QP: Starting the Christmas brawling in November

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The prime minister was present while his deputy wasn’t, as news was breaking both about an indictment around Indian-sponsored assassination plots and a deal from Google on online news. Most of the other leaders were present, but there was also the promise that the one who wasn’t physically present was there virtually. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, claiming that the prime minister was ashamed of his fiscal record and launched into a rant about debt-servicing charges. Justin Trudeau responded by pointing out that the Conservatives opposed their health funding agreement with the provinces and would prefer austerity to the “responsible” record of the government. Poilievre trotted out his line about people already experiencing austerity and blamed government deficits. Trudeau said that Poilievre’s logic was faulty, as government austerity would not help those people. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question, and returned to misquoting that Scotiabank report before demanding that he “get control of his spending,” to which Trudeau said that the media didn’t cover the fall economic update much as they would have liked because they were too busy covering Poilievre’s terrible week. Poilievre suggested he give the media even more money to cover what he likes, before he recited lines about carbon pricing, to which Trudeau patted himself on the back for the deal with Google to help fund local journalism. Poilievre then moved to a juvenile “debate me!” cries, before demanding the carbon price be axed. Trudeau said that farmers are seeing the impacts of climate change, which is glaringly obvious to every except for certain MAGA Conservatives.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he demanded a call for tenders for surveillance aircraft that included Bombardier’s vapourware. Trudeau said that they were concerned that the armed forces gets what they need while keeping the aerospace sector in Quebec strong, and that minsters would making decisions in due course. Blanchet tried to insist this was some kind of slight against Quebec, but Trudeau reiterated his same response.

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video, and in English, he demanded to know where the online harms bill was after a sextortion case wound up in a suicide. Trudeau said that they all want to protect kids, and were moving forward in the right way, and that they need to ensure that they get this legislation right. Singh demanded action, before switching to French to decry that the president of COP28 was trying to make oil deals in Canada, but Trudeau kept going on about the forthcoming online harms bill, and said it was inappropriate to make accusations about actions or inactions.

Round two, Poilievre got back up to decry the rise in housing costs, and worried that rent is dropping in the US while still rising in Canada (Trudeau: We launched our housing accelerator to build more house that will lower rents, and our population is growing faster than the US), decried that the US was building more housing than Canada does (Trudeau: Your plans have been panned while ours are delivering), railed that it takes 23 years to dispose of government land to turn into housing (Trudeau: That underscores the need to work cooperatively with municipalities and we are concerned about those figures; You only sneer and say everything is broken and won’t do the hard work; a TikTok video is not a plan, while you watch too much far-right American TV).

Blanchet was back up, and he launched in to a rant about whether Christmas was racist—which the Speaker wasn’t sure was about government administration. Blanchet said that because the Canadian Human Rights Commission is under government administration, so obvious it was. (Trudeau: Obviously Christmas isn’t racist and that Canada celebrates a diversity of holidays, while the Bloc was looking for ridiculous ways to pick fights), and he tried again, because of course he did (Trudeau: Our diversity is a profound source of wealth).

Poilievre returned to his feet to be the wish everyone a merry Christmas and worried Trudeau was giving everyone a lump of coal (Trudeau: We are phasing out coal while your climate denialism is putting future white Christmases at risk), you are not phasing out coal but food (Trudeau: You should support farmers in Ukraine), and demanding that Bill C-234 get passed (Trudeau: 97 percent of farm fuels are already exempt, while you are not standing with Ukraine; You delayed our bill to increase grocery competition).

Jenny Kwan wanted more help for asylum seekers (Trudeau: We have transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to cities to help), and to Charlie Angus wanted federal partnerships for critical minerals development (Trudeau: I was pleased to welcome too EU leaders to promote our critical minerals).

Round three saw Poilievre further decry carbon prices (Trudeau: Farmers know how important it is to fight climate change to protect their investments; We work with farmers to invest and innovate), the temporary foreign workers at the battery plants (Trudeau: The lengths to which you will go to stand against the new economy; Training up a workforce is good for thousands of long-term quality jobs, while you are just looking for a slogan), a rant about carbon prices and Ukraine (Trudeau: You not only think you know better than everyone here, you think you know better than Zelenskyy; You re exaggerating fears and ginning them up to make people angry). There were also questions on federal funding for English in Quebec but not enough for French (Trudeau: Protecting both official languages is important, and we are investing in official language minority communities, and we send millions to Quebec for francisation; The Bloc is just picking fights), funding for housing Inuit housing (Trudeau: It is important to work with territorial governments and the ITK, but we are there as partners), and doctors calling for the end of safe supply (Trudeau: It is proven that safe supply and harm reduction saves lives).

Overall, things were getting punchy as tempers get shorter the closer we get to the Christmas break, and speaking of Christmas, we got the first “war on Christmas” bullshit of the year, and it’s not even December yet. The background was that the Canadian Human Rights Commission wrote that the fact that Christians get their holidays off automatically and that everyone else needs to ask for theirs is structural discrimination and colonial. Yves-François Blanchet gins this up as “are they saying Christmas is racist?!” though I’m not sure why his qualifies as government business because the Commission is arm’s-length and independent of government. Nevertheless, Trudeau dismissed it, but Poilievre decided to pick this up and did the whole “We’re not afraid to say Christmas” bit, and got into the usual lump of coal nonsense. Trudeau was able to riff on this and talk about phasing out coal, and tried to one-up this with support for both Christmas and Ukraine. It was deeply, deeply stupid and unserious, but it does bear pointing out that both Poilievre and Trudeau are able to riff off of things better than a most other players, be they MPs or ministers, these days, who are so dependent on scripts that it’s stultifying.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Peter Fragiskatos for a dark grey three-piece suit crisp white shirt with a matching pocket square with a pink and blue striped tie, and to Ruby Sahota for a dark blue suit with a white v-necked top. Style citations go out to Jennifer O’Connell for a dark grey high-necked blouse with blue and pink florals and to Darren Fisher for a powder blue jacket over a dark blue pebble-patterned shirt with no tie and dark blue jeans.

One thought on “QP: Starting the Christmas brawling in November”

  1. Maybe it was deeply stupid, but I had a grin on my face. I like Trudeau in combative mode.
    –
    Also, a nice moment today for Pascale St-Onge.

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