QP: Hypocrisy and expletives

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On a rainy Monday in the nation’s capital, and at the start of a fourth consecutive week of sittings where tempers were getting frayed, there as once again only a single Liberal MP in the Chamber — Mark Gerretsen, of course. Candice Bergen off by video, and she groused that the defence committee meeting was cancelled this morning, alleging a cover-up, then said that the prime minister wouldn’t answer if he would have dismissed General Vance if he knew the nature of the allegations facing him. Harjit Sajjan noted that he appeared at the committee for six hours, and that they also heard from Stephen Harper’s chief of staff about what happened in 2015 when they appointed Vance while he was still under active investigation. Bergen accused the prime minster of not taking the allegations against Vance seriously because of the groping allegations levelled against him around the same time, and Sajjan instead raised that when the investigation against Vance was dropped on 2015, it was because of “pressure” and we wondered who was applying it. Bergen then tried to bring in what the prime minister’s chief of staff knew, for which Sajjan repeated that they knew about rumours against Vance and still appointed him anyway. Gérard Deltell returned to the issue of the defence committee cancelling its meeting this morning, crying that there was a cover up, for which committee chair Karen McCrimmon stated that they were developing recommendations, and there would be another meeting later in the week. Deltell then asked if PMO emails raised the possibility it was an issue of sexual harassment, why they did nothing about it. Sajjan repeated that the leader of the opposition knew of a rumour of misconduct and the Conservatives still appointed Vance while he was under active investigation. 

Alain Therrien led off for the Bloc, staying on the topic of the Vance allegations and accused Sajjan of contributing to the culture of silence in the military, and Sajjan recited this lines about taking the proper steps and alerting PMO. Therrien raised the appointment of Louise Arbour, while Sajjan insisted that politicians should not involve themselves in investigations. 

Rachel Blaney led for the NDP, and she too demanded action on the Arbour appointment over action, to which Sajjan repeated again that they are taking actions, including the appointment of a new officer in charge of culture in the military. Lindsay Mathyssen demanded that the recommendations of the Deschamps Report be implemented immediately, and Sajjan said that changing institutional culture is complex.

Round two, and Rachael Harder raised the amendments to Bill C-10, accusing them of censorship (Guilbeault: Here are quotes from Conservatives demanding YouTube be regulated, and we agree), and demanded that the justice department conduct a new Charter evaluation (Guilbeault: You are a hypocrite, given you would not hesitate to remove a woman’s right to choose but now are concerned about Charter rights), and Alain Rayes repeated the questions in French (Guilbeault: Here is a quote from that says the Conservatives chose partisanship over culture; The only danger to culture is your party).

Luc Desilets worried that CRA was telling victims of CERB fraud to pay now and let it get sorted later (Lebouthillier: Tax returns to date this year are in line with what it was like pre-pandemic; CRA has also said that people who are victims of fraud will not have to pay, but should still submit their tax returns), and then raised that Revenue Quebec found more funds recouped from the Panama Papers than the CRA did, and the CRA should focus more on those (Lebouthillier: Stop telling people to wait to file, and we have hundreds of open investigations into the Panama Papers).

Michelle Rempel Garner worried that NACI guidance was undermining the message to get the first vaccine offered (Hajdu: Health Canada is responsible for regulatory approval, and NACI offers guidance on best use), and Pierre a Paul-Hus returned to the gripe about the defence committee meeting being cancelled (McCrimmon: The defence committee will meet at its normal time on Friday).

Leah Gazan demanded a solid timeline on the MMIW inquiry action plan (Bennett: There are 100 people working on this plan, and they are happy with the money in the budget for their work), and Niki Ashton demanded faster action on the remaining boil water advisories (Damoff: We are not abandoning our commitments, and there are actions plans on all remaining advisories).

Round three saw questions on Enbridge Line 5 (Serré: This is non-negotiable, and there is no daylight between parties and Canadians on this issue), UNRWA materials that denounce Israel (Gould: As soon as I learned about this material, I contacted officials to get to the bottom of this, and we are working to ensure that the materials meet UN values and the principles of neutrality), delays around family reunification of refugees (Mendicino: We have done the most work on the repatriation of refugees including children), the cancellation of the defence committee meeting (McCrimmon: We will continue to come up with recommendations for the government, and the next meeting is Friday), the situation in correctional institutions (Blair: We share the concern, and Correctional Services Canada has done a good job), concerns about gangs (Blair: We increased the budget for guns and gang investigations and you vote against it), conflating online harm with C-10 (Guilbeault: The bill on online harm is coming and your party has been spooked by web giants like Google; This has nothing to do with regulating content and everything to do with getting web giants to pay and contribute to Quebec and Canadian content), airlines not refunding cancelled flights (Alghabra: We made an agreement with Air Canada, and you are quoting a letter that omits the work done since), and forcing employees to get vaccines (Hajdu: I won’t decline on the specifics of the situation, but there is no federal statute mandate immunisation, but some workplaces require it but it is not a federal issue).

