QP: The first attempt to publicly undermine Speaker Fergus

Posted on by

The prime minister and his deputy were in town but away, hosting CARICOM meetings instead, while the other leaders were all present. Speaker Fergus wanted to make a statement about decorum before things got underway, Pierre Poilievre decided to throw a tantrum because he started right now, and had Andrew Scheer fight on his behalf. There was a back-and-forth on the rules and consultation with the Table Officers, and Fergus trying to assert his authority as the Conservatives tried to undermine him publicly. Eventually, Fergus did get to his speech, and faced attempts by the Conservatives to interrupted him with points of order, and eventually he got to the point about excessive and loud heckling, while recognising that there is a place for witty comments as a feature of our system; the use of “provocative” terms that lead to tense exchanges, such as calling one another racists or shouting obscenities; and the tendency to the make personal attacks, including coming up with fake titles, or drawing attention to absences. He promised to use what tools he has to limit those attacks, reinforcing that he has the authority to preserve order and decorum. That would include refusing to recognise a member, or to name a member.

Poilievre finally led off in French, and he decried “inflationary deficits” with a couple of bespoke mentions of Quebeckers. François-Philippe Champagne trotted out the “take no lessons” line and decried the cuts the Conservatives would make cuts to services. Poilievre switched to English to worry about the “middle-class homeless,” and demanded an end to deficits, to which Anita Anand recited the points about the country’s Aaa credit rating and that the government invests in Canadians. Poilievre shrugged off the “incompetent ratings agencies” before worrying about homeless seniors with a specious connection to deficits. Mark Holland said that cuts to social programmes like Poilievre was peddling would make people worse off in the long-run. Poilievre boasted that the previous government balanced the budget will increasing healthcare (false), and Anand got back up to insist that they won’t balance the budget on the backs of Canadians. Poilievre retorted that the government runs massive deficits on the backs of people before turning to the hospital in Gaza, and demanded that they denounce terrorists for inflicting it. Karina Gould said that their hearts were broken for the innocent Palestinians affected and that they have denounced terrorism while they stand with Israel.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he demanded Canada work with allies to get humanitarian aid to Gaza. Gould insisted that they were calling for a humanitarian corridor and to protect the lives of civilians. Blanchet was incredulous that Trudeau had not apparently spoken to Joe Biden since the attack in Israel, and Gould reiterated that they are in contact with allies and stakeholders. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and mocked Champagne’s inability to get answers on how the grocery chains were lowering prices, and wanted support for a motion to call them to committee. Champagne insisted that his summoning those CEOs was unprecedented. Singh got back up ask the question in French—because he needs clips in both languages—and Champagne says that he wrote to the chair of the committee to ask him to summon the CEOs, so he was glad the NDP was on board.

Round two, and Melissa Lantsman accused the government of not getting intelligence from the US on what happened with the hospital strike in Gaza (Damoff: The situation is a tragedy and it is imperative that innocent Palestinians be protected), Jasraj Hallan raced through some talking points about balanced budgets (Bendayan: Canadians are afraid the Conservatives will cut programmes they rely on), Kyle Seeback railed about interest rates (Bendayan: Same answer; Wilkinson: You mentioned the shipyard worker so here is some praise for our shipbuilding programme), and Pierre Paul-Hus worried about mortgage costs in French (Bendayan: Inflation went down again last month, and we continue to help Canadians make ends meet; Martinez Ferrada: 98 percent of housing starts are part of programmes that will give Canadians a roof over their heads).

Kristina Michaud worried that oil production is still increasing in spite of the climate crisis (Wilkinson: We will reduce GHG emissions in every sector of the economy), Monique Pauzé worried about the costs of the Trans Mountain Pipeline (Champagne: We recently announced the biggest product the history of Quebec with a battery plant).

Michelle Ferreri read some slogans around a supposed constituent’s concerns (Fragiskatos: Last week I was in your riding to announce a housing project which you voted against but tried to take credit for), Stephanie Kusie recited a one-woman play about the size of the deficit (Boissonnault: I find it shocking that Alberta Conservatives are silent as Danielle Smith is attacking pensions), and Luc Berthold read the same slogans in French (Bendayan: Montrealers don’t understand why you are delaying the bill to build more housing; St-Onge: The Conservatives claim they can teach us about economics, but we had to spend years cleaning after their messes).

Jenny Kwan worried that Toronto’s shelter system is beyond capacity (Fragiskatos: You know that we doubled the funding for homelessness and that Toronto has received $290 million as part of it), and Bonita Zarrillo worried about increased homelessness in her riding (Fragiskatos: Our programmes got 70,000 people off the streets and prevented even more from ending up there).

Round three saw questions on the travel advisory to Lebanon (Damoff: We are never late in protecting Canada, and we have asked Canadians in the area to prepare to leave), inflation (Bendayan: There is no federal carbon price in Quebec; Rodriguez: You should stand up and say where you’re going to make cuts), increasing OAS for seniors between 65 and 74 (O’Regan: We have reduced poverty for seniors, and increased the GIS and the OAS for the most vulnerable seniors), not allowing MAiD for mental health reasons (Holland: There is not one in this House who doesn’t want to ensure that people get the help they need, but also ensure that we don’t trap people in untreatable situations), military chaplains allegedly being told they can’t pray (Lalonde: Hooray veterans, and we will remember on November 11th), people allegedly leaving the military because of housing costs (Lalonde: I won’t take any lessons from a party that cut the military), SNC-Lavalin documents (O’Connell: The prime minister doesn’t dictate committees, and we trust RCMP investigators; Champagne: When we heard about misconduct at the clean energy agency, we immediately investigated and suspended the funds), and the Impact Assessment Act (Wilkinson: You gutted environmental legislation and created uncertainty in the market, while we have a system of better rules, and we will make surgical tweaks to the law).

Overall, the whole the embarrassing display off the top was a prime display of how badly things have fallen with this parliament. Fergus was perfectly entitled to make his remarks before QP got underway, and for Poilievre and Scheer to throw such a childish tantrum because they insisted that Question Period had to be right now and not later was utterly appalling. I’m not sure what kind of polling they have that shows them that Poilievre behaving like a churlish dick is helping them in their figures, but it’s what they’ve been making an art out of, and that is very bad for our politics. As for the speech, Fergus was gilding the lily a bit, and it really didn’t need to be as long as it was to support the three areas he plans to focus on first, but this being said, the Conservatives’ behaviour was appalling and explicitly designed to publicly undermine Fergus’ authority, there was no justification for it.

Otherwise, the rest of the exercise was almost mind-numbingly stupid, from the slogan-filled questions that were largely divorced from reality, to the government’s increasingly non sequitur responses that were basically just spinning a wheel about who was going to answer and deliver the approved talking points (“Conservatives are only going to cut!”) rather than being substantive on pretty much anything that was asked, and yes, the Liberals gave certain of their response entirely with the eye to creating their own social media clips (looking especially at you, Randy Boissonnault). For what Poilievre proclaimed to be their “sacred time” to hold government to account, it is riven with a deep unseriousness that hurts our democracy.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Marci Ien for a fuchsia and blue tartan jacket over a white collared shirt and dark blue slacks, and to Peter Fragiskatos for a tailored dark grey suit over a pale purple shirt with a darker purple tie and a white pocket square. Style citations go out to Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe for a dark tan jacket over a light blue shirt and dark blue tie with blue jeans, and to Kelly Block for a pale pinkish-grey belted long-sleeved dress with red and brown florals.