QP: Framing food bank stats for their own ends

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Neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present today, nor were most other leaders, save Pierre Poilievre, who is nearly always present. Poilievre led off in French, worrying that 1.5 million visits to food banks and that this was Canada, but he blamed taxes for this. Randy Boissonnault noted that people are having a tough time, but this government had supports available while the Conservatives would rather see them on their own. Poilievre repeated the statistic in English, adding in a “triple, triple, triple” talking point to that, and this time Karina Gould delivered the same response. Poilievre called the $6000 hotel room in London as a (tortured) analogy about this government and that the party was over, but Gould got back up to point out that the Conservatives would have abandoned Canadians in their darkest hour in the pandemic. Poilievre tried to bring in WE and ArriveCan as examples of waste, and Boissonnault repeated Gould’s point more excitedly. Poilievre raised a media story of a family who over-leveraged themselves on their mortgage and their payments have gone up $2000 and wonders what the hell they do now. (The Speaker cautioned him against this). Ahmed Hussen rose to accuse Poilievre of “gatekeeping” rental supports for those who need it and dental care.

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, railed that the dental support was not adequate for Quebec families and wondered why the government just didn’t approach the Quebec government (because federal-provincial agreements are that easy). Pablo Rodriguez chided the Bloc for not caring enough about children. Therrien got even more exercise about this, to which Adam van Koeverden read a statement about the benefit being available to those who need it.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he too raised the food bank usage figure, but blamed the government for not tackling corporate greed. Gould reminded him that this government has raised more children out of poverty than ever before. Alastair MacGregor repeated the same question in English (Champagne: I called on grocery CEOs to task them with taking action, and I demanded the Competition Bureau investigate the sector).

Round two, and Jasraj Hallan raised the food bank figure to rail about carbon prices and “tax raises” (Boissonnault: Are you saying that you wouldn’t have implemented CERB or the wage subsidy that kept businesses going in the pandemic; Hussen: Your leader is the biggest gatekeeper keeping Canadians form supports, and he is just full of buzz words and nonsense), Kerry-Lynne Findlay worried about gas prices on Vancouver Island (Guilbeault: 600 people in BC died from the heat dome, and climate inaction will make this worse; The Insurance Bureau just posted that Hurricane Fiona was the most expensive storm on the East coast in ensured losses alone), and Pierre Paul-Hus returned to the food bank stat (Gould: There is an opportunity to support help for people who need it; You voted against our poverty-fighting measurable like the CCB and child care).

Gabriel Ste-Marie worried about tough economic choices ahead (Boissonnault: The Bank of Canada is independent, and our responsibility is to be fiscally responsible), and both he and Adrienne Larouche wanted seniors between 65 and 75 to have their OAS enriched (Khera: We know seniors need more support when they get older so we have increased supports; Rodriguez: The Bloc has been more concerned with fighting against the monarchy than helping seniors or reducing poverty).

Raquel Dancho tried to insist that Bill Blair was being tricksy with legal language around police independence (Blair: Your assertions are completely incorrect), and Dane Lloyd worried about trump convoluted tale of the RCMP meeting recording and accused the government of a cover-up (Blair: We have no knowledge about this other than what we’ve read in the papers).

Niki Ashton appeared by video to raise a suicide attempt in a remote First Nation and demanded project completions there (Hajdu: We have committed to closing the gap, and have been investing in infrastructure and supports for those communities), and Bonita Zarrillo wanted a timeline on the federal-provincial negations for disability supports (Gould: It’s great that we got unanimous support for this legislation).

Round three saw questions on accusations of wasteful spending under the cover of the pandemic (van Koeverden: Vaccination is great and people should get bivalent boosters; Boissonnault: CBSA is looking into the ArriveCan discrepancy), the accusations that Heritage Canada approached Laith Marouf for programme funding (Hussen: We stand against racism and antisemitism, and removed their funding; They were not approached or asked to run a programme), if the Safe Third Country Agreement is under discussion with the US Secretary of State during his visit (Lalonde: Modernising the agreement is something we are committed to), food bank use vs taxes (Gould: We have supports for people; Champagne: I have spoken to the CEOs and the Competition Bureau; Guilbeault: We are still waiting for your climate plan), inflation (Boissonnault: You keep voting against supports), government spending (Gould: We supported people who lost their jobs in the pandemic and got people vaccines; The lack of compassion for people who needed help in the pandemic is unbelievable), rejecting the Rogers-Shaw merger (Champagne: I did reject it, I denied the license), and delays to travel authorisations for refugees (Lalonde: We are taking measures to reduce the backlog, and are modernising the system).

Overall, there was a very weird tone to the Conservatives’ trying to frame questions around the food bank usage numbers, and lamenting that this is happening in Canada, because their solution was to lower taxes—which would actually fuel inflation if it was actually taxes they were referring to and not carbon prices in bad faith, ignoring that very little of food price inflation has to do with carbon prices, but rather has to do with climate change and drought in food-producing regions. Nevertheless, the “people are going hungry in Canada” line sounds like it should be a call for more socialist policies, but it was not. It was just so weird and out of place that it just made for a weird tone, which eventually culminated in Karina Gould lashing out about the Conservatives’ lack of compassion in their arguments that pandemic spending was too high.

As usual, there was plenty of hyperbole and bad faith questions, but two of the most egregious today were the attempt to gin-up a plot between the government and the RCMP communications officer who improperly recorded that meeting with Commissioner Lucki and the saga in releasing that recording after the fact (which was very bizarre and didn’t need an overlay of a government conspiracy), as well as the questions taking Laith Marouf at his word that the government “begged him” to take that money. Taking Marouf at his word was a mistake to begin with, but I will add that Ahmed Hussen should have stated on his first answer that Marouf was not approached, rather than trotting out his talking points on the first question before giving the actual answer on the second. It’s such a stupid pattern that this government keeps repeating, and nobody seems to learn.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Arif Virani for a navy suit with a pale pink shirt and a blue bow-tie and pocket square, and to Anju Dhillon for a short-sleeved chocolate brown dress with button detailing along the neckline and sides. Style citations go out to Rachael Thomas for a black sleeveless dress over a maroon long-sleeved top, and to Darren Fisher for his brown corduroy jacket with a pale blueberry shirt and a bright blue tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Marilyn Gladu for a black sleeveless dress with a yellow-striped panel across the front, and to Darrell Samson for a black suit with a pale yellow shirt and a dark yellow bow-tie.

One thought on “QP: Framing food bank stats for their own ends”

  1. It is beyond mind boggling that in their haste to castigate the Federal government on every issue including the supply of food at low affordable prices the Cons lose sight of the fact that their core policies over the past decades has always been to let markets alone to let things work out according to capitalistic forces. Now it appears that they want a far left solution to food shortages. The conservatives{oh! how I hate that moniker} are so disjointed, they can’t keep their own reason for existence straight. As for the Bloc…kick the traitors out.

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