QP: Trying to make “Justinflation” happen

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The Liberal benches were again about two-thirds full, and the prime minister was in attendance, so that was something? While Erin O’Toole gave a lengthy speech in the Chamber earlier, he was nowhere to be seen. That left it up to Gérard Deltell to lead off, and he moaned about inflation and worries in the US about persistent inflation—which is not Canada’s situation. Justin Trudeau said the biggest thing that they could do was end the pandemic, which would end the supply chain disruptions that were increasing costs. Deltell cited the “not thinking about monetary policy” quip and demanded limited spending—erm, which is fiscal policy—and Trudeau repeated that they needed to end the pandemic. Deltell selectively quoted a  countries with lower inflation than us, and Trudeau noted that this was a global issue because of supply chains. Michael Barrett got up after and took a page from Pierre Poilievre’s playbook in confusing land and housing stock to rail about inflation, and Trudeau noted that the question ignored the pandemic, and the way to end it was by vaccination, which Conservatives didn’t seem to get. Barrett countered that his riding has one the highest vaccination rates in the country and gave more wrong talking points about inflation, and Trudeau suggested that Barrett’s constituents help convince his Conservative colleagues to get vaccinated).

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried that they softwood lumber tariffs were doubled after the Three Amigos summit and wondered what they talked about. Trudeau listed off items discussed including softwood and PEI potatoes. Blanchet made a jab at the potatoes, and mused that Quebec would be better able to negotiate on their own, but Trudeau insisted that they were defending the sector like they did aluminium (another Quebec export).

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and demanded immediate action on the housing crisis, but Trudeau disputed his characterisation and listed measures in the Speech from the Throne. Singh switched to French to repeat the question, and got the same answer.

Round two, and Laila Goodridge read more confusion about land and housing stock/“just…inflation” talking points in French and then again in English (Freeland: Your plan would have made housing more expensive; Hussen: You voted against all of our measures to increase housing supply), and Pierre Poilievre tried to play stupid logic games about government spending versus housing prices (Freeland: You should check your facts before you come into this House, and look at how much higher Eurozone inflation is than Canada; If you really disagree with Stephen Poloz and that COVID was the time for austerity, you should come clean and say what you would have cut).

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1465767420228947975

Monique Pauzé lamented new oil drilling and the Trans Mountain pipeline (Wilkinson: We are putting a hard cap on emissions from the sector), and worried about the floods in BC increasing the risk of a spill from the pipeline (Wilkinson: Same answer).

Rick Perkins worried about the state of Nova Scotia’s habitual exclusion from softwood lumber (Ng: I have a call with my US counterpart this afternoon and tomorrow I am leading a Team Canada™ trade mission to Washington), Richard Bragdon repeated the question on behalf of New Brunswick (Ng: Same answer), Randy Hoback questioned Ng’s competence with softwood (Ng: We have taken this up at every venue and have won, but a won’t just take any agreement), and Michelle Rempel Garner wanted to know if they would give the Americans notice on litigation or retaliatory measures (Ng: We only have Chapter 10 dispute resolution because we fought to preserve it).

Heather McPherson worried about the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan (Sajjan: We are concerned and it is critical the international community work to meet the needs of Afghans), and Richard Cannings worried that one of his communities won’t be able to afford to rebuild under traditional cost sharing (Blair: There will require an extraordinary effort to recover and rebuild, and we have announced a joint committee to guide the way forward).

Round three saw questions on the “real cause” of gun crime in Quebec (Mendicino: We have increased investigation capacity and are working with the Americans and the government of Quebec), on the George Chahal electoral investigation (Holland: He apologised and is cooperating with the investigation), a “joint squad” proposal to combat gun trafficking (Mendicino: We remain focused on this issue and are promising $1 billion to help provinces and municipalities ban handguns), repairing the ageing Sumas dykes which breached in the BC floods (Blair: We assured the municipality that we will be there for them), only the Red Cross getting matching funds and not other local agencies (Blair: We are there for those impacted), the Pacific Economic Development Agency’s role in rebuilding (Blair: We established a joint committee so that everyone is at the table), touring some “sustainable” energy projects on the prairies (Guilbeault: We are funding a transition to a low carbon economy), housing inflation (Freeland: Let’s set aside partisan posturing and pass Bill C-2 to ensure that there are supports of the omicron variant is serious), rural Canadians deserving support (Hutchings: We have a plan to ensure rural connectivity by 2026), ignoring the Deschamps Report (Anand: I accepted the interim recommendations from Justice Arbour and are laying the groundwork to accept all of her recommendations), and anti-Asian racism (Hussen: We have committed $100 million since 2018 on the Anti-Racism Secretariat, and are helping community groups build capacity).

Overall, the tactic—if you can call it that—of cheap laugh lines and dim-witted wordplay continues unabated as they decided that Pierre Poilievre’s “Justin…flation” was so hilarious that most of their caucus is now using it in their questions. It has as much charm and authenticity as Gretchen Wieners trying to make “fetch” happen. This was paired with the wooly-headed thinking around land prices (seriously, guys—we’re not building residential subdivisions in Nunavut for a reason). Poilievre’s own tortured logic around the correlation between government spending and housing prices is frankly too stupid to even contemplate, and yet here we are. Of course, either Justin Trudeau or Chrystia Freeland could smack some of this down quite a lot harder using actual facts (beyond just pointing out that there are other countries with high inflation as well), because that just devolves into a competition of cherry-picked statistics rather than an explanation of underlying causes. Remember that they fill the gaps with disinformation.

I see we are also starting off the new session with Speaker Rota being useless, whether it’s with the gentle chiding about unparliamentary language, or now with the questions about George Chahal. That is not a question of government business, or has anything to do with the responsibilities or a line department. It’s party business and has no place in QP, and the Speaker should know this and call it out, but he doesn’t and won’t. It’s no wonder that the Conservatives voted him back in (and its was on the strength of their votes)—because they know he’ll let them get away with just about anything so that he doesn’t look like the bad guy, ever.

Sartorial speaking, snaps go out to Julie Dabrusin for her short-sleeved grey patterned dress with a high cowl neck, and to Peter Fragiskatos for a navy suit with a light purple shirt and pocket square and a dark purple tie. Style citations go out to Ryan Turnbull for a coral pink suit with a light blue shirt, and a burgundy tie and pocket square, and to Gudie Hutchings for a long purple and black zebra-print top.

2 thoughts on “QP: Trying to make “Justinflation” happen”

  1. For all the shirt-rending from useless pundits and columnists about so-called TruAnons, the Childish Pigeons of Canada are really the ones who get their talking points from the Extremely Online base, and as a result, they sure love their juvenile meme-making. Next session they’ll respond to Stephen Poloz’s thorough debunking of their BS with “more like Stephen Poo-loz, amirite?” Can’t wait for the inevitable picking up of “Chrystia Freeloader.” One can practically hear Beavis and Butthead snickering while watching CPAC. But hey, this is “holding the government accountable” or something like that. I must have missed that bill passed to reduce the minimum age of an MP to 12.

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