QP: Goading the Conservatives on Ukraine

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The prime minister was off to meet EU leaders in Newfoundland and Labrador, while his deputy was doing photo ops in Toronto. Even Pierre Poilievre was away today, as were every other leader. Andrew Scheer led off, and after giving the new “time’s up” slogan, he misquoted the Scotiabank report and demanded the government balance the budget. Randy Boissonnault got up to denounce the Conservatives for the voting against the Ukraine trade deal. Scheer repeated the lie that the government is forcing a carbon price on Ukraine, before repeating his demand for a balanced budget. Karina Gould pointed out that there was no carbon price in the trade deal, and brought up that Poilievre falsely called yesterday’s Rainbow Bridge incident a terror incident. Scheer demanded the government support their amendment to send more weapons and energy to Ukraine before rambling about the so-called “replacement” temporary foreign workers at the Stellantis plant, which again, has been debunked. Bill Blair got up to pat himsefl con the back for the billions in military aid sent to Ukraine. Gérard Deltell got up to repeat the demand for a balanced budget in French, to which François-Philippe Champagne praised the government’s efforts. Deltell railed that the government would force our great-grandchildren to pay the price for their mistakes, and Champagne implored for them to pass their affordability bill.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he decried the plan for interprovincial labour mobility for healthcare workers, and railed that this would disadvantage Quebec. Boissonnault pointed pivot that the federal government transfers hundreds of millions of dollars to Quebec to help francisise immigrants. Therrien insisted that all the federal government needed to do was increase transfers so that Quebec could hire more doctors on their own, to which Pablo Rodriguez said that Canadians can work together, whether the Bloc likes it or not.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he accused the industry minister of not doing anything about the grocery CEOs. Champagne insisted that he stared down those CEOs and he forced them to stabilise prices, before imploring them to pass the affordability bill. Alistair MacGregor gave the English version of the same question, and Champagne accused the NDP of not doing anything for consumers and again implored them to pass that bill.

Round two, and Jasraj Hallan read a list of scripted slogans (Bendayan: What’s up in this country is home construction; Fraser: You didn’t even read the document), Adam Chambers recited the slogans before pulling in the Bank of Canada (Bendayan: You voted against us lower taxes; Champagne: We are drawing in investment while you want to return us to the Stone Age), and Rachael Harder read the same scripted slogans with added aggression (Bendayan: You only want to cut supports people need; Holland: You would have to cut massively to do what you say you want to).

Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe wanted more reimbursement to Quebec for asylum seekers (Miller: The relationship is a two-way street, and this is actually an area of shared jurisdiction, and we sent them $600 million last year).

Kelly Block demanded the government force the Senate to pass the bill on another carbon price carve-out (Ng: You had a choice to pass the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement because you want to focus on a red herring; Gould: Ukraine pointed out that the bill doesn’t impose a carbon price and you are just being irresponsible), and Richard Lehoux demanded the same in French (Rodriguez: Climate change raises food prices with droughts and floods).

Jenny Kwan demanded affordable homes immediately (Fraser: There are existing programmes that still have money that are supporting projects, and the lag on new money gives them time to get their permits in place), and Leah Gazan decried that MMIW as not in the fiscal update (Anandasangaree: We are taking a whole-of-government approach, and we invested in Budget 2023).

Round three saw questions on the falsehood about “replacement” workers at the Stellantis plant (Ng: Let me talk about the Canada-Ukraine trade agreement; Champagne: It’s amazing to see the lengths the Conservatives will go to spread misinformation, and let me quote someone who says this they don’t have the faintest idea of what they’re talking about; Boissonnault: You are trying to hinder the jobs at the plant), demanding the oil and gas emissions cap before COP28 (Guilbeault: We have taken measures and the cap is coming by the end of the year), the situation at SDTC (Champagne: We want to get to the bottom of it, which is why we launched an investigation; Gould: You are hiding why you won’t support the Ukraine trade deal), the ArriveCan contracts (LeBlanc: Those contracts were tended by public servants), putting organ donation on tax forms (Bibeau: The most recent numbers indicate that 2.45 million people have taken this up), the infrastructure gap with First Nations (Atwin: We have done more than by other government to close that gap, and are supporting 9000 projects), and demands for a ceasefire in Israel (Joly: We are preoccupied with the situation in Gaza, and we welcome the humanitarian pause starting tomorrow).

Overall, it wasn’t quite as bad as yesterday, but the level of outright mendacity was still pretty high, whether it was Andrew Scheer repeating the lie that Canada is trying to impose a carbon price on Ukraine, or the continued attempts to mischaracterize what is happening at the Stellantis plant. Ministers were actively pushing back on the Ukraine issue today, going so far a to quote Ukrainian officials in pointing out that this was not an imposition, that they’ve had a carbon price of their own since 2011, but they still haven’t properly responded to the Stellantis issue or explained just once that there will need to be some people to come over from South Korea temporarily to install proprietary technology, but that doesn’t make them “replacement workers,” (a term the Conservatives are only using because of the Liberal bill to ban replacement workers during a strike, because they are that mendacious).

Meanwhile, the Liberals were goading the Conservatives on the Ukrainian issue, trying to force a confrontation, but the most egregious behaviour was using all of their backbench questions to essentially deliver speeches that purported to ask a rhetorical question at the end. One of those essentially got smacked down by the Speaker, who warned them about doing this already, but they’re still doing it because they think they can get away with it, and they did on the other two of their questions. This betrays the whole reason why backbench questions exist, and the Liberals have been egregious offenders of abusing them for stupid back-patting exercises, rather than doing the job that backbenchers are still supposed to be doing of holding their own government to account. I’m glad the Speaker smacked down at least one of these questions, because maybe it’ll give the Liberals a clue that they should be behaving (because the Conservatives are not the only offenders, in spite of what some people may believe).

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Mark Miller for a dark grey suit with a crisp white shirt and a hot pink tie, and to Monique Pauzé for a tailored black pinstriped suit over a white collared shirt. Style citations go out to Marie-Claude Bibeau for a black smock top with big pink roses across it over black slacks, and Greg McLean for a dark brown suit over a white shirt with a purplish tie and a white pocket square. Dishonourable mention goes out to Darrell Samson for a black suit with a pale yellow shirt and bow tie, and Cheryl Gallant for a mustard dress with black trim under a black jacket.