QP: Disney+ versus crypto outrage

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While the PM had landed in Bali for the G20 meeting, his deputy was present for Question Period back in Ottawa. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he worried about children not getting medication, and the report that only Canada is lacking these medications out of 19 countries that one company distributes to. Jean-Yves Duclos noted that the supply has increased, and that hours ago, they announced that they signed a deal with a company to import several months’ supply of children analgesics. Poilievre repeated the question in English, and Duclos repeated his answer in English. Poilievre then misquoted the governor of the Bank of Canada on the supposed “domestic” source of inflation (which is not what he said—the inflationary pressures are largely domestic now because they have metastasised through the economy, not because they were caused by local factors) and then wholly made up him saying that they need to cut wages and increase unemployment (which is entirely false), and demanded to know if the government agrees. Chrystia Freeland praised their “compassionate” and “fiscally responsible” plan, and quoted the Globe and Mail to bolster her cause. Poilievre raised the cost of diesel and blamed that on food-price inflation (it’s not the cause), and decried that families in “oil-heated communities” couldn’t cut their subscriptions to Disney+ to heat their homes, again raising the fake outrage that dominated the country last week, before demanding they cut the carbon price. Freeland noted that everyone in this Chamber is privileged, and that she recognises how privileged her family is, which is why they focused the government’s finite resources on those who need it. Poilievre demanded that the Liberals end their plan to “triple, triple, triple” their carbon price, and this time Fraser got up to take exception to the line about oil-heated communities because his province has seen the cost of climate inaction and worse is yet to come, and after the Speaker had to quiet the Chamber down, Fraser said that perhaps they should turn on the microphones of the backbenches to showcase their climate denialism.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he decried the notion that the conversation on health transfers was futile as provinces we “rolling in money,” and demanded they talk to emergency room doctors. Duclos insisted that they should be discussing actions that should be taken. Therrien decried that the “pontificators” in government were unable to do things like get passports out, so how could they manage healthcare (which no one is asking). Pablo Rodriguez got up and chirped about the Bloc’s recent convention and how their only priority was independence and not helping people. 

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, decried the overloaded emergency rooms and demanded that the federal do something about it, as though it were their jurisdiction. Duclos listed the stressors on the system and called on people to mask and vaccinate. Don Davies took over in English, raised drug shortages and demanded a plan, to which Duclos reminded him that they did announce an emergency importation of analgesics as domestic production ramps up. 

Round two, and Jasraj Hallan worried about home heating before raising the fake outrage over Disney+ (Freeland: Why don’t we talk about some terrible advice from your leader about urging people to invest in crypto?), and in response, Hallan demanded the government “cancel their inflation tax” (Freeland: Your leader still hasn’t apologised for telling people to invest in crypto), Melissa Lantsman decried the “private jets and limousines” to go to COP27 as a demand to scrap carbon prices (Duguid: Eight out of ten families are better off, and we have a moral and economic imperative to do something about climate change; Freeland: We have supports in our economic update), Luc Berthold decried government spending (Freeland: Our economic record is strong and we are still creating jobs; Gould: What you said is false, because we have increased supports while your plan is just to cut).

Mario Simard insisted that the health minister insulted Quebeckers (Duclos: I’m glad you’re talking about spending because that is just what we have done through the pandemic and for other priority areas), and demanded more unconditional transfers (Duclos: My responsibility is not just to send money without conditions, and my concern is to ensure that health ministers can do their job together), and accused the federal government of creating a “hole” in Quebec’s social safety net (Duclos: We have increased funding for measures across the board).

Stephen Ellis repeated the fabrication that the federal government is “strong-arming” the Nova Scotia government on their provincial gas tax (Duguid: We will be there to help Atlantic Canadians transition; Fraser: Governments around the country have done what you say is not possible, and we have all seen the devastation that Hurricane Fiona caused), and Anna Roberts claimed a senior, “Denise,” is living in her car because of the carbon price (Freeland: I hope that “Denise” didn’t follow Poilievre’s advice to invest in crypto).

Daniel Blaikie tried to make “greedflation” happen (Freeland: We have raised corporate income taxes and the Canada Recovery dividend on banks and insurance companies and have introduced a luxury tax), and Jenny Kwan demanded an end to immigration detention (Damoff: We are working with advocates on this issue).

Round three saw questions on Chinese interference in the last election and in 2019 (O’Connell: Your members didn’t care about nation security in the last parliament when your former leader took members off of NSICOP; We have a non-partisan panel on election inference; Damoff: We will never tolerate foreign interference and the RCMP and CSIS are aware and investigating; Champagne: We already strengthened the rules around critical minerals and I named the transactions to do with national security), oil delegate at COP27 instead of the prime minister (Duguid: The oil sector needs to do their part to reduce emissions), carbon prices as inflation (Freeland: Your leader’s plan to deal with inflation was to invest in crypto; Fraser: Plans like CPP and EI are there for when Canadians need them; Gould: We have offered support while you haven’t apologised for telling people to invest in crypto; We reduced poverty for over two million people unlike your party’s government), buying too many ventilators during the pandemic (Duclos: We invested where we had to), mental health transfers (Bennett: We are engaging with the provinces to ensure a comprehensive transfer that will ensure transparency and accountability), and the prime minister not going to COP27, and cancelling oil and gas projects (Duguid: We have the most ambitious climate plan in our history and it will get us to net zero by 2050).

Overall, the level of discourse continues to decline between fake outrage over Disney+ and the calling out of Poilievre’s Bitcoin investment advice, and thinking it’s clever in all circumstances when it wasn’t necessarily always so. The Disney+ thing, to remind you, was because shitposters truncated Freeland’s quote to claim it was her advice to people to deal with inflation when she used it as an example of ways the government was saving money on programmes it no longer needed. But everything keeps bringing it up, because they think it’s clever, just like they dined out for years on the truncated quote about budgets balancing when you grow the economy, and they keep getting away with it because nobody corrects them. Hell of a system we’ve got.

Otherwise, I’d like to remark about how useless Terry Duguid, the parliamentary secretary for the environment minister, is at pushing back against falsehoods and disinformation being spouted in the Chamber, and that Sean Fraser had to come to his rescue at least once today, and that he just lets himself get steamrolled by the likes of Melissa Lantsman because he merely dutifully reads his prepared talking points rather than actually pushing back against her nonsense. Nobody else is going to do it for you, especially legacy media. Push back against misinformation and disinformation because otherwise you just let it sit there and fester, and Canadians wind up worse off.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Arif Virani for a dark grey suit with a white shirt and a lighter grey tie and pocket square, and to Anita Anand for a black power suit over a white shirt with a wide collar. Style citations go out to Marie-Claude Bibeau for a black turtleneck under a black jacket with a gold foliage pattern, and to Arnold Viersen for a blight blue jacket with a check pattern over a white shirt, grey slacks, and a dark blue tie.