QP: Back to inflation

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After a number of statements about Black History Month, things got underway, with almost none of the leaders present—Justin Trudeau is still isolating and not planning to attend virtually, and Erin O’Toole has other problems to worry about. Gérard Deltell led off in his stead, worrying about inflation and cited the PBO’s concerns about stimulus spending as though government spending is what’s driving inflation (which it is not). Chrystia Freeland worried that the Conservatives were talking down the economy, and countered it with the good news about the GDP figures that showed complete recovery in advance of omicron. Deltell dismissed this as being cold comfort for the average person, for which Freeland insisted that this was just Deltell focusing on the Conservatives’ partisan interests, and recited that we are projected to have the second highest growth in the G7. Deltell insisted this was “contempt” for Canadians, and Freeland insisted that she does her own grocery shopping, and that facts and data are important and that inflation in Canada is beneath the G7, G20 and OECD averages. Michelle Rempel Garner took over in English to accuse the minster of being out of touch, and Freeland suggested that it was the Conservatives who should apologise for voting against Bill C-2 that are helping support those affected by mockdowns. Rempel Garner called the government out of touch with average Canadians and were fuelling divisions, and told Freeland to “take the temperature down,” and Freeland repeated her response about the supports in C-2.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and he dissembled for a while before demanding action on the grifter convoy outside. Omar Alghabra stated that he has met with those in the supply chain including the trucking industry and that they would continue moving forward. Blanchet noted that wasn’t his question, and repeated it, for which Freeland thanked him for supporting C-2, and that she agreed that it was important for them to be able to do their work, which is why they trust law enforcement. 

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video, and asked about the blockade at the Coutts border crossing in Alberta and demanded federal action. Alghabra agreed that the blockade needs to end. Singh switched to French to lament housing affordability, and Ahmed Hussen recited this talking points on the National Housing Strategy and the first-time home ownership programme. (Note that shortly after this question, the RCMP moved in on that Coutts blockade and broke it up, for which I half expect Singh to take credit for).

Round two, and Luc Berthold complained about the cost of living (Freeland: Unlike Conservatives, Canadians understand that inflation is a global phenomenon and here are some much higher rates in other countries; Gould: We have helped with the Canada Child Benefit, which the Conservatives voted against; Freeland again: It is only thanks to Bill C-2 that we are supporting Canadians), and Michael Barrett repeated the inflation talking points in English (Freeland: Hooray GDP growth, and I want to thank Canadians for their resilience; It’s strange to hear you criticising government spending when you campaigned on higher spending).

Louise Chabot railed that people are not getting benefits they applied for (Gould: We have hired more civil servants to respond to this increase in applications), and went two more rounds of the same.

Pierre Paul-Hus demanded lethal weapons for Ukraine (Joly: We need to show trust in diplomacy and dissuasion, and we are working with our allies), and John Brassard called the use of publicly available mobility data as “secretly spying” (Duclos: We need to protect peoples’ privacy, which is why we are working with the privacy commissioner to ensure it is protected).

Taylor Bachrach insisted the government protected airlines’ bottom lines in not refunding airline passengers early in the pandemic (Alghabra: We helped Canadians), and Heather McPherson demanded vaccine equity around the world, denigrating COVAX in the process (Ng: We support a multilateral approach to intellectual property for these vaccines).

Round three saw questions on the sale of a Canadian-owned lithium company to China (Champagne: This transaction was subject to a full security review and enhanced scrutiny), Huawei (Champagne: We are ensuring national security is a priority), healthcare funding (Duclos: We have to take action and not just talk about it, which is why we have made investments throughout the pandemic), inflation (Freeland: We are below comparator countries), housing prices (Hussen: You abandoned housing to provinces and municipalities, while we have the National Housing Strategy), EI and CPP premiums (Freeland: This is a false narrative), a demand to enumerate what sanctions Russia would face (Joly: We are ready to impose severe sanctions in concert with our allies), seniors working past the age of requirement (Khera: Your party raised the age of eligibility, while we reversed it and enriched CPP), immigration processing delays (Fraser: Yesterday I announced an $85 million investment and new tools coming by summer), and food aid for Afghanistan (Sajjan: We will provide $56 million for the Afghan people but not the Taliban).

Overall, it was a marked change from yesterday, as the absence of Erin O’Toole, Candice Bergen and Pierre Poilievre meant that nobody was trying to play defence for the grifter convoy outside, or engaging in whataboutism to try and excuse swasitkas or white supremacist extremists, so that was a nice change, as was the lack of overheated rhetoric. In fact, it was almost civil throughout, minus a little bit of over-dramatisation off the top. In fact, if it weren’t for Yves-François Blanchet, the grifter convoy wouldn’t have been mentioned at all. Instead, we were back to questions about inflation, and the Conservatives continued to be obtuse about it, pretending like they haven’t read about the true causes of it and instead are playing the game of insisting it’s all because of government spending, which is untrue. As for Chrystia Freeland’s responses, they left a lot to be desired—it took over forty minutes, to the very end of QP, for her to actually enumerate the real causes of this bout of inflation, but instead spent the rest of the time on the happy-clappy good news talking points about the positive GDP growth figures that were released this morning. This reliance on the happy-clappy stuff needs to end. Seriously. It simply undermines her and the credibility of her responses, which is extremely important at a time when you have an opposition that is more than happy to engage in outright lies and disinformation because they know they won’t get called on it. It would be nice if the government could actually call them on it.

Sartorial speaking, snaps go out to Mélanie Joly for a lavender jacket over a black top and slacks, and to David Lametti for a blue suit with a white shirt and navy tie. Style citations go out to Adam Van Koeverden for a light brown jacket with a light blue shirt, maroon tie and khaki slacks, and to Bonita Zarillo for an orange top with a black houndstooth pattern with a tan skirt.

5 thoughts on “QP: Back to inflation”

  1. As of 4PM Tueday, the Coutts blockade has not been removed. Although a few truckers who didn’t want to be arrested left a new group arrived and bolstered the numbers. The RCMP are hard pressed in the cold and it appears that many more will be required to arrest the blockaders. I have a feeling that this will not end well.
    I am not happy with the politicians of today. Nor am I sanguine about the lawlessness that has seemed to permeate our society. I am searching for some solution that would not take away the right to assemble. I would ask everyone to send a word to your political representative at all levels.

  2. John Cleese said something recently about the archaic parameters of QP, in the age of mass-marketed disinformation allowing conspiracy theories to flourish with backing from elected officials. He said it’s completely backwards that the rules of the Chamber disallow calling someone a liar… while “parliamentary privilege” allows them to actually lie.

    Obviously he was referring to BloJo the Clown back home, but there’s really no difference between his country’s or Canada’s (O’Toole/Poilievre/Bergen/all of them) version of the “Silly Party.” Well, at least 22 Minutes will have the option of running their own parrot sketch about Polly the Pigeon.

  3. I thought it was funny when Deltell talked about IGA and Mrs Tremblay shopping for food. Deltell is a great comedian and should be in Vegas doing his act.

  4. We are going to be learning a lot from these protests — for one thing, its obvious that police are intimidated by big trucks and big (possibly armed) truckers, so I expect that protests in the future will no longer be just pink hats and permits and marches and drums. Also, the Coutts protesters apparently had a second line of farm equipment and tractors ready to run through the ditches whenever any of the big trucks moved out today. So now the RCMP will require massive reinforcements and will need to make significant numbers of arrests.

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