QP: Why are you sending cheques?

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It’s the beginning of the last week of the sitting calendar, and none of the leaders were present, in person or virtually. The Liberal benches once again remained virtually empty, save Anita Vandenbeld, who swapped with Mark Gerretsen a short while later. Candice Bergen led off in person, raising the story that Liberal MPs have been sending cheques to Tom Pitfield’s company, given his friendship with the prime minster. Pablo Rodriguez responded that this was for a system to help manage constituency files. Bergen tried again, and this time Rodriguez insisted that the Conservatives were obstructing the agenda. Bergen, after starting off with the wrong script, then demanded that the government demand that the president of PHAC turn over documents related to the National Microbiology Lab firings, for which Patty Hajdu admonished her for playing games with national security, given that the documents were given to NSICOP. Gérard Deltell took over in French to repeat the demand, and Hajdu warned that the Conservatives were playing a dangerous game with national security, and quoted Thomas Juneau about his concerns. Deltell tried again, and Hajdu quoted Stephanie Carvin this time.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1407050831128584198

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded that EI reform better cover people in the cultural sector, and Carla Qualtrough assured him they were working to do just that. Therrien couldn’t take yes for an answer and demanded again, and Qualtrough insisted that the best thing they could do was to pass the budget.

Rachel Blaney conflated the bodies at residential schools with the court case challenging the Human Rights Tribunal ruling on First Nations children, for which Mark Miller stated that there were competing concerns in class action lawsuits, which is why they we negotiating compensation for them. Leah Gazan raised a Black Lives Matter protest about police state violence, and Bardish Chagger stated that they take the calls to action seriously, which is why they took measures in the budget to address this work.

Round two, and Michael Barrett returned to the issue of payments to Pitfield’s company with increasing sanctimony each time he stood up (Rodriguez: This is used to managed constituency casework), and Luc Berthold took over on the same question in French (Rodriguez: Same answer; You are shamefully trying to distract from your blocking the budget, which will end benefits for Canadians in nine days).

Christine Normandin complained that the government wasn’t just adopting Quebec’s language laws wholesale (Joly: We want to protect the French language, and want to protect to work and be served in French in federally regulated industries; This bill is an existential threat to your party, and you only want to pick fights; You just want to scare people, and you should read the bill).

James Cumming demanded that the promised one billion jobs by the end of June materialise (Fraser: Provinces had to introduce more public health measures, and our measures have supported households and businesses), and specific growth targets (Fraser: If you want to compare metrics,we have greater labour force participation and higher recovery metrics than the Americans).

Alexandre Boulerice decried that the CRB was being rolled back (Qualtrough: Our measures buffered the worst of the downfall, but we need you to support the budget), and Daniel a Blaikie repeated the question in English (Qualtrough: The CRB is one part of a comprehensive suite of measures).

Round three saw questions on the shooting at a Toronto birthday party (Blair: We have taken strong action to strengthen gun control, while your party has promised the gun lobby that you will weaken it), a cancelled contract for X-Ray machines from a Chinese company being at the border (Blair: We have assurances there is no danger from these machines, but we will continue to be vigilant), reforming the military justice system (Sajjan: We are committed to making these changes), and the filibuster at defence committee (Sajjan: The committee makes their down decision, and our members are committed to supporting survivors), market access for farmers (Bendayan: Canada has been playing a leadership role during the pandemic to keep the rules-based international system intact), metrics to reopening the borders (Hajdu: We released new guidance for Canadians and permanent residents who are fully vaccinated), responsibility for job losses (Fraser: You are ignoring that there was a third wave, and our budget is geared to help women in the economy), restoring the BC public fishery (Jordan: We are developing plans with stakeholders and First Nations), a bridge construction in Quebec City  (McKenna: We are making historic investments, and we are waiting the third link project proposal), processing times for parental and grandparental immigration files (Mendicino: We have an exceptional track record in meeting our goals), reopening the border (Hajdu: We have been following the science), and CRA harassment of charities (Sorbara: The CRA doesn’t select charities for audit based on faith or denomination, and the minister does not instruct them).

Overall, the sense of exhaustion of the current sitting permeated the whole exercise, where everyone is angry with one another, everyone is trying to score points, and nobody looks good in the end. The questions around the payments Liberal MPs were making to Tom Pitfield’s data company are not really scandal-making materials, given all parties have a version of this (and Conservatives who were clutching their pearls should do well to remember that they too sent constituency file data to their party database). Is it distasteful? A little. Is this somehow beyond the pale? Not really. But hey, anything the Conservatives can do to throw the word “corrupt” around again (never mind that they’ve thrown it around so much for so much penny-ante bullshit that the term is losing its effectiveness. If they want actual corruption, there are plenty of other countries they could visit that would show them what it really means). All of this was, of course, just warm-up for the absolute clown show that followed QP, with the president of PHAC being called to the bar, but I’ll write more on that later.

Otherwise, I’m having a really hard time trying to understand why the Conservatives think they have a “gotcha” moment with the government’s job figures, knowing that the third wave happened. They look foolish trying to demand that a previous projection be held to unless they think that governments shouldn’t have taken public health measures – and if that is the point they want to make, they should just come out and say so.

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

2 thoughts on “QP: Why are you sending cheques?”

  1. So another election with no opposition platform other than “Trudeau is corrupt.” Honestly, they’re like a broken See-and-Say toy at this point: if they’re not braying, squawking, hissing, or barking at the sound of their own dog whistles, all they ever do is cry wolf.

  2. Cons throw out lies in QP and expect Libs to answer and by doing so add credence to them. I said this so many times…it is long past time for the libs to ignore the questions by pushing out questions that require the cons to defend their lack of veracity. Maybe the libs are not sharp enough or they are under instruction to just acquiesce.

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