QP: Fighting over a mushroom farm

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The prime minister was present today, while his deputy was off to the Senate to testify there on her bill. Most of the other leaders were present, but Jagmeet Singh was once again absent, as he has been for a couple of weeks now. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, worrying about household debt, and complained about supposedly inflationary deficits. Justin Trudeau produced a list of Quebec-related items that the Conservatives voted against last week. Poilievre complained that government spending hasn’t achieved results, and Trudeau continued listing things the Conservatives voted against. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question, and Trudeau took a swipe about Poilievre having a lack of vision and needing his glasses while pointing out they just cut. Poilievre gave an exaggerated complaint about the school food programme framework they voted against, and made a pitch for passing Bill C-234. Trudeau said that Poilievre wanted to let the world burn, which also meant that food sources would go with it. Poilievre raised the mushroom farm in his riding, and whether the prime minister reached out to the about their rising carbon prices, and Trudeau said that officials did reach out to that “very successful” farm and offered then advice on lowering their emissions.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and commended him for changing this vote at the UN, and wanted legislative changes to eliminate loopholes around hate speech laws. Trudeau gave some reassurances about fighting antisemitism and Islamophobia. Blanchet repeated his call for these changes, and Trudeau noted that this was a delicate situation because balancing freedom of speech and and religion.

Peter Julian rose for the NDP in French, and wondered where the “wartime effort” on housing was over the past eight years. Trudeau read a script about the pre-approved housing designs as a policy they are working on. Jenny Kwan demanded national rent control, which is provincial jurisdiction. Trudeau noted that this was something they were working on with provinces, but that they had a multi-faceted approach to tackle housing.

Round two, and Poilievre got back up to return to the mushroom farm (Trudeau: We have put in significant programmes to help them), he needled about the government’s climate record (Trudeau: You don’t have a plan), demanded more produce grown in Canada (Trudeau: Industry pays more, people get rebates), made some nonsense arguments about the mushroom farm (Trudeau: Multi-million dollar operations need to find lower-emitting ways and we are here to support them), and an accusation that Trudeau is trying to shut down farms in Canada (Trudeau: They know about the support for the land, and we have a plan to help them go forward).

Luc Thériault accused the government of interfering with provincial jurisdiction around dental care (Trudeau: Script about the programme), and demanded money for Quebec’s programme (Trudeau: I have a dialogue with the province).

Michael Barrett raised the SDTC issues (Trudeau: There is an investigation underway and the minster accepted the resignation of the CEO), and Rick Perkins made more allegations (Trudeau: Same answer), and Luc Berthold read the same script in French (Trudeau: Same answer in French).

Lori Idlout asked about Indigenous housing (Trudeau: A script about equal partnerships and building and renovating 30,000 homes), and Blake Desjarlais railed about grocery CEOs (Trudeau: We have taken action to give people more competition).

Round three saw Poilievre got back up to again pitch for that mushroom farm (Trudeau: Most farms pay less because 97 percent of farm fuels are already exempt), made more pitches for C-234 (Trudeau: We have reduced emissions rapidly, and if you don’t have a plan for the environment you don’t have a plan for the economy; We are attracting foreign investment in clean energy because we are leaders), housing costs (Trudeau: You said the federal government should get out of building affordable housing, but we will not follow that advice; You voted against thousands of housing units; Voting against the construction of new apartments won’t help anyone; Prices have increased as a direct result of the war in Ukraine, and you won’t support them), Poilievre insisted that he was the only one who really stood for Ukrainians, mostly by listing non sequiturs from the Harper-era (Trudeau: I am delighted to find ourselves in an argument over who supports Ukraine more). It also saw questions on asylum seekers in Quebec (Trudeau: We support Quebec resettle immigrants and refugees; We will continue to work with Quebec to support asylum seekers), the CEBA loan repayments (Trudeau: We were there to support them through the pandemic and acute supports need to end), and the COP28 conclusion (Trudeau: We need to move to a clean economy and we will be there to support workers along the way).

Overall, it was a pretty rowdy day as Poilievre and Trudeau sparred for most of the exercise—but not all, for a change—and Trudeau continues to whale on the Conservatives for their Supply votes last week. There was also this odd, long-running back-and-forth about this mushroom farm in Poilievre’s riding and the assumptions around what it will be paying in carbon prices by the end of the decade, and Poilievre downplaying the size and success of the operation while Trudeau pointed out that they’re a massive, multi-million dollar operation that has options when it comes to updating their operations. But just how long this went on was a little bizarre. There was also a bit of a back-and-forth on Ukraine, where Poilievre tried insist that they were the ones who really cared about them…but couldn’t actually put up any recent examples as to how.

As previously mentioned, the leaders didn’t take all of the questions today, which is different from how Wednesdays have been playing out for months now—not just because Singh remains absent, but Poilievre let other MPs who have been on the SDTC file for weeks now have their moment in the spotlight. In any case, its as a day full of attempts to shout people down rather than let QP carry on as usual, and the Speaker was not terribly effective in calling out the egregious offenders as he should have been, and there was a new round of back-and-forth childish points of order once QP was over. Let me say once again, these children need to go home.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Arielle Kayabaga for a fuchsia jacket over a black v-necked top, and to Terry Beech for a tailored navy suit over a white shirt with a dark pink tie. Style citations go out to Darren Fisher for a red velvet jacket with dark grey lapels over a white shirt and a shiny orange tie with a bright blue pocket square and dark blue jeans, and to Jenna Sudds for a red jacket over Christmas patterns over it over a black top.

One thought on “QP: Fighting over a mushroom farm”

  1. It must be weird for this mushroom farmer to hear that they’ve becoming such a vital part of question period. I’m glad Trudeau focused on just how big this operation must be, because to pay what Polievre is claiming in carbon tax means a sizeable operation, yet you hear “mushroom farm” and picture something more quaint.

    To be honest, I found the last few question periods pretty enthralling.

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