QP: Out not with a bang, but with an [insert farm name here]

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The prime minister was on his way to Vancouver and his deputy was meeting with her provincial counterparts. Jagmeet Singh was again absent because his wife just had a baby, while the Bloc leader was also elsewhere. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and worried about household debt servicing and blamed federal deficits for it—which is a huge reach. Anita Anand accused him of talking down the economy and read some good news statistics, saying that these results don’t come from slogans. Poilievre countered with other statistics that sounded less healthy, and blamed it on deficits. François-Philippe Champagne wanted it put on the record that Canada is third in the world for attracting foreign investment. Poilievre switched to English to raise the mushroom farm in his riding’s carbon price bill, demanding answers on what they should do about it. Steven Guilbeault got up to talk about being at COP28 in Dubai to ensure there is a future. Poilievre insisted this was “high-flying hypocrisy” and again demanded answers on this farm’s carbon price bill. Seamus O’Regan got up to intone about hypocrisy, and linked Poilievre’s dismissal of Ukraine to Neville Chamberlain. Poilievre gave a rambling statement about detonator going to Russian and Iranian agents operating in Canada. Gould said that he doth protest too much, and called on Conservatives to stand up to their leader to vote for Ukraine.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and she wanted the government to just send money to Quebec for dental care rather than their federal programme. Mark Holland said this was about a national country that would help nine million people across the country. DeBellefeuille repeated her demand to transfer the money, and Holland reiterate his same point.

Rachel Blaney rose for the NDP and accused the government of not standing up to grocery CEOs, and Champagne insisted that he did stand up to them when he summoned them to his office. Alistair MacGregor gave his own version of the same, and Champagne insisted he always fights for Canadians.

Round two, and Pierre Paul-Hus raised the plight of food banks and demanded the government (Bendayan: Canadians see though your falsehoods; Anand: I am disappointed that as a former member of the armed forces, you voted against Ukraine), Glen Motz raised the carbon price for another two farms (MacAulay: Farmers don’t understand why you voted against on-farm climate adaptation), and Kyle Seeback raised another farm (Guilbeault: You have no plan for the environment, and we need one to ensure we can keep producing food; Your climate denial is immoral).

Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe demanded “reimbursement” to Quebec for asylum seekers (Bibeau: We have transferred hundreds of millions to Quebec already), and Gabriel Ste-Marie worried about the same (Bibeau: Same answer).

Leslyn Lewis and Richard Bragdon read the same [insert farmer here] script (Guilbeault: You voted against support for farmers last week, while we support their transition to cleaner energy; Holland: You voted against farmers and dental care; O’Regan: You need to vote for the things that help people).

Peter Julian demanded the foreign interference inquiry include India—as though it’s the government’s call (Damoff: This is an extremely serious matter, but this is an active investigation), and Taylor Bachrach demanded a faster move away from fossil fuels (Guilbeault: We are picking up the pace, and we have bent the curve and are lowering emissions).

Round three saw yet more [insert farm here] scripts (Bendayan: You voted against farmers and all of these other things that support women; Gould: You’re the ones who are deflecting; Virani: If you are concerned about the price of food, Ukraine is the breadbasket of the world; Not helping Ukraine is not helping the rest of Eastern Europe; Sidhu: You keep trying to silence us when we bring up Ukraine). It also saw questions on climate affecting farmers and apparently demanding more subsidies (MacAulay: We have programmes to help in coordination with the provinces), extending the CEBA deadline (Bibeau: We supported businesses in the pandemic and we have options for them), debt payments (Champagne: You voted against Quebec interests; Martinez Ferrada: Your cuts will put a break on economic growth), the SDTC allegations (Champagne: They are so against climate action they will attack any organisation that fights it), a digital services tax on web giants (Bendayan: We won’t delay implementation unless there is a clear timeline from the international community), and UNRWA funding (Hussen: Cutting funds during a humanitarian crisis is counterproductive). 

Overall, for the last QP of the year, MPs really proved why they need to go home and take a six-week time out. For the most part, it was simply the same format that we have seen consistently for the past couple of months—various Conservative MPs all leading the same script with the [insert name here] changes between them, which is incredibly boring but is only in service of harvesting clips for socials. The Liberals put up a litany of ministers to mostly recite some pabulum lines that have little to do with what is being asked, though they’re still on the “you voted against [insert programme here] last week” lines, and still pretty fired up about it, for what it’s worth. And really, that was about it. I’m really hoping that they take some time to think about how much this place has declined over the holidays and come back with a plan to up their games in the New Year, but the realist in me is convinced that this is only going to get worse.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Mark Holland for a blue suit with a pink tie and a blue and white bow tie, and to Rachel Bendayan for a dark navy suit over a black top. Style citations go out to Shelby Kramp-Neuman for a white blouse with black florals across it and black slacks, and to Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe for a tan brown jacket over a light blue shirt, a grey striped tie and faded blue jeans.