QP: Needling about the usefulness of competing housing plans

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While the prime minister was still at the United Nations, his deputy was back in Ottawa and introduced a bill earlier in the day, but was absent from Question Period as it got underway, as was at least one other leader. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he cited documents published by the Bank of Canada where the governors are worried about creating false hopes about interest rates, and blamed Chrystia Freeland for creating those false hopes when she declared victory over inflation, and it has gone up since, and blamed deficits for this rise (which is not true). François-Philippe Champage replied in English that the last time Poilievre gave people advice, it was to buy crypto, and then patted himself on the back for tabling the bill on removing GST from apartment buildings and reforming competition law. Poilievre accused him of auditioning for the prime minister’s job, and repeated in English his accusation about Freeland and the nonsense about the deficit. This time Anita Anand got up, and she insisted that the government has a plan, unlike the Conservatives, and listed a few measures. Poilievre said that judging by applause, Champagne has a lead in leadership ambitions to Anand before using that as a segue to repeat the line about the Bank of Canada worrying about false hopes. Champagne got back up to again praise the bill they introduced earlier in the day. Poilievre blamed the federal government for housing price, and Sean Fraser got up to say that Poilievre’s plan only tinkers around the edges and doesn’t do anything measurable, and gave a couple of examples, calling Poilievre a “pretender” hanging things in the window. Poilievre insisted that his plan would ensure that nobody got tax breaks for $10 million luxury penthouse apartments, while his plan would get homes built. Fraser insisted that Poilievre’s plan wouldn’t do what he claims, that his government was doing what experts said, and that Poilievre may need to go back to him image consultant and start wearing glasses again if he couldn’t see that.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he complained that the government was going to impose conditions on the $900 million in housing accelerator funds when social housing is a provincial responsibility. Fraser insisted that he was working with his counterpart in Quebec, in both languages. Blanchet insisted that the government was wasting time while seniors were not getting help with the cost of living, as big oil was making profits. (That’s…a stretch). Jonathan Wilkinson reminded him that they have been eliminating subsidies for the industry while working to create good green jobs.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and railed that the legislation on eliminating the GST on apartment buildings did not contain a definition of affordable. Soraya Martinez Ferrada praised their national housing strategy. Lindsay Mathyssen complained that the government isn’t stopping landlords from evicting people (which is a provincial responsibility), and demanded a federal acquisition fund to buy buildings to keep them affordable. Fraser patted himself on the back for their previous announcement in London, Ontario.

Round two, and Poilievre got back up to take swipes at Fraser and accused him of losing track of a million immigrants when he was minister—which is specious and on the border of outright mendacious (Miller: The leader of the opposition is thin-skinned and international students are the future of the country and we need to work with provinces and to crack down on fraudulent agents, but this shouldn’t be partisan; Gould: While you focus on us, we focus on Canadians).

Because of the noise, Rota called on Kevin Vuong who worried about apartheid-era policies in the visa office in South Africa (Miller: We are taking measures to deal with systemic racism).

Andrew Scheer got up to recite some completely illiterate nonsense about “inflationary deficits” (Bendayan: Canadians say they want lower rent and cheaper groceries, and our bill today does just that; Sudds: Hooray for the Canada Child Benefit), and Pierre Paul-Hus insisted that Quebeckers are hardest hit by inflation (Bendayan: Conservatives don’t connect with Quebec because Conservatives only want to cut programmes).

Kristina Michaud repeated comments at the UN about Canada not living up to its climate obligations (van Koeverden: We will meet our 2030 goals), and Monique Pauzé demanded immediate climate action (van Koeverden: We are taking actions that reduce emissions and increase our competitiveness).

Tracy Gray worried a couple in her riding whose mortgage rate increased precipitously (Fraser: We feel the pain of Canadians but we can’t ignore the global causes of inflation; Bendayan: Canadians are hurting, and I don’t understand why you don’t want to help them), and John Brassard read some slogans about inflation and seniors (O’Regan: We have ensured they get pensions at 65 unlike you guys).

Taylor Bachrach demanded the emissions cap rules (Wilkinson: We have one of the most detailed and ambitious plans in the world, and we have measures that are moving through the process), and Bonita Zarrillo wanted immediate supports for people with disabilities (Khera: We are working to implement the disability benefit so that we get it right).

Round three saw questions on dangerous offenders being in minimum security (LeBlanc: Dangerous offenders can’t just walk away from facilities), the Paul Bernardo transfer (LeBlanc: Your asserting something doesn’t make it real, and Correctional Services makes their own determinations), the state of the Quebec City bridge (Rodriguez: We are in talks with the province), carbon price (van Koeverden: While we were hearing from Canadians, some of your MPs were living the high life in London thanks to lobbyists; Champagne: You should support our bill to increase competition; Kelloway: You are grifting and gaslighting; Wilkinson: We have a plan and you don’t; St-Onge: We are behind on climate goals because of the Harper government and the cost of climate change is worse), and properly labelling natural health products (Holland: There were over 700 cases last year of adverse impacts from taking these products).

Overall, the first round was interesting as you had a litany of ministers standing up to respond, none of them did in French (and Poilievre only asked one in French instead of two), but he’s been playing at this notion over the week that Champagne in particular is auditioning for Trudeau’s job. I mean, yes, Champagne is one of the names who is apparently interested in the leadership down the road, but why Poilievre is trying to make this an issue is strange, but as with everything, it’s likely for the clips that they’ll put into shitposts saying things like “Even Liberals are tired of Trudeau!” or something like that. It was also very curious how Fraser managed to get under Poilievre’s skin by not only listing some criticism of Poilievre’s plans, but with the dig about his glasses, and that Poilievre went on the attack at the start of the second round to try and make claims about Fraser’s record as immigration minister (to which Mark Miller was the one to call out how thin-skinned Poilievre is). That said, it was a couple of exchanges with a bit of spontaneity behind them, and proof that this was the reason why Fraser was given the housing portfolio—so that he could more effectively volley with Poilievre on this, better than Ahmed Hussen ever could.

Otherwise, the Bloc have largely lost coherence in their demands around those housing dollars, both insisting that social housing is a provincial responsibility (true), while also demanding that Ottawa should build housing, but also saying to just turn over that money to Quebec with no strings attached, also though that would guarantee that they would build that housing. That train of logic needs a bit more rigour. As for the government, they remain true to form in putting up a line-up of ministers and parliamentary secretaries being absolutely useless about pushing back on the false notion about “inflationary deficits” and about the carbon price driving inflation, which helps absolutely nobody.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Anita Anand for a turquoise blue jacket over a white collarless top and black slacks, and to Peter Fragiskatos for a tailored navy suit with a crisp white shirt, a navy tie and a lighter blue patterned pocket square. Style citations go out to Luc Desilets for a salmon pink jacket over a black shirt and turquoise blue tie, and to Pam Damoff for a black wrap dress with a beige paisley pattern. Dishonourable mention goes out to Karen Vecchio for a dark yellow long-sleeved top under a black sleeveless long jacket and black slacks.

One thought on “QP: Needling about the usefulness of competing housing plans”

  1. Always an informative read Dale. Thanks for suffering through it and putting it all into context

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