QP: Demanding the inflation target

Posted on by

With the prime minister virtually attending Biden’s “democracy summit,” and Chrystia Freeland absent, it was promising to be a rockier day in the Commons. Erin O’Toole led off, his script on his mini-lectern, and he brayed about inflation, housing prices, and coming interest rate hikes. Ahmed Hussen reminded him that they were the federal party that restored leadership to the housing file and he praised the National Housing Strategy. O’Toole raised the prospect of predicted food price hikes, and then pretended that Trudeau and Freeland were in the Chamber and not answer, and Randy Boissonnault, in his role as associate finance minster, reminded O’Toole about the Bank of Canada’s inflation target. O’Toole pretended that the prime minster ignored his responses about the Bank’s mandate and worried it would be changed, to which Boissonnault reminded him that the Bank is independent. O’Toole switched to French to misleadingly say that the Liberals planned to abandon the inflation targeting mandate, and Hussen repeated his first response, and called out the nonsense in the Conservatives’ supply day motion. O’Toole returned to braying about inflation in French, and Boissonnault repeated in French about the Bank’s mandate, before reciting some good news talking points.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried that the Auditor General showed that thirty percent of COVID tests were lost or mislabelled, for which Duclos said that he thanked the AG for her work, and said they would examine the results. Therrien worried about the stat that fourteen percent of those tested were never notified, but Duclos gave a bromide about working to prevent omicron.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and after citing a report on growing inequality (I would be dubious of that given that the Canadian trajectory has not been the same as the US), and he demanded a tax on the super-wealthy, for which Boissonnault listed measures to help those in need. Singh repeated the question in French, and Boissonnault read measures in the Liberal platform about taxing banks and insurance companies.

Round two, and Blake Richards read a stilted script about inflation (Boissonnault: We lowers taxes on the middle class and have been making life more affordable; Do you want to invest more or less in Canadians?), Richard Martel repeated the question in French (Boissonnault: Here are ways we are making life more affordable; Hussen: We are helping with housing), and Pierre Poilievre spouted a bunch of hysterical nonsense about inflation (Boissonnault: The Bank is independent; everyone is agreed that this inflation is a global problem).

Rhéal Fortin railed about the ease at which criminals could access handguns in Montreal (Mendicino: We are working to stop illegal firearms), and Kristina Michaud demanded an immediate solution to these firearms (Mendicino: We are the government that strengthened gun control and added resources at the border to stop the flow), and Fortin got back up to demand more action (Mendicino: We have made important investments to improve the investigative capacity).

Stephanie Kusie worried that street gangs in Montreal used pandemic assistance to buy guns, in both official languages (Qualtrough: We don’t tolerate fraud and are working to hold them to account; Mendicino: We have taken concrete action to tackle gun crime and when will the Conservatives get on board?).

Rachel Blaney worried about food inflation versus the GIS clawback (Khera: We have been there to help the most vulnerable and we are working on the clawback issue), and Alexandre Boulerice asked about the employees in the Auditor General’s office who are on strike (Fortier: We are determined to come to an agreement, and negotiations are underway, but won’t discuss things in public).

Round three saw questions on modernising the Official Languages Act (Petitpas-Taylor: The protection and promotion of French is important to us and the bill will be tabled shortly), an allegation that a Liberal MP advised his constituents to fraudulently claim CERB (Qualtrough: We are systematically following up on all complaints), EI sickness benefits (Qualtrough: We committed to extending benefits from 15 to 26 weeks, and are in consultations about modernising the whole system), vaccinated travellers being sent to quarantine (Mendicino: We won’t hesitate to protect Canadians and the ArriveCan app is a vital tool), Russia’s Arctic operations (Duclos: I know the minister of defence is alive to this issue), seniors facing inflation (Khera: We have strengthened benefits for seniors), “Communist China” moving on Taiwan (Bibeau: We are concerned about Taiwan and Canada has a role to play in peace and security in the region), RCMP contract negotiations (Mendicino: Some bromides about the RCMP), “electing” Alberta senators (LeBlanc: We have made the Senate more independent, and it’s ironic that the party of Stephen Harper is concerned about the quality of Senate appointments),  a shipping container spill off the coast of Vancouver Island (Murray: We are monitoring the situation, and the Coast Guard did a good job to save the crew and mitigate the harm of the incident), and people experiencing homelessness in Toronto (Hussen: Hooray for our rapid housing initiative and funding other programmes).

Overall, it was a louder and more boisterous day in the Chamber, but I will say that Randy Boissonnault did acquit himself fairly well with the task of answering the inflation questions on Freeland’s behalf (though, as always, better is always possible and he could have done things like quote from yesterday’s forward guidance by the Bank of Canada). I would also note the return of the particular tactic that both Erin O’Toole and Pierre Poilievre employed of pretending that both Trudeau and Freeland were present and refusing to answer questions. This particular technique was previously employed by Andrew Scheer to feed shitpost content, so I would not be too surprised if that makes a comeback—and nobody can say anything because you can’t call attention to the presence or absence of a member in the Chamber. It’s a stupid childish game, but that is pretty much wholly in line with where the party is these days.

Sartorial speaking, snaps go out to David Lametti for a navy suit and bowtie with a crisp white shirt, and to Jennifer O’Connell for a black suit with a light blue collared shirt. Style citations go out to Louise Chabot for a light grey overly-large belted jacket over a darker grey top with a floral-ish pattern, and black slacks, and to Martin Shields for a navy suit with a burgundy shirt, white and orange striped tie and a green pocket square.

One thought on “QP: Demanding the inflation target”

  1. O’Toole and his pet parrot Pepe Pinocchio are clearly laying out the cons’ quarterly growth targets. As in, how much more growth will their noses (beaks?) continue to see, from all the lies they tell day in and day out.

Comments are closed.