QP: Gathering clips about ArriveCan

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The prime minister was in town but not present, though his deputy was. The Auditor General’s report on ArriveCan had dropped earlier in the morning, and we all knew this was going to led the day, even though not every leader was present to make hay with it, or to harvest clips for their socials. Pierre Poilievre started off in French, and linked the $60 million spent on ArriveCan to people lining up at food banks, which is utterly specious, and denounced the app. Dominic LeBlanc stated that they read the report and accepted the recommendations, and that rules were not followed when they expected them to be. Poilievre insinuated that Trudeau was present and hiding behind his minister when he wasn’t, and then railed about the app again. This time Jean-Yves Duclos read his own thanks to the Auditor General, and said that many of the recommendations have already been implemented and the rest will be shortly. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his earlier specious connection between the economic situation and the spending on this app, and LeBlanc reiterated that they called for investigations they learned of allegations, and that they will hold those found responsible to account. Poilievre insisted that the prime minister could have stopped this, which is a huge reach, and Duclos listed measures they have implemented to improve contracting. Poilievre tried once again to insinuate that Trudeau was present and not answering, and said the money could have been better spent on inspecting containers at ports smuggling out stolen cars. LeBlanc said they have no lessons to take from a party that slashed the border inspectors when they were in government. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and declared there to be a consensus on advanced directives for assisted dying, and wanted them legalised. Arif Virani says that they will be working with Quebec on next steps. Therrien repeated his demand, taking swipes at the Conservatives in the process, and Virani reiterated that they want to treat these issues in a thoughtful way.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and pretty much stole Poilievre’s lines on ArriveCan, to which Duclos again thanked the Auditor General for her report, and that changes were being made. Singh repeated the question in French, and LeBlanc recited his lines about identifying the series of practices not being followed.

Round two, and Michael Barrett, Stephanie Kusie, and Luc Berthold repeated the same scripts about ArriveCan (LeBlanc: Just because you repeat allegations not borne out by the facts it doesn’t make then true; What happened wasn’t acceptable; Duclos: The border has to be closed and billions in international trade was at stake, and we need to make sure things go properly going forward; Tens of thousand people died in the pandemic, and the Auditor General made findings about unacceptable practices).

Julie Vignola gave her own condemnation of ArriveCan (Duclos: CBSA had to deal with the border during the pandemic but they failed to take appropriate steps to manage it; This shows why it’s important for proper processes to be followed;  LeBlanc: Accountability is important which is why we started an investigation and corrective steps). 

Garnett Genuis made up a bunch of allegations around ArriveCan that were not in the report (LeBlanc: The president of CBSA has assured that corrective measures have been taken), and Jake Stewart also read an ArriveCan script (Duclos: We have followed many of the recommendations in the report already).

Heather McPherson alleged that the government authorised new military exports to Israel since October (Joly: The only export permits since October have been for non-lethal equipment), and Peter Julian demanded online harms legislation (Virani: We are proposing comprehensive legislation).

Round three saw yet more questions on ArriveCan (Duclos: Millions of dollars in trade every day and hundreds of deaths meant CBSA needed to do something but they did not follow procedures; LeBlanc: A global pandemic doesn’t exclude civil servants from following rules; We have been cooperating since the beginning; We sent the preliminary investigation to the committee and the Conservative chair didn’t release it; Politicians don’t direct the RCMP).  It also saw questions on immigration targets (Miller: You are purporting to speak for a province when we are working with them), the Government Operations Committee’s next meeting (McCauley: The committee meets on Wednesday), Canadian workers (Freeland: Hooray the jobs numbers on Friday), and getting Canadians and family members out of Gaza (Miller: We are not getting cooperation from local officials).

Overall, it was an extremely repetitive day which was geared solely to gathering outrage clips about ArriveCan. On the one hand, I will grant you that it was nice to see that an Auditor General’s report actually led QP for the first time in years (and I wish I were exaggerating), but on the other, they actually didn’t really bother to read the report—the allegations they’ve made are the same ones they’ve been making for months, including making up a number of things that weren’t in the report at all and claiming that they were. It was good that LeBlanc in particular pushed back against some of this, but as usual, it’s never enough when your opponent uses mendacity as a weapon. He did also point out that they turned over documents to the committee that the Conservative chair didn’t release, which again is good to have on the record. It would have been nice if they had also issued a reminder on tape that the prime minister does’t micro-manage the decisions of an arm’s-length federal agency, possibly with some particularly derisive mocking in there, but this government doesn’t like to point out the obvious when they should.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Mélanie Joly for a camel coloured jacket over a black top and slacks, and to Maninder Sidhu for a dark grey suit with a crisp white shirt and a pale purple tie. Style citations go out to Damien Kurek for a red plaid shirt under a grey-toned blue jacket and blue jeans with no tie, and to Marilène Gill for a short-sleeved brown dress with a tight floral pattern. Dishonourable mention goes out to Julie Vignola for a dark yellow jacket over a black top with white piping and black slacks, and to Anna Roberts for a faded mustard jacket with tasselled fringes over a black top and slacks.