bubbled and carried on close to normally.

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

One thought on “QP: Pushing hard to give Doug Ford some political cover”

  1. I think virtual parliament would work better if all the MPs were hooked up to a polygraph app that buzzed and set off alarms whenever they lie. The Conservatives could power the entire country’s electric grid with a renewable-energy supply of BS. And the NDP sure are getting there. Canadian media falls down on the job of fact-checking, and parliamentary “rules” dictate that you can’t say someone is lying when they really are. But as far as I know, there’s nothing in the dusty 400-year-old Westminister rulebook that says a golden retriever can’t play basketball, or a computer can’t do the truth-digging. Time for some genius to come up with the Daniel Dale (or Dale Smith) A.I.

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