QP: Quoting the Criminal Code to one another

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Neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present today, in spite of both being in Ottawa, though most of the other leaders were present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, fresh from his press conference earlier this morning in Brampton, and he tied the Bloc to government legislation around bail conditions and conditional sentencing, blaming them for the rise in auto thefts (which is pretty specious at best), before asking the government to reverse those positions. Steven MacKinnon says that the Conservatives were pretending to care about auto theft like they pretended to care about grocery prices, and tried to connect Poilievre’s campaign chair, Jenni Byrne, with lobbying Loblaws. (She wasn’t the lobbyist, and they were only lobbying about beer and wine sales, for the record). Poilievre declared that he announced “common sense” solutions for ending auto thefts, most of which are unconstitutional. MacKinnon repeated the insinuations that Poilievre had made promises to Byrne, who is advising the caucus. Poilievre switched to English to again claim that “catch and release” bail was to blame for the rise in car thefts, and MacKinnon repeated his claim that the Conservatives were only pretending to care, and made the insinuations about Byrne in English. Poilievre insisted that Byrne’s advise was the slogan he repeated, and once again blamed the government for increasing car thefts and touted his “common sense” plan. Arif Virani reminded him that mandatory minimums for auto theft are already on the books, so he’s demanding a policy that already exists. Poilievre insisted that bail reform didn’t apply to auto theft so he should have read his own legation. Virani responded that he listens to police and noted that this isn’t an issue of individual crime but organised crime, and that the Conservatives are blocking measures to combat money laundering.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and railed that Quebec is owed $470 million for asylum seekers, no less. Marc Miller said the money they have sent is not nothing and that they are working with the province. Therrien listed grievances related to immigration and asylum seekers, to which Miller accused them of being “armchair managers,” and cherry-picking statistics.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and took credit for Manulife walking back their decision to only fill certain prescriptions at Loblaws, and demanded the government stop working for Big Pharma. Mark Holland pointed to actions they have taken to lower drug prices across the board. Singh switched to French to complain that the government met with Loblaws lobbyists 60 times—which means nothing—and Holland repeated his response in French.

Round two, and Jasraj Hallan lied about the carbon price (Anand: It’s rich for you to talk about scams when you tell people to invest in crypto; What benefits are you going to cut?), John Barlow demanded his Bill C-234 be passed (MacKinnon: What about Jenni Byrne?; Boissonnault: You are standing with the bullies), and Luc Berthold claimed the carbon price was driving Quebec families to food banks—in spite of it not applying in that province (Guilbeault: Quebec has a cap-and-trade system, so maybe you should talk to François Legault; Last year there was a 20 percent drop in grain production because of drought).

Jean-Denis Garon complained that insolvencies are on the rise and demanded CEBA repayments be extended (Valdez: We have given them more flexibility), Julie Vignola repeated the same demand (Martinez Ferrada: We offered two extensions and have more flexibility), and René Villemure gave another version of the same (Martinez Ferrada: If we hadn’t been there to support these businesses, they wouldn’t have made it through he pandemic).

Rosemarie Falk demanded the carbon price be axed (Wilkinson: You are pushing disinformation and trying to take money away from the vulnerable; O’Connell: Maybe your party’s top advisor could call Loblaws to tell them to lower prices), and Richard Lehoux gave the same in French (MacKinnon: What hypocrisy coming from that side of the House).

Blake Desjarlais complained about Danielle Smith’s “parental rights” policy and wanted the federal government to use the Canada Health Transfer to fight back (Boissonnault: We will do what we can, but people in Alberta can write to the UCP and speak up), and Leah Gazan blamed the federal government for provinces not paying child care workers enough (Sudds: We are working with the provinces to ensure that the agreements are upheld, which includes improving wages).

Round three saw yet more misleading questions on car thefts (Virani: We are working with the police and the province; You are voting against measures to combat organised crime), Poilievre got back up to gather more clips on the subject (Virani: When you were a minister, CBSA was cut; MacKinnon: You only have empty slogans, and what about Jenni Byrne). It also saw questions on softwood lumber tariffs (Ng: We are standing up for the sector, and using the dispute settlement mechanism), procurement that supposedly rewards insiders (O’Connell: All this talk of insiders and collusion sounds like you talking about Jenni Byrne; We expect all contracts to be done according to the rules), housing and infrastructure grants (Fragiskatos: We are carrying on with the Housing Accelerator announcements), and demanding support for the motion on the “citizen’s assembly” on electoral reform (O’Connell: We are working on more opportunities to access votes). 

Overall, the day was once again full of the usual childish taunts, and the Jenni Byrne accusations are continuing to operate at a superficial level. I know that some Liberals do have some pointed accusations to make, such as whether it was her advice to make certain MPs send out shitposts accusing the government of allowing Manulife and Loblaws to make that now-cancelled deal, but they never make those pointed accusations in the Chamber, just vague accusations that border into outright falsehood, which again, the Liberals should know better than to be perpetuating. It’s not cute, and stooping to the Conservatives’ level with the dishonesty is going to be a very real problem which they should knock off. (On a related note, Jagmeet Singh taking credit for stopping the Manulife/Loblaws deal is hilarious).

There was one particular bright spot, if you can call it that, which was how both Poilievre and Virani were citing legislation back and forth to one another, and particular clauses in the Criminal Code. That’s virtually unheard of, but it good Poilievre leaving the Chamber, and then coming back several minutes later to go for a second round of questions at the end with his renewed talking points about which legislative sections were affected. I’m actually fairly impressed that they could do this. Virani needs to modulate his tone a lot more when dealing with Poilievre, because Poilievre wants nothing more than ministers to look like they’re getting angry and unhinged, but I am here for them quoting subsections of the Criminal Code back and forth. I might add that it would help if they could point out that the law of bail has been the subject of numerous Supreme Court of Canada decisions which they cannot ignore, and that Poilievre’s “common sense” is mostly unconstitutional and that people need to bear that in mind before listening to his facile “common sense.”

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Melissa Lantsman for a black blazer with a grid pattern and leather elbow patches over a white collared shirt and black slacks, and to Ben Carr for a dark blue with a crisp white shirt and a light pink tie. Style citations go out to Denis Trudel for a grey suit of mismatched tones with a light grey with red patterned shirt and a black tie, and to Julie Dabrusin for a pale green top with dark green and faded red florals.

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