The prime minister was off in Vaughan, Ontario, a housing announcement, while his deputy was on her way to Kingston for a separate event, while some of the other leaders were present in the Chamber. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, reciting talking points and misleading about the promise around food prices, demanded they be reduced immediately. François-Philippe Champagne said that first Poilievre was trying to tell people to buy crypto and now he wanted them to buy $120 turkeys, but they needed to support their legislation on competition. Poilievre called Champagne the “turkey in this joke,” and decried that the price of turkey had gone up 67 percent in eight years. Speaker Fergus warned about comparing members to animals, before Champagne listed the ways in which they are trying to rein in grocery prices. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his demand to bring down prices in the next four days. Champagne loudly declared that he would take no lessons from the Conservatives, and said that he found a Butterball for Poilievre for $30. He got warned about using props, and Poilievre made a little pun about people not wanting Champagne for Thanksgiving, and complained that turkeys these days are skimpy and looked like they have been “taxed to death.” Champagne tried to come back with people not having fun these days, and got applauded by the Conservative benches, before he pitched support for their competition bill. Poilievre gave a few more of his slogans, and Champagne said that the best way to help Canadians was to support their bill.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he railed that Marc Miller not admitting that French is in decline in Quebec. Pablo Rodriguez cautioned that they need to be careful with statistics, because more people are speaking French than ever before, and stated that he was living proof because he grew up speaking Spanish and is now a francophone. Therrien railed that it meant the government could not understand about settlement capacity, and this time Miller got up to point that the statistics the Bloc are citing are about “mother tongue” which is not the same thing as people not speaking French, and that they shouldn’t misrepresent the situation.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he railed that the government is not helping with the price of food by not stamping down on corporate greed. Anita Anand took this one, and patted herself on the back for the government’s programmes to help Canadians. Singh worried that Shopper’s Drug Mart is rolling out American-style healthcare, to which Mark Holland patted himself of the back for reducing drug costs through bulk purchasing and working on pharmacare legislation.

Round two, and Leslyn Lewis blamed food bank use on the carbon price (Bendayan: If you want to see grocery prices lowered, why is your party obstructing our legislation), and Kyle Seeback gave a specious comparison of food price inflation and the length of the Supply-and-Confidence Agreement with the NDP (Bendayan: How can you pretend to be sincere about your concern while you use procedural tactics to obstruct our bill to help Canadians?), and Luc Berthold railed that the government has four days to bring food prices down—which again was not the promise (St-Onge: You are selective on your facts because climate change is driving up food prices thanks to poor harvests).

St-Onge called out the Conservatives on being “selective with their facts” on food prices and pointed out that climate change has impacted harvests, which drives up prices.
We need more of this! #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 5, 2023

Denis Trudel demanded the government turn over $900 million in housing funds to Quebec immediately (Rodriguez: We don’t need threats to shouting from the Bloc, while we are working with the province; Fraser: You know full well I have been in discussion with my Quebec counterpart; Martinez Ferrada: We agree this is urgent and we voted together for Quebec, but the Bloc is sour that they are not at the bargaining table).

Dan Albas made some bad puns about food prices (Holland: Remember eight years ago when 2.4 million more people were in poverty when you guys refused to do anything about it), Karen Vecchio gave some outrage about food prices (Bendayan: You should support our bill), and Jacques Gourde decried carbon prices (van Koeverden: There is no federal carbon price in Quebec).

Vecchio: This prime minister is “worth not the cost…”
Did Yoda write that script? #QP pic.twitter.com/ksqucBNMc8

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 5, 2023

Alexandre Boulerice demanded the government build more low-income housing (Fraser: I agree we need to do more and we have been) and Matthew Green angrily demanded the release of the Deschênes Report—not specifying that he wants the unredacted files released (Virani: Senior official are reviewing the document and will come up with options soon).

Round three saw questions on food bank use (Bendayan: You should support our bill; Fraser: You should support our bill; van Koeverden: Climate change has had an impact on the agricultural sector and we are supporting farmers; Climate rebate cheques will be in people’s bank accounts next week), temperatures reaching record levels but oil production is still increasing (van Koeverden: We have set a cap for oil and gas emissions and those companies have proved that they are capable of innovating; Dabrusin: Your leader was all for developing the oil sector in Quebec when he was environment minister), allegations around the Sustainable Development Fund (Champagne: When we heard about he problems, we got an investigation and are taking action), the so-called “podcast registry” (St-Onge: Here are experts who are calling the Conservatives out for disinformation), RCMP investigations into contractors on the ArriveCan app (Virani: Misconduct in procurement is never acceptable, but we won’t comment to preserve the integrity of the investigation), an increase business insolvency (Valdez: You voted against help for small businesses), privatising healthcare (Holland: We will defend healthcare), and something about Taiwan amidst some childish insults (Joly: We should counter any foreign interference, and Justice Hogue’s inquiry is underway).

Overall, the worst thing about approaching holidays are the terrible themed questions, and the absolute worst are the puns, and we got a few absolutely awful food puns today. Things got a little rowdier today, and Fergus tried to keep a lid on some of it, but MPs will be true to form in no time. Otherwise, Conservatives continued to misrepresent what the prime minister’s promise was around grocery prices by Thanksgiving—the promise was about having a plan in place by Thanksgiving, and lo, it was announced after QP finished, but Conservatives will claim that the promise was broken because prices didn’t come down before Monday, even though that wasn’t what was promised. But mendacity remains the order of the day (especially from Rachael Thomas, who gets a special shout-out for just how fictitious her concerns about so-called censorship actually are).

While I am generally loathe to give this government any plaudits for how terribly it answers, I was pleased to see that on two occasions, both Pascale St-Onge and Adam van Koeverden did point out the correlation between climate change, extreme weather, and the effect that has on crop yields, which are driving up prices. The government has a very hard time doing that, and the fact that they’ve finally started saying something is nice to see, but really, too little too late. I would hope that they keep it up nevertheless, because facts matter, and they have allowed the lies to remain in the open, unchallenged, for far too long while they focus more on patting themselves on the back instead.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Julie Dabrusin for a sleeveless black dress with white panels, and to Ben Carr for a dark grey suit with a crisp white shirt and a bright purple tie. Style citations go out to Alain Therrien for a light grey jacket over a white shirt with a navy tie and blue jeans, and to Patty Hajdu for a black short-sleeved top with loud florals over black culottes.