QP: Questions from a fantasyland awash in vaccines

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For the first post-budget Porto-PMQs, Justin Trudeau was present and ready to go, with only Mark Gerretsen in the Chamber with him on the Liberal benches – of course. Erin O’Toole led off, script on mini-lectern, and complained that the vaccine rollout was only running at 58 percent capacity due to supply issues, and Trudeau listed the coming millions of doses being delivered by May. O’Toole groused about the “race” against variants, and demanded border closures from hot spot countries, not naming any countries in particular, for which Trudeau stated that we already have some of the strongest border measures in the world, but they would look at other ways to keep Canadian safe based on science and data, but importation was a fraction of cases. O’Toole then accused the government of “stealing vaccines” from the developing world, and Trudeau pointed out that this was disinformation and that O’Toole did not ask about the budget, which must mean he supports it. O’Toole switched to French, and he demanded increased health transfers to the provinces, and Trudeau pointed out that there must be a reason why the Conservative leader only asks about the budget in French, before reciting how much they have sent to provinces. For his final question, O’Toole claimed that the US changed their travel advisory on Canada, and Trudeau pointed out that in all five questions, he peddled falsehoods to score political points.

Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, and he decried that the were no increased health transfers in the budget, and Trudeau reminded him that they had a meeting with premiers in November that they said that they would increase transfers once they were out of the pandemic, and pointed to the supports they are already delivering. Blanchet stated that they were going against the wishes of the Quebec government and then mentioned their demand for enriched pensions for all seniors, for which Trudeau reminded that they have been delivering for seniors.

Jagmeet Singh led for the NDP, and unusually started off in English to demand the government invoke the Emergencies Act, and Trudeau reminded him that they have been delivering for provinces. Singh read another sob story from someone who lost a family member for COVID, and demanded improved access to paid sick leave — which is provincial jurisdiction in 94 percent of workplaces. Trudeau noted their federal benefit, and said they would continue to have people’s backs.

Round two, and Gérard Deltell accused the government of apparently creating the supply chain issues or Pfizer’s retooling for the “vaccine drought” in January (Trudeau: If you listened to the Conservatives, we wouldn’t have been as far along as we are now; We are exceeding our projections), and Raquel Dancho raised the vaccines being given to Manitoba by North Dakota (Trudeau: We have worked with provinces, and they are free to make their own priorities).

Blanchet was back up and demanded the federal government not offer support to opponents of Quebec’s Bill 21 in the courts (Trudeau: We are letting this court process carry on).

Michelle Rempel Garner gave a sanctimonious denunciation of the number of vaccines delivered by February, and railed that he was speculating that he might go to the G7 meeting (Trudeau: I speculated I might go to the G7 meeting in June; You know that science doesn’t work like that; The UK actually started the four-month gap between doses).

Jagmeet Singh was back up to demand the federal government improve paid sick leave (Trudeau: Eight out of every ten dollars of pandemic support came from the federal government), and in French, demanded increased health transfers (Trudeau: We have committed to it, after the pandemic is over).

Round three saw questions on vaccines (Trudeau: You have a way of inventing facts; You are avoiding questions about the budget), ensuring there will be no strings on childcare funding for Quebec (Trudeau: Quebeckers showed the path, and it’s time for the rest of the country), the third wave (Trudeau: We exceeded our initial promises for vaccines; the rollout is increasing and there is a strategy), proposing it wind down pandemic assistance in the summer (Trudeau: We promised to be there as long as it takes).

Overall, it was kind of a strange day because instead of getting as many MPs to ask the same question over and over to gather clips, today is was a very small handful that asked multiple questions – for the NDP, Jagmeet Singh asked all of their questions (which goes against the ethos that Trudeau has tried to instil in his proto-PMQs that anyone can ask the prime minister a question – not that they’re necessarily going to get a real answer). But more than that, there were not only vanishingly few questions on the budget, but the Conservatives went hard on this false and literally impossible narrative that somehow the government could have fully vaccinated the country with both doses by the end of February, both under the fairytale notion that we had the domestic production capability (untrue – we had no capacity to produce mRNA vaccines to scale, and no company accepted our offers to procure adenovirus-vector vaccines domestically because it wouldn’t be commercially viable to do so when global-scale production facilities were already in existence), and under the notion that there was enough vaccine in the world to actually make this happen. No country, even those cited as successes or who had domestic manufacturing capability, managed to fully vaccinate their populations by the end of February, and none of them avoided a third wave, and they all had to go back into some form of lockdown (discounting America, because that’s just a mess). Even Israel and the UK had to go back into lockdowns for their third waves, even with higher rates of vaccinations. The third wave was not because there weren’t enough vaccines – it’s because premiers in provinces west of Atlantic Canada refused to take proper public health measures, and trying to push this vaccine notion that is a physical and mathematical impossibility is disinformation and political cover for premiers who screwed up. The utter lack of shame in trying to push this narrative – sanctimoniously, in some cases – is hard to take, and certainly one that should be called out.

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

One thought on “QP: Questions from a fantasyland awash in vaccines”

  1. Susan Delacourt caught the snarky comment from Trudeau about going to Oklahoma to talk global recovery. Man, I bet Rempel Garner was steamed, but she deserves it after all the nonsense she keeps shrieking — no vaccines until 2030 was a real highlight for the blooper reel. Not to mention all the garbage she’s spewed on Tucker Carlson’s two-minute hate show. An appropriate retort IMHO, and very Pierre-esque (I love when he channels dad), that captures the level of seriousness by which the Con yahoos have decided to treat the “BS theatre” that is QP. Honestly, I hope he shows up in dungarees and a cowboy hat chewing on a wheat grain for the next PMQ day. Sartorial snap of the century.

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