While we had been promised an appearance by Chrystia Freeland today, only Mark Gerretsen was sitting in the Liberal benches, meaning Freeland would only appearing by video. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he complained that new variants were coming into the country and demanded the border be closed to “hot spot countries.” Patty Hajdu reminded him that Canada already has some of the strongest border measures in place (in theory, anyway), and listed them off. O’Toole went two more rounds of the the same demand, and got much the same response from Hajdu. O’Toole then switched to French to praise America’s ability to produce vaccines domestically, and demanded an admission that the third wave was on the prime minister’s failure to secure it. François-Philippe Champagne reminded him of the billions in investments in bio manufacturing, which was showing results. O’Toole then demanded that the border be closed to Brazil and India — naming them when he wouldn’t in English — and Hajdu demanded he pick a lane, demanding open borders one week and closed borders the next.

I have noticed that O’Toole won’t say what countries he wants to close the borders to in English, but will name India and Brazil when in French. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 22, 2021

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, demanding an immediate closure of the border from India, and Hajdu reiterated the measures being taken. Therrien tried again, and got the same answer.

Jagmeet Singh for the NDP, appearing by video, and he panned the government’s climate plan, for which Chris Bittle read a quote from Thomas Mulcair that praises the plan. Singh repeated the question in French, and Bittle listed the investments being made and the fact that emissions have stabilised instead of rising,

Round two, and Ed Fast complained there was no vaccine plan in the budget (Freeland: We sent billions to the provinces in March, and extended supports to businesses and people), and claiming there was no growth plan in the budget (Freeland: On the contrary, this is a budget geared toward growth), and Richard Martel repeated the demand to close the border to India (Hajdu: We already have extremely strong measures; We know we have few returning travellers who are positive because we catch them during testing).

Monique Pauzé claimed there wasn’t enough for climate in the budget and it was worth less than the cost of Trans Mountain (Guilbeault: When your leader was environment minister in Quebec, he short-circuited the environmental assessment process three times), and that Canada is the only G7 country whose emissions went up instead of down (Guilbeault: We have one of the most ambitious plans in the world).

Leona Alleslev quoted from the news story interviewing the woman who made allegations against General Vance (Sajjan: I immediately took this to PCO and they began an investigation, and we have new funds for an combatting military sexual misconduct in the budget), Pierre Paul-Hus repeated the question in French (Sajjan: Same answer), James Bezan went for another round of the same (Sajjan: Why wasn’t action taken when allegations were raised before your government appointed him?)

Alexandre Boulerice quoted a dubious report on fossil fuel subsidies to denounce the government’s climate plan (Bittle: The report you cite includes things like wage subsidies and cleaning up orphan wells), and Don Davies demanded more action on vaccines (Hajdu: We are far ahead of where we had originally been projecting).

Round three saw questions on the supposed premium being paid for AstraZeneca (Anand: We won’t jeopardise our contracts by breaking non-disclosure), vaccines (Anand: Supply chains are still ramping up and deliveries are accelerating), the tourism and hospitality sector (Joly: We have been there since the beginning of the pandemic, and the budget has more measures for them), making the new climate targets law (Guilbeault: Our plan is ambitious; we need the House to move ahead on Bill C-12), provinces closing vaccine clinics for lack of supply (Anand: The entire production base for vaccines was ramping up in January and February, and it takes a multi-pronged approach to combat the virus, including both vaccines and public health measures), extending the tax filing deadline (Lebouthillier: We won’t penalise people with interest for issues out of their control), supporting minority-language universities (Joly: Did you even read the budget because there is $120 million in there), a First Nation’s water treatment facility breaking down (Miller: There are sustained investments in water issues), and using Vitamin D to combat COVID (Hajdu: You would be better off getting credible sources).

https://twitter.com/SomeGuyInOttawa/status/1385312968804605954

Once again, nobody in the world had vaccine supplies sufficient to immunise their entire country in January or February.
This has not stopped the Conservatives from pushing this blatantly false narrative. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 22, 2021

If you are concerned about roller-coaster “lockdowns,” blame the premiers for not locking down properly and for re-opening too soon, believing they could let “a little bit of COVID” circulate without problem. Claiming vaccination could have prevented this is false. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 22, 2021

Sloan does not disappoint and wants the government to use Vitamin D supplements to help combat COVID.
Hajdu encouraged him to use credible sources. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 22, 2021

Overall, the number of questions around the border from India and Brazil were largely dominant, and the government already had something in the works for those as they announced less than two hours after QP, so make of that what you will. Otherwise, the Conservatives continued with their attempt to push their false narrative that somehow the government could have procured enough vaccine in January and February to fully vaccinate the country, which again, no country could do because that much vaccine simply did not exist. Anita Anand did push back a little more forcefully on this today and pointed out that during those months, production was still ramping up and supply chains were being firmed up, but she needs to push that particular reality check harder if she has any hope of countering the Conservatives carpet-bombing their false narrative. As for the questions related to the environment and the announcement of new climate targets, I would suggest some of these MPs follow Andrew Leach’s Twitter feed, because American targets don’t necessarily compare well to Canada’s, so simply calling for American targets to be embraced just might not actually work for us. But hey, adopting American policies and talking points and assuming you simply need to divide by 10 is a favoured rhetorical element of Canadian parties, no matter that we are different countries with different issues.

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