QP: An amazing amount of revisionist history

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While Justin Trudeau was away at Guy Lafleur’s funeral, none of the other leaders showed up in the House of Commons either, never mind the brewing political storm and promise of some mischief after QP. Luc Berthold led off, and he accused the prime minister of doing nothing about the Ottawa occupation before he pulled out the Emergencies Act, whereas this past weekend, those same “protesters” came back and left, and wondered what was different. Marco Mendicino talked about how police were better prepared, but the measures were needed at the time. Berthold tried to downplay the occupation and insisted that if it wasn’t safe, MPs should not have been able to cross it, and Mendicino talked about how Parliamentarians’ experience was not necessarily that of other residents of the city, and and they looked forward to the inquiry. Berthold tried to be cute and wondered how many people were arrested for sedition in relation to the blockade, and Mendicino waved it off, and said they government would cooperate with the inquiry. John Brassard took over in English, and raised that RCMP memo—ignoring that the memo stated there was no evidence to support a charge—and wanted to know if the prime minister was above the law. Mark Holland stood up to sermonise about the opposition was concerned with personal attacks and not the business of the nation. Brassard gave it another go, and Holland pleaded with them to let Bill C-8 pass.

Alain Therrien considered it arrogant that the government wouldn’t devolve powers to Quebec to deal with their own immigration files, and Marie-France Lalaonde cited some figures about the province not managing to fill their entire quotas as it is. Christine Normandin got up next, and gave a paean to a woman’s right to choose, and Chrystia Freeland assured her this government would protect a woman’s rights, and she expressed shock at the news coming out of the United States, and gave a clear defence of a woman’s rights, to an ovation from most of the Commons, but not all.

Jagmeet Singh railed about an alleged tax agreement achieved with a corporation, to which Diane Lebouthillier said that this allegation was examined by a third party and determined there was no wrong doing and that the CRA came out ahead in the arrangement. Singh switched to French to decry the profitability of the oil and gas sector while getting subsidies, and Jonathan Wilkinson gave a bromide about working with sectors including the oil and gas sector.

Round two, and Dane Lloyd tried to insinuate some kind of conspiracy with the judge leading the Emergencies Act inquiry (Mendicino: We will fully cooperate with the inquiry and he has the ability to get classified information if he seeks it), and worried that emergency measures were not needed this past weekend (Mendicino: This was a very different situation), Raquel Dancho insisted that the federal government apparently had some kinds of powers to have prevented the occupation in January (Mendicino: We acted on police advice), Laila Goodridge worried that if the occupation was so dangerous that the government was putting MPs in danger—when that was not the government’s call (Mendicino: There was a difference between what was going on up on the Hill and elsewhere in the city), Dominique Vien accused the federal government of lacking leadership in January (Mendicino: This was a different situation).

Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe again demanded that the federal government devolve immigration powers to Quebec (Lalonde: Quebec is allowed 28 percent of immigrants but choose to only accept 13 percent), and he insisted this was a long-standing problem (Lalonde: Immigration is essential for this country, and Quebec sets its own targets), and Yves Perron demanded more Quebec control over temporary foreign workers (Lalonde: We processed double the number of work permits as this time last year).

Stephanie Kusie performed a one-woman play about vaccine mandates for air travel (Alghabra: We have removed pre-departure tests at the border), Warren Steinley listed countries who removed travel restrictions (Duclos: The reason we have the freedom to relax restrictions in Canada is because of the high rate of vaccination), Karen Vecchio worried Canadians can’t travel, without specifying that those are unvaccinated Canadians and there is an easy solution to that (Duclos: American lost 135,000 people from a lower rate of vaccination), and Arnold Viersen tried to insist Cuba was more free to travel than Canada (Alghabra: You can’t say vaccine say lives and then say that they are vindictive).

Laurel Collins accused the government of undermining climate goals with carbon capture subsidies (Wilkinson: They aren’t subsidies if they are to reduce emissions), and Charlie Angus gave a sanctimonious sermon on the same topic (Wilkinson: It’s important to reduce emissions and maintain a strong economy).

Round three saw questions on housing prices (Hussen: Here are our programmes, which you opposed), inflation (Freeland: You keep talking down the economy with a false narrative, and inflation has been caused by COVID and Putin’s war on Ukraine), the protection of French (Petitpas Taylor: We are working to modernise the Official Languages Act), an alleged tax deal with the CRA (Lebouthillier: This was investigated and there was no misconduct and the CRA came out ahead), Arctic sovereignty (Anand: We are making landmark investments in the Arctic), rural doctors (Duclos:  We did just invest two billion to ensure provinces can reduce backlogs), a permanent federal transfer for mental health services (Bennett: We made $5 billion with provinces in bilateral agreements, and we are negotiating with provinces for this transfer going forward), culturally-appropriate mental health services for Indigenous people (Hajdu: We are working in collaboration with communities).

Afterward, the Bloc had intended to move a unanimous consent motion about the House of Commons supporting a woman’s right to choose, deliberately setting a cat among the pigeons, but before it could be read, a pile of other such unanimous consent motions appeared on the Speaker’s list, and started going through. And lo, virtually all of them got immediate “no!” bellowed throughout, until the one about denouncing the Russian foreign minister didn’t go through, and some MPs were upset. But more motions came down, the Bloc motion went down in defeat, as expected (and these are simple voice votes which require a simple no to block), and eventually another version of the condemnation motion did pass, but every other one went down in a barrage of boos and heckles, and general asshole behaviour from all sides. You might expect this in the silly season of the late days of the sitting in June, but for it to happen at this point on the calendar is a sense of just how much of a clown show this place is right now.

Overall, it was a bit of a frustrating day, as the Conservatives decided to go all-in on creating this revisionist history of what happened during the occupation earlier this year, and trying to compare it to the fairly damp squib that was the “biker rally” this past weekend, and invented a bunch of federal powers along the way. To remind everyone, Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill is the jurisdiction of the Ottawa city police, and they were the ones who allowed the occupation to get established, and the federal government had no say over this whatsoever. “Federal leadership” would not have done anything about that occupation, until it reached the point where emergency powers were needed (and while it’s fair to say that if police had acted earlier those powers might have been unnecessary—but the police did not act sooner, and that’s the problem here which are outside of federal hands).

Sartorial speaking, snaps go out to Iqra Khalid for a brown suit with a black top, and to Emmanuel Duboug for a tailored dark grey suit with a light blue shirt and a dark blue tie. Style citations go out to Omar Alghabra for a blue suit with a pale orange shirt and a burgundy patterned tie, and to Diane Lebouthillier for a black dress with orange florals in a diamond pattern under a black sweater. Dishonourable mentions go out to Filomena Tassi for a bright yellow jacket over a black top and slacks, Yvonne Jones for a bright yellow collared shirt under a black jacket and skirt, Anju Dhillon for a bright yellow long top with oversized cuffs over black slacks, and Rachael Thomas for a dark yellow top under a black jacket and skirt.