Overall, it was certainly one of the most fraught QPs in recent memory, where proceedings essentially granted to a halt twice – once after Steven Guilbeault cited Rachael Harder’s apparent hypocrisy (which was quite possibly out of bounds), and again after Rodriguez’s hot-mike incident. It was another reminder of how much more unruly these hybrid sittings can be as the microphones are so easily hijacked. And there was a fair amount of chaos today, where there were plenty of questions directed toward the chair of the defence committee, and one suspects that the Conservatives were hoping that she wouldn’t be able to answer so that they could get their vice-chair, James Bezan, to respond and give a blistering condemnation of the government, and I say this because Bezan was offering to answer at one point during some of the confusion at who was supposed to take the question (as it was not phrased “To the chair of the committee.”) Meanwhile, Guilbeault continues to be his own worst enemy in trying to answer questions which were hyperbolic beyond all proportion, and he should have been able to shut it down but was completely inept at doing so. Between Guilbeault and Harjit Sajjan, who should have fallen on his sword weeks ago, the government’s performance is really leaving something to be desired these days.

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

4 thoughts on “QP: Hypocrisy and expletives”

  1. I loathe Michael Poulter-Geist. He might be the most obnoxious, narcissistic, self-righteous and destructive to Canada academic blowhard since Attaran and Peterson. And I really hate just how low and disgusting the Cons have gotten with this Vance issue. They don’t GAF about women, and Guilbeault is right to raise the matter of tradwife Harder’s LARP as Aunt Lydia. Cons just want to exploit victims’ experiences to attack Trudeau’s “feminist cred” in bad faith like they did with the Multi-Hyphenate Affair, as they smear his wife and mother at committees and on social media, and accuse him of the most horrible things, many involving children. Lilley has another vile op-ed mirroring Bergen’s abhorrent line of questioning. No one, of course, will talk about the elephant in the room regarding Doug’s chief of staff. Only Katie gets raked over the coals.

    But hey, none of this is a big deal, say “principled legal minds”. Let’s shelve any attempt at regulating the vomitorium of the Internet. Let’s grant people unfettered civil liberties to lie and spread bigotry and call the PM “Justin Pedeau.” And pretend that this is all necessary to “hold the government accountable.” Today is Press Freedom Day, but the journalistic profession is putting paid to the notion that it’s a principle worth defending.

    Moreover, why is it solely sexual abuse that’s the big headline-grabbing crisis in the CAF? Why isn’t there outrage and calls for an investigation into white supremacism endemic in the ranks? We hear all about Vance, but nobody cares how many Patrick Matthews or Corey Hurrens might be teeming under the surface? Oh, no, of course not. They probably vote Conservative, and to address that would be “partisan and divisive.” They’re just friendly sausage makers. Just the good ol’ boys never meanin’ no harm.

    But I have to say I’m even more disgusted to see the so-called “conscience of parliament” New Deplorable Party jump aboard the bandwagon yet again. They don’t care about women; they don’t care about Canadians at all. They care about power and their own jobs, and about the “freedom of expression” for their insidious hatred of Trudeau and Liberals more broadly (especially women Liberals). No wonder tempers are flaring in the circus of QP. Pablo shouldn’t have had to apologize. When dealing with the Trump Party of Canada and their orange-tainted sidekicks, it’s about time they got met with a good old fashioned fuddle duddle salute.

  3. Thanks for saying what all ‘normal’ people are thinking. Conservatives & NDP wouldn’t recognise the truth if they fell over it. And their followers believe them. Unfortunate! I am so thankful that Canada had this Liberal government during the pandemic – what would have happened if we had a Conservative government, led by O’Toole, not believing in science, vaccines etc., is the stuff that nightmares are made of! We would all be like Ontario & Alberta. We cannot get the economy back on track until the pandemic is under control. Thank god our government understood this. No, they were not, never will be, perfect! But they did an overall good job and showed they cared about people. I’m good with that.

    • Truer words were never spoken from a Tru-Anon!

      I may not like O’Toole but he has not violated the ethics code twice and is not under investigation for a third violation like Trudeau is.

      The Liberals believed China and didn’t trust the rest of the world for the initial response to the pandemic. They never fully closed the borders up to now, made a deal for a CanSino vaccine from China, which 100 days after the deal fell through they started to procure vaccines. Canada is paying up to 4 times the cost per dose.

      They spent more money than any other country in the world and have not accounted for where all the money went. Canada is lagging so far behind the rest of the civilized world because of the Trudeau.

      Also, parliament was shut down during a time of crisis and no budget for more than 2 years and with no accountability to follow the money trail.

      We are the ONLY country that is delaying the second shot, as a national human experiment, for 4 months contrary to the recommendations of the drug companies.

      The delays have caused the variant viruses to take over and many more people have died and many businesses have closed.

      This is all on Trudeau! Any other leader could have done better than this part-time teacher who loves a “Basic Dictatorship” while wearing “Blackface” and groping young women!

      Now they will remove freedom of speech in Canada so that he won’t have any backlash from the Alt-Media sources and average Canadians who may express their distain for how he is running/ruining Canada.

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