QP: Litigating the Kabul evacuation

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The Liberal benches were a little over two-thirds full, the opposition benches a little more full than that, and both Trudeau and his deputy were present (Freeland having previously being scheduled to only attend virtually but she was present in the flesh). Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he insisted that the government had two years to evacuate our interpreters and workers in Afghanistan, quoted a CSIS report, and railed at the government’s failure. Trudeau insisted that they stood by Afghanistan, and noted their commitment to resettle 40,000 Afghans. O’Toole noted that 1,215 Canadians left in Afghanistan when evacuation operations ended, and Trudeau praised the work to get as many Afghans and Canadians out of the country as possible in August. O’Toole read scoffing remarks from script, and complained that the election was called, while Trudeau reminded him of the speed at which things happened in Afghanistan before once again praising the work of officials on the ground at the time. O’Toole switched to French, and he repeated his first question on the alleged two-year timeline, and Trudeau repeated about the work to get people out, and work with the international community to resettle 40,000 Afghans. O’Toole then read the scripted scoffing remarks in French, and Trudeau repeated his same answer.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he worried about a potential rule change that would see oil sands tailing ponds being dumped into the Athabasca River. Trudeau read a script about consultations on regulatory changes to ensure safeguards. Blanchet accused the government of being so much in the pockets of the oil and gas industry that it would cause the Conservatives an identity crisis, and a Trudeau read again that they were putting in strict water quality measures in the region.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, raised the coming fiscal update and the scourge of inflation, and then demanded the puzzling tools of immediate housing supply and lowering cellphone bills—a very curious notion that ignores the causes of this current bout of inflation. Trudeau read a script about what they planned to talk about in the fiscal update. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the French version of the same script.

Round two, and Kerry-Lynne Findlay returned to the question of Afghan refugees and a demand to support the Conservative motion on creating a special committee (Joly: I just came back from NATO and we are one of the countries resettling some of the most refugees; Fraser: 500 more will be arriving this week), Gérard Deltell repeated the demand in French (Joly: Same answer, but a little sharper in tone), and Jasrj Hallan repeated the same demand with some renewed sanctimony (Joly: We are very preoccupied with the situation in Afghanistan, and this is why it was a priority at NATO; Fraser: If you want to frame this around the election, you campaigned on the promise to end the government-assisted refugee stream).

Kristina Michaud worried about gun control with yet another shooting yesterday (Mendicino: I am working with the governments of Quebec and the US), and went two more rounds of the same.

Pierre Poilievre accused the government of being in cahoots with the Bank of Canada and then pivoted to mortgage debts and worried about a housing bubble (Freeland: You are trying to scare-monger about the economy, look at how great our GDP numbers are doing; Hussen: Nice that you’re finally paying attention to housing), and Jacques Gourde demanded a simplified temporary foreign worker process (Qualtrough: We are working closely with the government of Quebec, and new measures came into effect yesterday; Freeland: You continue to denigrate our solid economic recovery, possibly because we did a better job than your party did in 2008).

Lindsay Mathyssen worried about seniors facing GIS clawbacks (Khera: We stepped up for seniors and we are working to find the best solution to the clawbacks), and Daniel Blaikie worried that there weren’t pandemic supports for people who need it as cases are climbing again (Qualtrough: We have supports in Bill C-2).

Round three saw questions on people having trouble at the border with testing (Mendicino: We won’t hesitate to put in science-based measures to protect us against this new variant; Alghabra: We need to be vigilant at the border; Duclos: Measures take a little while to set up and experts are telling us we need to be cautious), last-mile connections with rural broadband (Hutchings: We have approved projects to continue 98 percent of Canadians by 2026), inflation (Freeland: Let me share some more good economic news), labour shortages in British Columbia (Freeland: If you want to support the tourism and hospitality sector, pass Bill C-2 this week), the nation-wide three-digit suicide prevention hotline (Bennett: We support this, and the CRTC is concluding work on their consultations), energy audits costing too much for rural Canadians (Hussen: Our housing strategy has a rural lens), a proposed aerodrome (Alghabra: I have been speaking to this member on the issue, and we are following up), and the WTO intellectual property waiver on vaccines (Sajjan: We have committed $2.6 billion to the global response, and are working with allies).

Overall, we settled into a pattern of repetition today, as the Conservatives were on the subject of their Supply Day motion, which seeks to establish a special committee to examine what happened with the evacuation of Kabul, and so they asked about it over, and over, and over again. What is grating, however, is the level of sanctimony being employed, because for all of their pronouncements about the promises Canada made to these interpreters and staff, the programme to resettle them under the Harper government was very narrow and resettled precious few of them. Their hands are not clean on this either. For the latter half of QP, their questions all concerned people having trouble with mandatory quarantine orders at the border because of mistakes or problems with the new measures being implemented, but just a week ago, they were howling about putting more measures in place immediately, and when the government did that, immediately means more bumps and problems, so this particular outrage is also fairly tough to swallow.

On the other side of the aisle, I will note that Chrystia Freeland was not as on point today as usual, deciding to answer questions with a recitation of good news talking points. *sigh* This is one of this government’s absolute worst habits, and does a complete disservice to everyone involved, but they keep doing it nevertheless.

Sartorial speaking, snaps go out to Blake Richards for a tailored dark grey suit with a light purple shirt and a dark purple tie, and to Élizabeth Brière for a grey windowpane-patterned belted dress with half-sleeves and structured shoulders. Style citations go out to Leslyn Lewis for a bright fuchsia jacket with three-quarter sleeves over a beige pebble-printed top and black slacks, and to Omar Alghabra for a navy suit with a brownish-cranberry shirt with a brownish-reddish tie. Dishonourable mentions go out to Marilyn Gladu for a yellow and black striped top under a black sweater.

2 thoughts on “QP: Litigating the Kabul evacuation”

  1. Pretty rich for the party of “barbaric cultural practices” that voted against M-103 and employs/employed Rebel Media and its ilk as their PR apparatus, to now concern troll in bad faith about the present government “ignoring” the plight of the Afghan people. Same thing they’re doing with the Uighurs: it’s just more concern trolling to thump their chests about GHINA. All this as they sat quietly back and twiddled their thumbs while Harper did the bidding of the Bush thugs and allowed a child to rot in a hole, only to later accuse Trudeau of giving “taxpayer money to a terrorist” when the landmine of Khadr’s justified compensation landed on his desk as PM. This being the same party that was held in contempt of parliament for withholding information about their own barbaric practices, has the gall to accuse the Liberals of a cover-up. The callous hypocrisy absolutely reeks.

    The minute those refugees land en masse and start the process of resettlement, as the Syrians did in 2015, and Bernier starts rising again in the polls, they’ll be right back to their usual fearmongering about sharia law, “dictator oil,” and “Jihad Justin” installing minarets on the Parliament building and replacing the queen on the currency with the ayatollah. They do make exceptions though, for daddy Harper doing business with Mohammed Bonesaw. It’s the ugliest, most cynical weaponization of “identity politics” that could only come from the rotten benches of the Tory Taliban, aka the Canadian GOP.

  2. Singh got his butt kicked in the election because he doesn’t know what jurisdiction does what. Second he is doing himself no favors by subjecting the Canadian electorate to more of the same and living in the fantasy universe he inhabited prior to his butt kicking. This is simply stupid but stupid is as stupid does. Again, the definition of stupid is ignorance which he amply shows in the HOC everyday, coupled with an absolute lack of common sense. There, you have it!

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