QP: Self-contradicting economic demands

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The prime minister was off in Toronto making housing announcements, and his deputy was on the West Coast for her own announcement. Most of the other leaders were also absent, but not Pierre Poilievre. He led off in French, as he so often does, and he accused the prime minister of replacing the joy of Christmas with poverty, according to Operation Santa Claus letters, and he blamed deficit spending. Anita Anand praised the Canada Child Benefit for lifting families out of poverty, and encouraged the Conservatives to vote for their bill to “stabilise grocery prices” (well, indirectly anyway). Poilievre then called the government hypocrites at for how much they fly, to which François-Philippe Champagne said that people can see who the real hypocrisy are because the opposition leader only opposes investment in the green economy. Poilievre switched to English to decry “stagflation” in the last quarter, blaming high deficits, taxes, and red tape, while the American economy was roaring. Anand wanted to remind everyone that they have an economic plan, and recited good news economic talking points to prove their plan was working. Poilievre returned to the accusation of hypocrisy for how much the environment minister has flown before demanding that they cut the carbon price, for which Champagne patted himself on the back for attracting foreign investment in the green economy. Poilievre then raised the court challenge from Ontario First Nations about the carbon price. Patty Hajdu noted that these nations are independent, decried the Conservatives’ colonial attitudes, and listed the investments they have made to those communities.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded the federal government transfer $460 million to Quebec for asylum seekers, insisting they were solely a federal problem (which is not true—they are only federal once their claims re accepted). Don Vandal said that asylum seekers are a shared jurisdiction and they continue to converse with the province. Therrien made another demand, and this time Pablo Rodriguez says there is no fight, just that the Bloc is trying to pick one.

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video, and worried about the revelations from the US about assassination plots from India. Dominic LeBlanc said that the RCMP and policing partners across the country are taking this seriously, and cooperating with American law enforcement. Singh switch to French to repeat the concerns from Operation Santa Claus in Quebec, to which Anand plugged the bill they tabled to help build the economy.

Round two, and Poilievre got back up, and worried about a doctor from the UK who couldn’t get a work permit in Canada, before plugging his “blue seal” plan which is is wholly provincial jurisdiction (Chiang: We are working with the provinces), Jasraj Hallan angrily read a script about economic growth (Bendayan: We have added more jobs than before the pandemic and wages are outpacing inflation, and there was a significant upward revision in Q2 GDP), Philip Lawrence read the same script (Champagne: Hooray investing in the economy; Bendayan: We are balancing compassion with fiscal responsibility), and Pierre Paul-Hus read the same script in French (Rodriguez: I commend your course for speaking French, which must be difficult in your caucus—a reference to Rachael Thomas demanding the Heritage minister speak English in committee).

Kristina Michaud worried that Canada is sabotaging efforts to phase out fossil fuels at COP28 (van Koeverden: Canada is working with its partner to accelerate global efforts to limit global warming), Monique Pauzé decried carbon capture (van  Koeverden: Funny how you want us to cancel a provincial project when you keep telling us to mind our own business).

Lianne Rood decried child poverty in Canada as an excuse to demand the Senate pass Bill C-234 (Anand: We encourage you to vote for our legislation to stabilise grocery prices; van Koeverden: The Senate is independent, and our pollution pricing policy reflects the realities of farming), and Richard Lehoux read the same script in French (Gould: There are no Liberal senators, and the Conservatives senators were bullying independent senators).

Leah Gazan decried that the fall economic update didn’t mention MMIW (Anandasangaree: We are taking a whole-of-government approach and there were investments in Budget 2023), and Lori Idlout demanded more housing for First Nations immediately (Hajdu: Se inherited a situation where no investment had been made, and we have been investing to build homes).

Round three saw yet more questions on Bill C-234 (Champagne: Why don’t you convince your caucus to vote for our competition bill?; Virani: If you are concerned about food affordability, you should be concerned about what is happening in Ukraine; MacAulay: You don’t have a plan for the environment, which affects farmers and grocery prices; Duclos: The carbon price puts more money in the pockets of most people than they pay but the Conservative position is that coinage change doesn’t exist). It also saw questions about the sole-source contract for surveillance aircraft (Duclos: We are giving the armed forces the tools they need, and local aerospace firms can benefit from this contract), the Ontario First Nations court challenge of the carbon price (Hajdu: We just had a record wildfire season and I was working with those communities; Your party didn’t listen to First Nations for a decade when they let the infrastructure gap grow), the workers at the Stellantis plant (Champagne: We will take no lessons…; Kusmierczyk: The head of that union pointed out these are local jobs), and supporting local and regional media (St-Onge: Under the Google agreement, there will be a place for local and regional media at the table).

Overall, the day was a bit scattershot as Poilievre and several of his MPs tried to insert new economic talking points into the their scripts based on a fairly selective reading of this morning’s quarterly GDP numbers, but of course their demands were somewhat economically illiterate because their demands for higher growth would just fuel inflation. The whole point of what the Bank of Canada was trying to do was cool growth so that they could wrestle inflation back down, and here comes Poilievre, raging that growth is too low, while also raging inflation remains too high. Come on. Of course, the government didn’t really have a decent answer to these questions either, relying mostly on back-patting for existing social programmes or their foreign investment record, which doesn’t call out the nonsense being put forward. Of course.

Meanwhile, let me take a moment to point out that Jagmeet Singh appeared by video for a second day in a row, for no good reason. We knew this was going to happen increasingly since the Liberals forced through making hybrid sittings permanent, but the NDP are the ones who have consistently abused it since then, and this is a problem for how Parliament is treated going forward.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné for a dark purple suit over a white top, and to Maninder Sidhu for a tailored dark blue suit with a crisp white shirt and a pale purple tie. Style citations go out to Pablo Rodriguez for a navy suit with a cranberry-pink shirt and a red tie with a blue paisley pattern, and to Brenda Shanahan for a burnt orange jacket over a navy top with faded floral and dark brown slacks. Dishonourable mention goes out to Jeremy Patzer for a red and white Xmas tree-patterned jacket over a light grey shirt and taupe tie, which he wore for his members’ statement but then changed back to a dark blue jacket for QP. Still, those tacky suits need to be banned.