QP: Deliberately conflating PCO with PMO

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The prime minister was busy entertaining the German president, while his deputy was in southwestern Ontario talking about electric busses. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he repeated his line from last week about the “special kind of incompetence” for increasing the size of the civil service while still allowing a strike to happen, and lamented especially the soldiers suffering from heating plant shutdowns and new delays for passports. Mona Fortier praised the work of civil servants and stated the commitment to reach a negotiated solution, but that PSAC’s demands are unaffordable. Poilievre repeated the same in English, and Fortier gave the same response, before Poilievre changed topics to the news story about Trudeau foundation members meeting at PCO. Mark Holland noted that this was a meeting between public servants in a government building and not PMO, and this was just an attempt at being partisan. Poilievre tried to insist that there was a whole strange series of coincidence  that the prime minister didn’t know about it, and insisting this wasn’t credible. Holland started off on a response about Poilievre plugging cryptocurrency, but after heckles and the Speaker calming things down, Holland insisted that Poilievre was delivering a confusing mess that was full of things that weren’t true. Poilievre tried again in French, and Holland reiterated there has been no link between the prime minster and the Foundation for a decade.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he too tried to link the prime minister to that 2016 meeting between the Foundation and five deputy ministers, and Holland repeated that the prime minister was not involved and the implication is ridiculous. Therrien insisted that the Foundation was giving preferential access to the prime minister (never mind that senior officials are not the PM), and demanded a public inquiry. Holland repeated yet again that the prime minster has not had any ties to the Foundation for a decade.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he thundered about the civil service strike and demanded the government capitulate to the union. Fortier read that of the 570 demands from the union, only a few are remaining. Rachel Blaney repeated the same in English, and Fortier repeated her same response.

Round two, and Pierre Paul-Hus read the “special kind of incompetence” script and worried tax season (LeBouthillier: You only cut the civil service and fought unions, while we are negotiating in good faith), Stephanie Kusie demanded the prime minister “take responsibility” and end the strike (Gould: We respect the collective bargaining process), and Adam Chambers  insisted that Canadian taxpayers were affected by the strike (Boissonnault: If people file electronically, there is no delay in processing; LeBouthillier: You keep voting against help for Canadians).

René Villemure again tried to confuse PMO and PCO with that Trudeau Foundation meeting in 2016 (Holland: I appreciate the conspiracy theory but it has no basis in reality), and he demanded a public inquiry (Holland: Let’s let David Johnston do his work), and Marie-Hélène Gaudreau made the same demand (Holland: The Bloc is only looking for a fight).

Michelle Ferreri railed about the new passport delays because of the strike (Gould: If you told the truth, you would know that emergency applications are still happening), and Michael Chong returned to the “special kind of incompetence” talking points regarding passports (Gould: During a general strike, by law, passport applications are not deemed essential with a few exceptions).

Brian Masse railed about Navdeep Bains joining Rogers (Champagne: We brought costs down and we are ensuring there will be a fourth national carrier), and Matthew Green poured his own scorn on Bains’s employment (Champagne: We denied the transfer of license from Shaw to Rogers, and we imposed 21 conditions which no government has done before).

Round three saw questions on that meeting between public servants and the Trudeau Foundation (Holland: You are trying to paint a picture that is ridiculous; Let’s talk about walls like your trying to interfere with the CBC and the Bank of Canada; Rodriguez: If you read the story, they say the prime minister wasn’t there and probably didn’t know it took place), why the prime minister hasn’t involved himself in the PSAC strike (Fortier: We are bargaining in good faith), the military bases whose heating plants were shut down (Anand: We reached an agreement to restart those plans, and we have recapitalised the Forces when you guys let spending dip below one percent), the public service strike (Guilbeault: Why are your Quebec MPs so quiet about your leader’s attacks on CBC/Radio-Canada?), Navdeep Bains’ employment (Champagne: Canadians asked us to bring prices down and the way to do that is with a fourth national carrier, which is what we are bringing in), elver poaching (Murray: We doubled enforcement and seized illegal catches), outsourcing to Deloitte versus a contract for civil service (Jaczek: There was no political interference in these contracts), and Canadians trapped in Sudan (Oliphant: The situation is changing by the minute, and the minister is in constant communication with allies and while our diplomats are removed, they are still working to help Canadians in the country).

Overall, the day was taken up by two particular themes—the same ridiculous talking points about the civil service strike, whether it was from the Conservatives or the NDP (where some of the scripted questions ignored who was in the room), and bad faith equivocation around the Trudeau Foundation. The news story that there was a meeting between senior civil servants and members of the Foundation *gasp!* in the Privy Council Office’s offices across from Parliament Hill. The deliberate conflation between PCO (the public service) and the PMO (the political staff), from both the Conservatives and the Bloc, were completely in bad faith. They know there is a difference, but they were more interested in crying to create a conspiracy theory than they were in the facts at hand, and that’s a problem.

Sartorially speaking, let me first note the number MPs who were dressed for Vaisakhi, which is always nice to see. Snaps go out to Anita Anand for a pink jacket over a black top and slacks, and to Maninder Sidhu for a tailored navy suit with a white shirt and orange tie. Style citations go out to Mark Holland for a dusky rose jacket over a white shirt, shiny blue tie and black jeans, and to Michelle Ferreri for a long black jacket with pink floral over a black turtleneck and slacks.

3 thoughts on “QP: Deliberately conflating PCO with PMO”

  1. It is past time for our honorable MP’s to take civics training and be reminded constantly by the speaker about jurisdiction. Every day have to control my disgust at the speaker of the house.

  2. Could Mona Fortier have raised a point of privilege (or whatever the correct procedural step would have been) during Question Period when it was claimed that she was “nowhere to be found”? Should she? Would that have at least shamed the Speaker for not saying something? (Keep for a Q&A if you wish)

    • Not sure it would be a point of privilege because it didn’t prevent her from doing her job. But I think she should have made fun of the scripted question (IMO).

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