In advance of the fall fiscal update, neither the PM nor the finance minister were absent, but so were all of the other leaders. Michell Rempel Garner led off for the Conservatives, and grumbled that the Americans want Saudi and Iranian oil over Canadian imports, for which Steven Guilbeault reminded her that the world of energy is changing, and that the future was in renewables, and that the record investments were happening in Alberta. Garner needled that she wanted Mary Ng to answer instead of a man to answer for her, for which Ng stood up and took exception to how the question was framed, before asserting that she always stands up for Canadian workers. Rempel Garner accused the government of being happy to offshore jobs to climate destroying countries, and this time François-Philippe Champagne stood up to praise their leadership in clean energy sectors. Gérard Deltell took over in French, and he worried about the American EV tax credit and stated that the government was doing nothing about it, to which Ng reminded him of their threat of retaliatory tariffs that they delivered to the US. Deltell again accused the government of doing nothing, and Ng listed how they have engaged with the US administration.

Much louder and rowdier in #QP today. Sounds like MPs are ready to go home.

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 14, 2021

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, and complained that Trudeau was not currently interfering in the fight against Bill 21, and then demanded no interference in court challenges, for which David Lametti recited that nobody should lose their job for how they dress or their religion, and noted the were protests in Chelsea, Quebec, about the removal of a teacher. Therrien then railed that UN Ambassador Bob Rae said that Bill 21 defies the UN Declaration of Human Rights and wanted him recalled, for which Lametti simply asserted that they were monitoring the situation.

Jagmeet Singh suddenly appeared and complained about inflation and the GIS clawbacks, for which Kamal Khera read her talking points about supporting senior and working toward a solution on the clawbacks. Singh then to French to repeat the question, and this time Randy Boissonnault recited a litany of their support programmes.

Round two, and Tracy Grey complained that the government didn’t do enough in the US around the EV tax credit (Ng: During the steel and aluminium tariffs, the Conservatives told us to capitulate but we didn’t and won), Dominique Vien demanded a fix to the softwood lumber tariffs (Ng: The US tariffs are unjustified, and we’ve won every appeal), and Dan Albas repeated the question in English (Ng: Same answer).

Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe shouted about Roxham Road and the rental of the facility near it (Tassi: We paid fair market value for the rental because it was at the optimum location; Fraser: Canada has domestic and international obligations about how we treat irregular asylum claimants, and I am continuing efforts to modernise the Safe Third Country Agreement), and René Villemure called Roxham Road an ethical failure (Tassi: Same answer about he rental agreement).

Michael Chong raised the letter sent to American legislators and pivoted to something about oil versus electric vehicles (Ng: We stand up for all sectors of the economy and the EV tax credit is before the Senate right now which is why we engaged with them), and Randy Hoback raised the possibility of Americans imposing country-of-origin labelling rules (Ng: The WTO ruled this was discriminatory and we expect the Americans to abide by this decision).

Leah Gazan railed about clawbacks in the face of higher use of food banks, and wanted a national food strategy (Gould: We brought in the CCB, and we are committed to bringing forward a national food strategy), and Don Davies raised Dr. Theresa Tam’s report on the state of public health (Duclos: Omicron is a serious challenge and we need to get vaccinated, boosters, and now is not the time to travel).

Round three saw questions on supply management under the New NAFTA (Bibeau: We are working to ensure the measures are respected), mandatory minimum sentences (Mendicino: If you read the bill, you would have seen that we also raised maximum sentences on serious crimes; Lametti: Read the bill, as serious crimes will always be punished seriously, but this is about crimes that disproportionately affect Black and Indigenous people), softwood lumber tariffs (Ng: We are standing up for the sector; Rodriguez: The Bloc is just trying to start another fight), the Roxham Road rental (Tassi: Same answer as before; Holland: If you want to level these allegations, take them outside), claims that George Chahal coached people to fraudulently claim CERB (Holland: Instead of use your privilege in this place to spread conspiracy theories, use the processes available), housing affordability (Hussen: You had no ideas about affordable housing), vulnerable seniors (Khera: Read her same talking points again), veterans pensions versus inflation (MacAulay: Your party did nothing but cut veterans),  not funding Western Economic Development adequately (Boissonnault: The funding will continue and the supports will continue), and some sanctimony on climate action (Guilbeault: If you knew anything about tree planting, it takes two to three years to grow the seedlings).

“I have planted trees and I have been known to hug them,” Guilbeault quips. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 14, 2021

Overall, the overall pattern of attack today was frankly contradictory—on the one hand, pretending that the warning letter about retaliatory trade measures on those proposed electric vehicle tax credits, saying that the government has done “nothing,” while several questions later, that very letter got mentioned and there were complaints about it. Of course, this has nothing to do with there being a coherent narrative, but rather about gathering discreet video clips that are to be distributed as shitposts across social media, so the fact that it is so incoherent is almost a feature instead of a bug.

Otherwise, it was a loud, chaotic and rowdy day in the Chamber, and a distinct sense that MPs are getting crazy and tired, and that it’s time for them to go home again. It’s sad that it took only three weeks for them to get to this point, but the Commons will almost certainly rise tomorrow or Thursday with a series of votes on Bill C-2 and C-3, and everyone will go home to cool down for another six weeks (and then it’s an open question if they’ll actually be back in January, or if the Liberals will try to shift things to almost fully virtual again, citing omicron). To be clear, heckling is not itself necessarily a bad thing if it’s clever and substantive, and it can be, but apparently it’s too much to ask for.

Sartorial speaking, snaps go out to Jeremy Patzer for a tailored dark blue suit with a crisp white shirt and a dark grey tie, and to Karina Gould for a black jacket over a crisp white collared shirt, and grey slacks. Style citations go out to Rosemarie Falk for a black half-sleeved dress with white and red florals, and to Scott Reid for a navy suit with a tan waistcoat, light blue shirt, pink tie and light blue pocket square. Dishonourable mentions go out to Rachel Bendayan for a blindingly bright yellow jacket over black slacks.