QP: Being happy-clappy about dental care

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While the PM was off at James Smith Cree Nation today, his deputy was present for the first time in a week. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he misquoted Tiff Macklem’s testimony at committee about the relationship between government deficits and inflation, and tried to wedge this into his facile narrative about blaming the government for it, and demanded the government reverse their deficits. Chrystia Freeland responded with the good news that this week, Canadians can start applying for the new dental claim benefit for children under twelve. Poilivre repeated his mendacious Macklem misquote and added in a quote from an insurance company that says they won’t accept heat pumps as primary sources of heat because they can’t be counted on to not freeze pipes, and demanded the government cancel their plan to “triple” the carbon price (which is not tripling). Freeland responded with her happy-clappy good news talking point about dental care, which was not the question, and then added in the country’s Aaa credit rating. Poilievre then worried about Canadians not being able to heat their homes in the winter and again demanded the government cancel the carbon price (which won’t do anything for affordability because the increases largely have to do with the world price of oil). Jonathan Wilkinson got up this time to note their affordability measures like doubling the GST credit, and pointed out that in spite of what the Conservatives say, the carbon price rebates benefit eight out of ten families and the Conservatives campaigned on a carbon price themselves. Poilievre then misquoted the PBO’s report on carbon prices, dropped his “triple, triple, triple” ear worm, and demanded the government cancel their planned carbon price increases. This time, Sean Fraser got up to declare that Poilievre’s questions were irrational, with his newfound opposition to heat pumps, when they are important to people who live in his part of the country, and pointed out that the cost of inaction is too great to ignore. Poilievre then pivoted to the recently announced Indo-Pacific Strategy, and a statement about challenging China for their abusive behaviours, and raised the wave of protests around that country, and he demanded that the government tell Beijing to let the protests go ahead. Maninder Sidhu got up to read a script about following the events closely, and that protesters should be able to do so peacefully.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and she worried about the allegations of Chinese interference in the 2019 election, and in the absences of something more concrete from the government, wondered if the Global a news story was “fake news.” Marco Mendincino stood up to reminder her that they had an independent panel in both elections that declared that there was no interference. DeBellefeuille used this as an opportunity to make the case for a return to the per-vote subsidy as “protection” against this kind of interference, and this time Dominic LeBlanc got up to reiterate the same points.

Rachel Blaney for the NDP, and blamed Loblaws for rising food prices and demanded they pay their “fair share.” Freeland recited her well-worn talking points about corporations paying more in taxes, their Recovery Dividend, and their luxury taxes. Daniel Blaikie took over in French to repeat the same question, and Freeland recited the French version of her same talking points.

Round two, and Jasraj Hallan made up a supposed quote from Tiff Macklem out of whole cloth to demand the carbon price be scrapped (Duguid: It is great news that three Atlantic provinces will now be getting climate rebates), Leslyn Lewis recited some scripted points about how people are suffering from the carbon price (Hutchins: The damage from Fiona is still being felt in our province and my constituents want climate action; Wilkinson: We are in government in part because we have a climate plan which you don’t), and Gérard Deltell made an economically illiterate plea to scrap the carbon price (Wilkinson: The costs of not taking climate action now will be billions of dollars higher by 2025; Freeland: Your leader’s plan to fight inflation was to invest in crypto).

Rhéal Fortin demanded the government release their legal opinion on invoking the Emergencies Act (Mendicino: We took advice from police and other levels of government, and we will continue with transparent while we wait for the public inquiry’s report; LeBlanc: The precedent we set was of transparency, caution, and we invoked the Act in a targeted way for nine days, and it solved the problem), and Mario Beaulieu complained that Trudeau didn’t speak enough French at the public inquiry (LeBlanc: I appeared at the Commission and I spoke French).

Tim Uppal gave a tale of woe about immigrants to wedge into a “triple, triple, triple” ear worm (Kiera: We increased supports for seniors and those who need it; Saks: Thanks to us, 450,000 families were lifted out of poverty in the last year alone) Melissa Lantsman quoted an Ontario quote ruling to demand the IRGC be declared a terrorist entity (Mendicino: We are standing with the community and have gone further than looking at the IRGC and are targeting the regime).

Heather McPherson complained about the state of healthcare in Alberta (Duclos: We invested $2 billion extra dollars a few weeks ago and the health transfer is increasing), and Gord Johns demanded the mental health transfer be sent out immediately with no strings attached, because apparently he wants those funds to go toward tax cuts (Bennett: We already made an investment in bilateral agreements, and we are engaging with provinces to invest additional funds).

Round three saw questions on carbon prices (Fraser: A terrible plan is not taking action on climate change, and our communities are still cleaning up from Hurricane Fiona), the national building code—which is not binding—forbidding heat pumps alone (Fraser: Good on Sherlock here for solving this mystery for us), misquoting Seamus O’Regan around carbon prices (O’Regan: This is a great opportunity to tell people in my province just how much they are getting back in rebates), the upcoming biodiversity conference while oil exploration permits were given off of the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador (Wilkinson: Any proposals for production in the areas under question would be subject to regulation under our climate plan), a rise in violent crime without the context it is still low compared to the seventies and eighties (Mendicino: We are not targeting law-abiding farmers and duck hunters, and you need to support our bill that strengthens gun control; Anandasangaree: A bad reading of Lametti’s talking points of serious time for serious crime), the government being “divisive” (Holland: You guys had the playbook on being divisive and you supported the occupiers), inflation (Freeland: We have taken necessary and important measures to help Canadians), increasing pay for child care workers receiving federal funds (Saks: Our agreements ensure their is high-quality staff paid for their work), and foreign agents in Canada (Mendicino: We just took these actions around the Iranian regime).

Overall, it was a fairly quiet day and there were a lot of MPs and ministers absent. I was surprised that there as but a single question on the big Indo-Pacific Strategy today, but they may be waiting for the prime minister to return tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, there was a continued reliance on the mendacious misquoting of Tiff Macklem and to a lesser extent the PBO, because they know they can get away with it as the government won’t call them on it, nor will legacy media.

Also not surprising was the NDP once again trying to assert that the federal government is able to somehow exert control over provincial healthcare, which is not how this works. Not terribly helpful was the fact that both Jean-Yves Duclos and Carolyn Bennett tend to fall back on supportive-sounding reassurances rather than calling out the provinces for not doing their jobs and for resisting the federal government’s attempts to give them more money but with accountability mechanisms attached so that we can ensure that the money is actually going to healthcare. By not explicitly putting the responsibility on the provinces, it lets them continue to get away with blame-shifting and furthermore just encourages the NDP to keep asking these kinds of questions, which only waste everyone’s time.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Glen Motz for an eggplant-coloured suit with a white shirt and a purple tie, and to Arielle Kayabaga for a collarless navy jacket over a light blue top. Style citations go out to Jenny Kwan for a black dress with loud pink florals, and to Colin Carrie for a grey jacket with darker stripes, with a white shirt and a brown patterned tie.