QP: Preferring grandstanding to accountability or oversight

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While the prime minister remained in quarantine, we actually had three Liberals in the Chamber, for a change — Mark Gerretsen, Francis Drouin, and Marc Serré. Erin O’Toole led off in French, and read his scripted list of Sajjan’s alleged sins with a lot of conflation rather and random elements thrown in, and demanded his resignation. Chrystia Freeland started off by saying no woman should be subject to sexual misconduct, especially in the Forces, and added that they were committed to eliminating the toxic culture in the military. O’Toole switched to English to call on Liberals to vote for their motion to censure Sajjan, and Freeland repeated her response in English. O’Toole insisted that the toxic culture started with the prime minister, and wondered what Freeland knew of the Vance allegations, and Freeland responded by listing the great things on Sajjan’s record as minister. O’Toole then switched back to French and demanded the unredacted documents related to the National Microbiology Lab firings, and Freeland assured him that they take national security seriously. When O’Toole then ratcheted up the politicisation of NSICOP and stated that Conservatives would withdraw from the committee, and Patty Hajdu, a little flat-footed, said that she was disappointed to hear O’Toole say that.

Marilène Gill led for the Bloc, and she gave a rather torqued reading of what the vote on yesterday’s Supply Day motion on provinces amending their constitutions, and demanded the federal government apply Quebec’s Bill 101. Mélanie Joly assured her their legislation would protect French. Gill pushed the matter, and Joly accused her of pushing a sovereigntist agenda.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and in French, demanded the further extension of pandemic benefits, for which Carla Qualtrough listed the benefits in Bill C-30, which was why they needed it to pass. Heather McPherson repeated the question in English, and Qualtrough repeated her response.

Round two, and Leona Alleslev demanded that Sajjan be fired (Sajjan: We have been doing the hard work for culture change), Pierre Paul-Hus wondered why Sajjan withdrew fighter planes from Iraq, alleging conspiracy (Sajjan: I briefed you on this, and we provided different supports on the ground, which means that ISIS is nearly defeated), alleged conspiracy with the Vice-Admiral Mark Norman investigation (Sajjan: Speaking of the navy, your government let our joint supply ship capabilities lapse, while we have recapitalised it), Jag Sahota raised the golf game with General Vance (Sajjan: The acting Chief of Defence Staff has dealt with those officers), and whether Vance is above the law (Sajjan: Any allegations brought to my attention were forwarded to the appropriate authorities, as politicians should not investigate).

Christine Normandin disputed the difference between Quebec’s Bill 96 and the proposed changes to the Official Languages Act (Joly: The federal government needs to have national approach to protect all francophones; The federal government is assuming responsibility and protecting the French language).

Michael Chong demanded the unredacted documents on the Winnipeg Lab (Hajdu: The documents were provided to NSICOP).

Lindsay Mathyssen demanded action on implementing the Deschamps Report (Sajjan: We are working to change the culture), and raised the golf game (Sajjan: I agree we need to do more and the work we started in 2015 has not gone far enough).

Round three saw questions on inflation (Freeland: Pass the budget), Quebec’s Bill 101 versus the new Official Languages Act (Joly: You’re in the House of Commons, not the National Assembly, and we need to protect francophones outside of Quebec and provide opportunities for anglophones to learn French), seniors who collected CERB having difficulty with GIS applications (Schulte: We have sent letters and send letters, and reached out to groups who helps seniors), failing immigrant communities with COVID (Hajdu: We’ve been there for provinces and territories), benchmarks to reopen the border (Hajdu: We are better protected thanks to vaccines), the timing of the bill on official languages if they plan to go to an election (Joly: This is a minority Parliament so all bills need opposition support, so will you support it?), delaying PMPRB guideline implementations (Hajdu: Canada has some of the highest prices in the world, which makes accessing new drugs harder for more people), and another call for Sajjan’s resignation (O’Toole: What action did you take when Vance was appointed while under active investigation?), the US department of transport fining Air Canada for not refunding passengers (Alghabra: We got a deal with Air Canada that included refunds), and something incomprehensible about systemic racism (Chagger: We implemented the anti-racism strategy and it will take all of us dismantling these institutions).

Overall, it was a strange and somewhat disheartening day, as the Conservatives continued to handle the calls for Harjit Sajjan’s resignation poorly, and then decided to up the grandstanding by declaring that they were withdrawing their members from NSICOP. This is disappointing all around because as imperfect as NSICOP is, it’s better than the absence of oversight by parliamentarians that existed previously, and they are undermining the cause of that oversight in order to score cheap political points. As well, they continued to handle calls for Sajjan’s resignation in the worst way possible, throwing a bunch of conflated and sometimes false allegations his way as “proof” of his record of failure, rather than sticking to the simple facts about ministerial responsibility, and in the course of trying to build a “case” against him today, just gave him ample opportunities to defend himself and refute individual allegations – especially for those allegations by which they alleged a conspiracy was taking place. I just cannot fathom how they think this is a winning strategy. It’s ham-fisted, crude, and generates more sympathy for Sajjan than anything, which is the opposite of what they’re looking for (and frankly, what needs to happen). But as with the NSICOP move, this is more about grandstanding than it is about the basic job of accountability. 

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

3 thoughts on “QP: Preferring grandstanding to accountability or oversight”

  1. The Canadian equivalent of calling for Dr. Fauci to be “impeached.” The whole point of this farcical exercise is to try and claw back the QAnon-derangement base they’re bleeding to the Maverick and Mad Max cults in the polls. It’s Cold War fanfic portraying Trudeau as Prime Minister Raymond Shaw, who supposedly let “Chinese spies” into the country who then unleashed COVID onto the world by smuggling bioweapons to Wuhan. I believe it was Cheryl “Goofus” Gallant who actually tweeted as much.

    Shame on Michael Chong, kapo sellout that he is, going along with this ridiculous McCarthy inquisition into the supposed “yellow peril,” a witch hunt campaign that is having an effect of riling up hate crimes against Asian people. That *this guy* was once heralded as one of the last hopes for Red Toryism seems utterly quaint now.

    Beyond that, the Cons’ over-the-top hyperbole about Sajjan is just abhorrent and unwatchable, particularly when coming from Mr. “Top Gun” Flight of the Navigator himself. One can’t help but wonder if his loud, obsessive pursuit of Sajjan as some sort of stolen-valour enabler of the worst elements of the military old boys’ network is just bog-standard desperation considering his abysmal polling… or if Sergeant Schultz the Oberdumkopf has some secrets of his own in his “stellar military career”? “I know nothing, I see nothing…” Just asking questions, inquiring minds want to know.

    Let’s just hope the Cons’ complete mutation into a Canadian branch plant of the GQP doesn’t result with a Parliament Hill Putsch, amid a desperate Donald O’Toole suddenly sprouting orange hair and hollering that Sleepy Justin rigged the election while hiding in the basement. This party is dangerously unfit for office.

  2. What happens in Question Period is a lot like a Soap Opera, it repeats itself constantly and little moves forward. No wonder it was called BS theatre. They should do away with it to save money and time.

  3. And larrymuffin, the electorate don’t pay much attention to the idiotic bleatings of the opposition, especially the cons, the election is coming and there will be plenty of opportunity to show up the behaviour of these miscreants. It is just a show.

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