For the final Question Period of 2021—which was still undetermined as things got underway, as the House Leaders were engaged in a game of chicken—neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present, but the latter would appear virtually. Erin O’Toole led off, script in front of him, and he immediately started off with a lie about deflation, which did happen, and he was presuming it to be a good thing because it would lower prices, when in fact it would have led to a spiral that turned into a depression as businesses couldn’t service their debts. Chrystia Freeland, by video, called this out as misinformation, and noted that Stephen Poloz cited that the government’s actions averted a second Great Depression. O’Toole railed about Freeland’s alleged misinformation during the election campaign and compared her to Donald Trump, and Freeland called O’Toole the leader of flip-flops, and noted that in the election the Conservatives promised even more spending while they were currently railing against it, and that a consistent position might be nice. O’Toole repeated his first question in French, and Freeland repeated the Poloz comments in French. John Barlow got up and railed about the export ban on PEI potatoes and wondered why the agriculture minister was not currently in Washington resolving the situation. Freeland assured him the federal government was working to resolve if and noted she was next to the prime minister when he raised it with Biden, while Conservatives advocate capitulation. Barlow insisted that this has basically destroyed PEI, and Freeland dismissed this as scaremongering, and reassured farmers they were working on it like they did with previous disputes they won on.

Erin O’Toole leads off with a lie about deflation.
THERE WAS DEFLATION. IT IS A BAD THING AND WOULD HAVE SPIRALLED INTO A DEPRESSION. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 16, 2021

Another O’Toole lie, saying that wages are not rising. They are. This is all in the StatsCan data. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 16, 2021

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and blamed the Quebec teacher who was reassigned for wearing a hijab, railing that she knowingly broke the law and saying otherwise was Quebec bashing. Freeland calmly recited that they stand with Quebeckers who stand up for individual rights and freedoms. Therrien railed that mayors are funding court challenges, accusing them of not understanding secularism or democracy, and Freeland gave some fairly disarming reassurances that the federal government works well with Quebec and the Bloc shouldn’t pick fights.

Peter Julian rose for the Bloc, and in French, he worried that omicron could lead to lockdowns with no supports, to which Freeland made a pitch for MPs to pass Bill C-2 to provide necessary supports. Julian shouted the same question again in English, and Freeland repeated her response in the other official language. 

Round two, and Laila Goodridge tried to make allusions to 1991, when inflation was last this high (Freeland: Our inflation didn’t increase last month, and our situation is far better than all of these other countries; We need to beat this pandemic), Shelby Kramp-Neuman read some forced worry about inflation (Freeland: When COVID hit, we took immediate action and have since recovered more than all of the jobs lost and lost fewer businesses), Michelle Ferreri noted about food bank use (Gould: It’s hard to take Conservative concerns about single parents or children seriously when they voted against the Child Care Benefit and when they campaigned against childcare), Warren Steinley complained that the government didn’t consent to a constitutional amendment to resolve a taxation dispute in Saskatchewan (Lametti: We have agreed to a debate on this in February, and our objection was to pass a constitutional amendment on a unanimous consent motion with no debate), and Andrew Scheer worried a foreign hedge fund is trying to take over CN Rail (Alghabra: We advocate for efficient and safe rail service, and we are monitoring the CN situation).

This bout of inflation is nowhere near “record breaking.” It was 10.9% in 1975. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 16, 2021

Gabriel Ste-Marie and Mario Simard railed that the economic update didn’t plan to increase health transfers until 2027 (Duclos, by video: Instead of picking a fight, we are working cooperatively with the provinces).

Pierre Poilievre spun some nonsense about housing price inflation (Hussen: Here is a list of things we’ve done, and you voted against a tax on foreign home buyers; Gould: You referred to support for childcare as a “slush fund” which is offensive to families).

Blake Desjarlais wondered worried that the LGBTQ2 community capacity fund would run out of money in March (Hussen: We have always stood up for the LGBTQ2 community), and Randall Garrison worried there wasn’t enough to promote LGBTQ2 rights abroad and wanted a special envoy appointed (Gould: We are doing this work of providing support).

Round three saw questions on Huawei (Champagne: We know that it’s important to keep the network safe, and we are taking national security seriously), new variants emerging because of insufficient global vaccination and waiving vaccine patents (Duclos: This is a tool we are considering but we are concerned with second and third doses in Canada, and we have contribute to COVAX; Ng: We are a strong advocate for vaccine equity and we are working for a solution at the WTO, including IP and supply chains), mandatory minimums (Lametti: Mandatory minimum penalties have been an abject failure on all levels and reinforce structure racism; The opioid crisis is deadly and we are working with provinces and municipalities to reduce harm and ensure safe supply), veterans caseworkers not being permanent employees (MacAulay then Holland: We have supported veterans when Conservatives made cuts), not enough meat processing workers in Quebec (Bibeau: The agreement was signed last summer, and we worked with the unions per the agreement and the requests are underway), the compensation for GIS clawbacks not coming until May (Khera: Usual script about supporting seniors), and First Nations water advisories (Hajdu: We are working with Indigenous communities to raise the last advisories). 

Overall, it was another loud and frustrating day, which was led off with more disinformation, and Erin O’Toole trying to deflect from his lies by trying to equate Freeland with Trump, and I can barely even. This, along with Pierre Poilievre’s continued use of non sequiturs and red herrings to spin his particular housing price inflation narrative—which is wildly divorced from the truth—is exhausting to try and counter. Chrystia Freeland does what she can, and does fact-check part of it, but the government sticks too much to their happy, clappy talking points, and the disinformation continues to swirl in the aether, where it gets rebroadcast by news clips that get both-sidesed, and social media shitposts. Disinformation said under the protection of parliamentary privilege is still disinformation, and there needs to be better ways to call it out.

Shortly after QP, the government won the game of chicken, Bill C-2 was passed, Bill C-3 agreed to be passed by end of day, and that MPs would go home—which is good, because I’m not sure that I have the patience left to sit through a Friday QP under the current mood in the Chamber. It was nice to have a couple of weeks of QP as almost back to normal, but that quickly ended, and we devolved to the some of the worst aspects of hybrid sittings toward the end. I fear what things are going to look like when MPs return at the end job January, if they return then.

Sartorial speaking, snaps go out to David Lametti for a medium blue suit with a white shirt and red bow-tie, and to Melissa Lantsman for a fuchsia jacket, pale pink top and black slacks. Style citations go out to Claude DeBellefeuille for a sweater with striped bands, each a different colour and pattern, over black slacks, and to Scott Davidson for a navy jacket over a light blue shirt, dark blue patterned tie, and blue jeans.