It was a scorcher in the Nation’s Capital, and once again, the only Liberal MP in the Chamber was Mark Gerretsen. Candice Bergen led off by video, and she complained that the million jobs promised by the end of June had not materialized, and compared our job numbers to the Americans’, and demanded a plan to re-open the economy – as though that were a federal call. Mona Fortier assured her eight out of every ten jobs lost at the start of the pandemic had already been recovered, and that international credit ratings have pointed out Canada’s plan was sound. Bergen railed about job losses and accused the government of being more concerned about their travel itineraries than Canadians, for which Fortier reminded her of the good new of the Q1 GDP numbers (which really weren’t great, considering how much of those numbers were tied up in real estate). Bergen then blamed the federal government for the third wave of the pandemic (when she knows full well it was premiers who reopened too early and locked down too late), and Fortier listed measures taken to help businesses in lockdowns and as part of the recovery. Gérard Deltell took over in French and railed about jobs, for which Fortier repeated the “good news” in the GDP numbers. Deltell seemed to think the lockdowns were completely over when complaining that jobs had not completely recovered, and Fortier recited good news talking points about the wage subsidy. 

Alain Therrien led off for the Bloc, and he demanded that the federal government extend Quebec’s Bill 101 to federally-regulated industries because the Official Languages Act only protects bilingualism and not French, and Mélanie Joly assured him they were protecting French. Therrien complained this wasn’t good enough because the federal bureaucracy had a high failure rate, and Joly stated that they were working to strengthen the Act and the Commissioner’s powers, and to extend the Act to industries in federal jurisdiction in the private sector.

Alexandre Boulerice led for the NDP by video, and he demanded the government support their motion on abandoning litigation involving First Nations children and survivors, for which Mark a Miller noted that they support parts of the notion but there are jurisdiction issues to be litigated, and they were negotiating compensation. Charlie Angus repeated the question in English with added sanctimony, and Miller repeated slowly that every First Nations child that has suffered at the hands of the child welfare system will get just and fair compensation.

Round two, and Ed Fast complained that the government was giving up its sovereignty over setting its tax rates by signing onto a global minimum tax — which is an absurd notion on its face (Fortier: We are focused on protecting our industries that suffer to multi-nationals who don’t pay tax), Luc Berthold repeated the same in French (Fortier: Same again in French), before the complained about softwood lumber tariffs (Ng: We are standing up for them and I raise this at every opportunity), and Tracy Grey repeated the question in English (Ng: Same answer).

Ed Fast rails about the global minimum tax rate pledge, saying it surrenders sovereignty.
Per economists, this isn’t really functionally different from agreements on tariffs as part of trade deals. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) June 7, 2021

Monique Pauzé demanded new targets in Bill C-12 on climate accountability (Bittle: We are committed to meeting our 2050 target; Several amendments at committee have addressed Bloc concerns).

Jamie Schmale wondered why the government was slow to rollout money for First Nations looking for other burial sites at residential schools (Bennett: We allocated $33 million in Budget 2019 and we have been working with communities; We needed to co-develop culturally sensitive and trauma-informed programming), a timeline on completing the TRC calls to action (Bennett: Over 80 percent of those under federal jurisdiction are well underway).

Mumilaaq Qaqqaq demanded more action in forcing the Catholic Church to turn over documents (Bennett: Residential school survivors need to hear the Pope apologise, and the prime minister formally requested this, and the Pope’s statement on Sunday does not go far enough), and Leah Gazan complained it too long for the MMIW action plan (Bennett: We worked with contributing partners across the country and has $2.2 billion in the budget).

Round three saw questions on trying to tie the National Microbiology Lab to the Wuhan lab with the origins of COVID (Garneau: We fully support the American investigation and will help in any way we can; Hajdu: I have referred the matter to NSICOP; researchers work with international partners), demanding that Bill C-10 be fast-tracked (Guilbeault: Every month that passes deprives our artists of compensation), comments made by Rachael Harder about Quebec culture (Guilbeault: She needs to apologise), the Canada Grains Act consultations (Bibeau: We had excellent responses, and the department is working on drafting the report), slow progress on immigration and temporary foreign workers in Quebec (Mendicino: We are well on our way to meeting our targets), the CRTC’s decision on wholesale internet rates (Champagne: We have been “relentless” in ensuring competition to lower prices, and I always push for lower prices), Bill C-10 (Guilbeault: Do you not believe in shows like Heartland or Schitt’s Creek?), targeted support for students in the face of the national debt (Qualtrough: We have some of the highest levels of support for students), possible war crimes by Iraqi troops Canadians soldiers were training (Sajjan: The current allegations are being looked into by military police), 2030 climate goals (Bittle: We have a bold and ambitious plan), the lack of a legal framework to deal with the graves found at residential schools (Bennett: We are reaching out to communities to ensure that searches are done in a proper and legal way).

Another day, another attempt by the Conservatives to play into the conspiracy theories about the Wuhan lab. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) June 7, 2021

Redekopp, with a straight face, wholesale lies and says that Bill C-10 will censor Facebook posts.
This is blatantly untrue. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) June 7, 2021

Overall, we got a reminder that Mona Fortier does exist and that she’s the associate minister of finance, but her simply repeating worn good-news talking points was not exactly doing herself any favours, particularly to debunk any of the nonsense comparisons that Candice Bergen or Gérard Deltell were throwing at her. Also, the GDP numbers Fortier cited weren’t really that great – they were below expectations and highly inflated by the recent spike in real estate prices, so neither side was really doing themselves proud. We got some of the usual nonsense around Bill C-10 and the Winnipeg Lab, though I found it interesting to see the Bloc and Steven Guilbeault tag-team to hit back at Rachael Harder for ill-considered comments she made to a local newspaper over the weekend (and unsurprisingly, Harder did not ask a question today). Otherwise, there were a number of questions on Bill C-12, the climate change accountability bill, and while some parliamentary secretaries are capable of outstripping their ministers, Chris Bittle has not, and responded with some useless prattle rather than reasonable answers to questions that were not unreasonable. As usually, pretty much everyone needs to do better.

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