The PM and his deputy were both in Kingston to greet European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, blissfully unaware of what was about to go down in the Chamber. After a lengthy statement from the Speaker about MPs using proper headsets for remote participation because of the need to protect the interpreters (three years too late), Pierre Poilievre led off in French, saying that Beijing has been secretly helping Trudeau for ten years and that Trudeau’s response was to strike a secret committee to look at it secretly, which…is not at all what happened, but why expect Poilievre to deal in facts? Dominic LeBlanc said that thirteen years ago CSIS sounded the alarm and the previous government did nothing about it, including Poilievre who was the minister of democratic reform. Poilievre repeated his same false accusations in English, and LeBlanc said that the announcement last night was about additional measures on top of the ones they already took, which the previous government did nothing about. Poilievre then mocked the notion of a rapporteur, calling it a fake position doing fake work and said this was a cover-up. LeBlanc said that this was proof the opposing doesn’t take it seriously, pointed out that yesterday, Poilievre admitted in QP that they did nothing about interference because it wasn’t in their partisan interest to do so. Poilievre accused the prime minster of hiding—knowing he is with von der Leyen—and this time, Mark Holland got up to give some sanctimonious denunciation that the opposition is playing games with national security. Poilievre repeated the accusation of Trudeau apparent hiding—got warned by the Speaker twice—and insisted that he must be covering up something really bad. Holland tried to point out that Poilievre knows full well where Trudeau is, and he too got warned by the Speaker, before he insisted that they don’t use issues of national security as partisan fodder.

Poilievre accuses Trudeau of not answering questions and hiding behind “stooges.”
Trudeau is currently hosting Ursula von der Leyer. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 7, 2023

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he too complained that NSICOP is secret and that they want an independent public inquiry—apparently ignoring that Cabinet also appoints and sets the terms of an inquiry. LeBlanc said the rapporteur will operate transparently and will advise the government on next steps. Therrien said that this was not partisan but about public confidence, and worried we were straying into banana republic territory. LeBlanc said that the share the same concerns, and which is why they have taken steps since they got elected and are now taking further steps.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the Bloc, and in French, he demanded an independent public inquiry, and LeBlanc repeated that they share the concerns about the strength of our institutions, and to do so transparently and openly. Singh repeated the demand in English, and this time, Marco Mendicino listed the measures announced last night.

Worse than usual today. #QP https://t.co/ZvnQDvwKMp

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 7, 2023

Round two, and Melissa Lantsman accused the NDP of collaborating with the Liberals to cover up the alleged interference (Mendicino: Are you really resorting to denigrating our institutions?), and Michael Chong went on a tear about falsehoods around NSICOP (Mendicino: We have mechanisms to counter interference), and Luc Berthold repeated the same falsehoods in French (LeBlanc: We are putting people forward to testify, myself included) and demanded Katie Telford appear at committee (LeBlanc: Ministers appear at committee).

It would be great if the government could actually defend NSICOP in the face of the bad-faith lies that Conservatives are spouting. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 7, 2023

René Villemure gave his own concern trolling about NSICOP secrecy (Mendicino: We are getting NSICOP and NSIRA to investigate and we will abide by the rapporteur’s recommendations), and worried about the independence of the rapporteur (Mendicino: We will find someone eminently qualified; LeBlanc: You have an MP on NSICOP who can hear the evidence).

There is a fairytale being promulgated in #QP that a national security investigation should be conducted completely in the open. In what universe?

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 7, 2023

Michael Cooper accused the government of a cover-up (Mendicino: Repeating the announcement from yesterday), and demanded Katie Telford show up at committee (Holland: This is a threat against our democracy and national security cannot be played with), and Raquel Dancho demanded transparency (Holland: Your own members sit on NSICOP, and I hope you’re not telling our Five Eyes partners that all of our national security information should be on full display), and Michel Barrett demanded the committee chair answer if PROC will meet today (Nater: Partisan bluster).

Barrett demanded a questioning the PROC chair.
Chagger is present.
Holland tried to answer.
Committee vice-chair Nater ended up answering and giving partisan bluster.
Why didn’t Chagger answer? #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 7, 2023

Gord Johns wanted funding for examinations on a BC residential school site (Miller: I have spoken to the community and will do all we can to help them), and Lindsay Mathyssen worried about beer tax increases (Boissonnault: We are taking this under advisement).

Round three saw questions on food bank usage (Boissonnault: We have supports to help Canadians deal with inflation), housing prices (St-Onge: We have been there for those who need help the most), seniors going back to work (Khera: Your party planned to raise the age of eligibility for OAS), inflation (Boissonnault: Our supports did not create inflation, and you guys have no plan), a demand for a public inquiry (LeBlanc: We have appointed a special rapporteur to advise on next steps; Mendicino: We set up an independent panel to monitor elections), some nonsense about borrowing (Boissonnault: We will continue on our prudent fiscal course), housing in an MP’s riding (Hussen: You voted against all of our support and played procedural games to delay payments for renters), Bill C-11 (Rodriguez: You are siding with web giants against our culture), a BC community’s infrastructure crumbling (LeBlanc: My department officials are engaged on the file), clawbacks of RCMP pensions (MacAulay: We will have more to say on the ombuds’ recommendations shortly).

MPs really don’t seem to understand how a public inquiry works.
Cabinet appoints it. Cabinet sets the terms. It reports to Cabinet. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 7, 2023

Rachel Thomas gives a complete distortion of what C-11 does, to the point of absolute farce.
It’s all bad faith with these guys. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 7, 2023

Overall, things took a much nastier tone today, and the tension in the air, particularly toward the end of Poilievre’s line of questioning when he was knowingly breaking the rules, and where Mark Holland was similarly breaking the rules about mentioning the presence or absence in order to try and counter Poilievre. It’s difficult to try and call out the bad faith in which the Conservatives are operating, lying openly and the government can’t actually say that they’re lying, which makes it frustrating to watch because instead of trying to push back against any of it, the Liberals just hew to their established talking points, patting themselves on the back for the actions they’ve taken, and not really addressing the substance of the criticisms. They could have pointed out that they wanted some distance before possibly calling a public inquiry, because it’s still Cabinet who names it and its terms of reference, which is why they wanted the rapporteur to give recommendations instead of doing it themselves. They should have defended NSICOP and its work. They should have called out the absurdity of the calls for national security investigations to be made fully public (there was a single mention of how our Five Eyes partners would look on this, but that was it). But the government largely avoided any of that. Instead if was just more back-patting that they have been taking action since they formed government, and all that’s merited is Conservatives insisting that they must be hiding something very bad.

Honestly, the fact that this House of Commons can’t have a reasonable discussion about national security issues and the mechanisms we have in place for parliamentarians to examine them is a problem. All of the braying about secrecy ignores that in comparable countries where the committee is parliamentary (and not in the executive) have their own issues too, both with secrecy, that the redactions still happen, and that they have instances where their MPs leaked information. No system is perfect, but there is an opportunity to show that ours can work if MPs bothered to behave like adults, and they consistently choose to demonstrate that they don’t want to. This is damning for our current Parliament, and I’m not sure the way out of this situation given where we’re at with our current leadership and willingness by MPs to utterly debase themselves in order to simply score points.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Eric Melillo for a tailored navy suit with a matching tie over a crisp white shirt, and to Julie Dabrusin for a short-sleeved grey plaid dress with a cowl neck. Style citations go out to Rosemarie Falk for a pink and black floral top with a pussy bow over black slacks, and to Luc Desilets for a powder blue suit over a light blue shirt and matching tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Brenda Shanahan for her black and yellow circular-patterns sweater over black slacks.