QP: Being smug about a flailing minister

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For Monday, the depleted ranks in the Chamber were a little lower than usual, and once again, the only Liberal present was Mark Gerretsen. Candice Bergen led off in person, and read that there were contradictions between Katie Telford’s testimony and something that Senior Liberal Sources™ told the Toronto Star. Harriet Sajjan insisted that they took appropriate action at the time given that they had no . Bergen tried again, got the same answer, and for her third question, Bergen tried to ask Candice Bergen how the Feminist Government™ could allow this to happen, and Sajjan have his usual lines about having a lot more work to do, naming former Justices Arbour and Fish for the work they are undertaking. Gérard Deltell took over in French and repeated Bergen’s first question, got the same answer. Deltell then tried the tactic of asking Freeland about how she could have let this happen, but Sajjan repeated his well-worn lines.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he groused that Bill C-19 was being put under time allocation, and Dominic LeBlanc reminded him that nobody wants an election but they wanted to respond to the Chief Electoral Officer’s report. Therrien insisted that by imposing time allocation, the government was tacitly admitting they want an election as soon as possible, and LeBlanc repeated his answer.

Alexandre Boulerice led for the NDP by video, and he accused the government of ignoring the Deschamps Report before hiring Justice Arbour, and Sajjan repeated his lines that they have know they have more work to do. Lindsay Matthysen repeated the question in English, and Sajjan repeated his answer.

Round two, and Rachael Harder addressed Steven Guilbeault’s flailing contradictions (Guilbeault: The bill is not about what Canadians can and cannot post, and is about making web giants pay their fair share to culture; Freedom of speech is not negotiable for this government and this bill will not affect it), and Alain Rayes gave an even more smug repeating of the same questions in French (Guilbeault: Lots of organisations support C-10; here are some more quotes I’ll recite).

Rhéal Fortin returned to the General Vance allegations and what Katie Telford knew (Sajjan: We did not know the nature or the allegations but actions was taken), and then Xavier Barsalou-Duval and Andréanne Larouche repeated the question (Sajjan: Ibid.).

James Bezan accused Telford of being complicit in a cover-up and demanded she be fired (Sajjan: We acted immediately when an allegation was brought forward), and Pierre Paul-Hus policed the government’s feminism (Sajjan: We took action and we have more work to do).

Don Davies complained about the labour practices at a quarantine hotel (Hajdu: Workers need to be protected, and the employer is having conversations and this is a provincial responsibility), and Peter Julian complained that the wage subsidy went to dividend payments (Freeland: The wage subsidy protected the jobs of over 5.3 million Canadians and the rules stipulate that it can only be used for employee remuneration).

Round three saw questions on Enbridge Line 5 (O’Regan: We are working as all levels, and if your leader did indeed call the Governor of Michigan, would they kindly tell us what she said), Steven Guilbeault’s contradictory statements on Bill C-10 (Guilbeault: We want social networks to contribute to cultural industries and we want Canadian content to be discoverable), the backlog of temporary foreign workers in Quebec (Mendicino: We are still working with the province on this), Canadian soldiers being concerned they were being asked to train war criminals in Iraq (Sajjan: We are committed to meeting our obligations under international and domestic law, and we are actively looking into these troubling allegations), businesses not being able to access the Highly Affected Sectors funding programmes (Joly: We have been there for these businesses including through the regional development agencies and there is more in the budget), the vaccine injury support programme still not being up and running (Hajdu: If you have constituents concerned, please contact my office, and any claims will be retroactive), cross-border vaccination deals (Hajdu: We are working closely with our American counterparts, but here are some good news numbers about vaccines!), and Paul Manley complained about measuring the economy with GDP (Fortier: We have been focusing on Canadians’ quality of life, and a few other countries are looking beyond GDP).

Overall, it was a really annoying day for interruptions today, as there were constant problems with interpretation over Zoom – that they couldn’t hear it over Zoom even though it was fine in the Chamber (but when you suggest this could have all been avoided with a parliamentary bubble, they get all huffy). You would almost not have known we were still in a pandemic given that there were really only a couple of topics today – the General Vance allegations, and Bill C-10, and while yes, there is plenty to pick apart with the fact that minister Steven Guilbeault is a hot mess on this file, flailing and giving contradictory answers in various interviews, the level of smugness by the Conservatives on this was somewhat off-putting when those of us remember how their own ministers flailed incoherently on plenty of occasions as well, but it also makes for poor debate. But, short memories and all of that. That being said, Guilbeault continues to remain a problem for the government on this file, and they are going to need to have to make some kind of decisions around keeping him on the file, or even tighter minding when it comes to his messaging, because boy howdy, it’s painful to watch this continued flailing.

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

One thought on “QP: Being smug about a flailing minister”

  1. I think it’s a language issue when he’s communicating with English con media, and that’s not fair. They’re silver-tongued liars with a built-in and deep-pocketed uneven playing field, deeply-entrenched power centres who will stop at nothing to avoid being restrained in any sense. If C-10 dies before an election is called, I hope that they bring it back if they get a majority, and just ignore the feckless opposition and that narcissistic Peterson wannabe Geist who I hate with the fire of a thousand burning suns. Or put it in an omnibus bill. That said, Dabrusin is much more adept on the file. Maybe Guilbeault could be the deputy heritage minister? Or one minister each for the two solitudes?

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