The prime minister was present on a Thursday, which is rare, but I’ll take what I can get. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and worried about families who can’t afford Thanksgiving dinner this year, blaming carbon prices even though that’s not the driver of food price inflation. Justin Trudeau responded that they knew Canadians were struggling with the global inflation crisis, which is why the proposed measures like the GST rebate, and demanded support for rental supports and dental care for kids. They went another round of the same in English, and Poilievre listed increasing food prices, and insisted this was about the carbon price, and Trudeau tried to shame him about not supporting “kids’ smiles” before he launched into an attack on the news report that Poilievre had been tagging his YouTube videos to appeal to incels. Poilievre stated that he “condemns this organisation” (they’re not an organisation) and insisted that he condemns all misogyny and hit back about Jody Wilson-Raybould and Blackface, because of course he did. Trudeau pressed on about Poilievre appealing to incels, to which Poilievre again insisted that he corrected the problem and repeated the accusations about the prime minister. Trudeau noted that a lot of admiration was given for Poilievre’s videos during the leadership campaign, and he once again pushed on Poilievre playing too closely to extremists.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he demanded to know the prime minister’s intentions at Roxham Road, accusing him of increasing migrants in Quebec against their consent and of endangering French. Trudeau picked up a script to deliver some talking points about working with the French government around immigration and the protection of French. Blanchet denounced the policies that favour cheap labour (erm, you know the reliance of your province on temporary foreign workers), and demanded the unredacted contracts for Roxham Road facilities. Trudeau, extemporaneously, reminded him that Quebec already has all of the immigration powers they need and can increase francophone immigration if they want to.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he listed grocery oligopoly CEO salaries before demanding the government stop the “greed-flation” of grocery chains. Trudeau listed the actions they have taken to help low-income people, and stated that they are strengthening the Competition Act. Peter Julian took over in English to repeat the question, and Trudeau repeated his same points.

Round two, and Dominique Vien accused the government of turning a blind eye to the abuses at Hockey Canada (St-Onge: We are holding them to account, and auditing their books back to 2016, and they must allow the Commissioner of Sport to do an investigation), Michelle Ferreri repeated the accusation in English (St-Onge: After the story of your leader targeting incels, it’s shameful that you’re trying this tactic), Randy Hoback returned the concern trolling about carbon prices (Freeland: I know you care about your constituents and that they should get rental support and dental care), Hallan said that his leader took action about the incel tags but the Liberals haven’t held their leader to account for his Blackface, and after the Speaker intervened, he asked about taxes on small businesses (Virani: We have supported small businesses through the pandemic), worried about a “turducken” of carbon prices next year (Freeland: All of us should have compassion and should vote for rental supports and dental care), and accused the government of missing climate targets (Qualtrough: We have had students’ backs and are eliminating interest on student loans).

Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe raised the Supreme Court of Canada challenge on the Safe Third Country Agreement (Fraser: Closing Roxham Road and suspending the Agreement won’t solve problems, so we are investing in other solutions), demanded Quebec get control of their own temporary foreign workers (Rodriguez: You need to stop talking about immigration like it’s shameful), and he complained about African francophone students who are not being given student visas (Fraser: Quebec already has exclusive powers over who can immigrate there).

Bernard Généroux lamented food-price inflation and blamed it on the carbon price (Freeland: I’m glad you supported the GST rebate but you need to support rent supports and dental care),  and Len Webber and Eric Mellilo and gave the same carbon price talking point (Freeland: Same again; Freeland: You keep pulling your bill on crypto, so I hope this means you are collectively embarrassed about your leader’s reckless, dangerous advice).

Niki Ashton appeared by video to call the government “fakers” and demanded fair taxation (Freeland: We have taken concrete measures like increasing corporate income taxes, and implemented a recovery dividend and a luxury tax), and Richard Cannings worried about credit card fees (Freeland: I am in agreement, and we are committed to supporting consumers and small businesses).

Round three saw questions on carbon prices (Gould: We have a clear record of support in families but for some reason you don’t want children to get access to dental care; Freeland: Monetary policy is the provenance of the Bank of Canada, whose independence we support, Khera: We have increased benefits for seniors), the number of people crossing at Roxham Road (Fraser: Closing it won’t solve any problems and we need to modernise the agreement), not allowing US officers into Canada to open Nexus offices while Iranian and Chinese agents are illegally setting up “police stations” (Mendicino: We are taking every action to hold those in Iran to task, and it would be a fine moment for your party to apologise for appealing to incels; Your government cut funding to national security apparatuses and we restored it), the IRGC (Oliphant: We all condemn the actions of the Iranian regime, and we have listed their government as the state sponsor of terror; Mendicino: We are holding Iran to account while you just want to make guns freely available), Indigenous mental health (Hajdu: We just announced that today for Inuit), and the cost of the Trans Mountain Expansion (Freeland: We need to get fair market value for our product, and a divestment process will be initiated when the project is more advanced and de-risked).

Some real performative outrage on display today. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 6, 2022

Overall, we had the most fireworks we’ve seen in months, and it’s rare to see Justin Trudeau go on the attack like that, but he did, and Pierre Poilievre responded as he always does—he insists that he condemns the extremists he courted (because he’s always quick with the condemnations when he’s been caught out), and immediately pivots to bringing up things like Jody Wilson-Raybould and Blackface, and then once he’s done, he gets Jasraj Hallan to follow up with added sanctimony and this bullshit allegation that the Liberals have never held Trudeau to account for these things. Never mind that what happened with Wilson-Raybould was not an issue of “misogyny” as Poilievre and others likes to claim, and when it comes to Blackface, Trudeau has put in the work to combat racism since, which Poilievre cannot demonstrate. But again, putting in the work seems to be a foreign concept to most of these Conservatives, who think that simple denunciations are enough as they keep winking, nodding and playing footsies with extremists.

Otherwise, the “triple, triple, triple” stuff kept coming up, and not once was the bad math exposed today, but Freeland was simply trying to shame the Conservatives into supporting dental care, which doesn’t seem to be a very adequate tactic when you’re dealing with a party that often acts in bad faith and who seems immune to shame. The decision to try and insist the government protected Hockey Canada backfired because of the video tags targeting incels gave Pascale St-Onge the most ammunition she’s had against her critics, probably ever. As for the Roxham Road and IRGC questions, we got nothing new in terms of responses, so nothing to report there.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Chrystia Freeland goer a short-sleeved black dress, and to Maninder Sidhu for a navy suit with a light blue shirt and blueberry tie. Style citations go out to Mike Kelloway for a maroon suit with a pale pink shirt and a brown and yellow striped tie, and to Dominique Vien for a black dress with big pink florals under a black jacket.