QP: Calling out a committee chair

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Both the prime minister and his deputy were present today, as were all of the other leaders, who had all attended the lying-in-state for Brian Mulroney earlier in the morning. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he rattled off his slogans, but quickly switched to English and claimed that the PBO “confirmed” that in every province people pay more in carbon levies than they get back in rebates (which isn’t really true, because he’s looking at a different set of numbers), and demanded that the prime minister give his caucus a free vote on their Supply Day motion about cancelling the increase. Justin Trudeau responded in French that eight out of ten families get back more than they pay, and that Poilievre only wants to take money out of people’s pockets while they do nothing about climate change. Poilievre stayed in English to read that the Nova Scotia legislature voted unanimously to reject the carbon levy increase, and demanded a free vote on their motion, to which Trudeau listed what their carbon rebate is. Poilievre read a misleading number about how much the PBO says the levy costs the province, and repeated his demand, and Trudeau doubled down to praise the rebate, but didn’t dispute the PBO number. Poilievre then raised Bonnie Crombie saying she won’t implement a carbon price in the province if elected and again demanded a free vote. Trudeau trotted out the full lines about affordability challenges, and the Ontarian rebate level—because he needed his full clip. Poilievre then raised BC, misleadingly stated that the province “administered” the federal price, which is wrong, and Trudeau complained that Poilievre doesn’t care about facts, but only making “clever arguments,” to which the Conservative caucus got up to applaud before he could finish his point.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he resurrected the “fiscal imbalance” talking point from the grave, to which he accused the federal government of engineering Quebec’s deficit, which is…a novel argument. Trudeau said that the federal government is there to help provinces, while the Bloc is only trying restart a sovereignty debate. Blanchet accused the federal government of owning Quebec $7 billion, and Trudeau insisted that he works with the Quebec premier, not the Bloc.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and raised the Auditor General’s report on Indigenous housing. Trudeau thanked the Auditor General for her report, and said that they are working in partnership with First Nations to advanced their priorities. Singh repeated the question in French, and Trudeau insisted that they have invested recorded amounts in housing and services for Indigenous communities, but they have made progress.

Round two, and Poilievre got back up to return to the impact of the carbon levy on Nova Scotia  and asked the chair of the Agriculture Committee if he would vote with them, and though Bloise did get up, the Speaker reminded him that questions to committee chairs were only to be about scheduling (Fraser: You pretend to care about affordability but vote against measures to help), Poilievre accused the government of censoring the committee chair (Fraser: That member is a champion for his community but here are climate denial quotes from Conservatives; The carbon rebate gives people more money back; MacKinnon: You know the rules, and why did your defence critic sell out Ukraine?; Freeland: He stands up for his riding, and they know they don’t need Conservative cuts; You only love to talk Canada down, and hey, inflation went down again in February).

Luc Thériault complained that the federal government is putting strings on health transfers to Quebec (Holland: You are only looking to start a fight, but I have constructive conversation with the minister in Quebec, and there will be an agreement before the end of the month), Mario Simard demanded the federal government capitulate to Quebec’s no (Rodriguez: You say no to cooperation or sharing information).

Rachael Thomas gave some misleading points about carbon levy and farmers and the price of food (Hutchings: The rural top-up is helping; Boissonnault: Where are the Conservatives in this House when it comes to defending Albertans?), and Richard Bragdon decried military families needing to use the food banks as a frame against the carbon levy (Hutchings: You voted against a raise for Canadian Forces members; Freeland: There was so much shouting that you probably didn’t hear that inflation has gone down).

Blake Desjarlais demanded an acquisition fund for rental units (Fraser: We have been working to increase rentals in Edmonton), and Charlie Angus wanted action against Israel for using starvation as a weapon of war and targeting journalists, and to end all arms sales (Oliphant: We came together to find a workable solution yesterday, and we will continue to not sell arms as promised). 

Round three saw yet more questions on the carbon levy (Freeland: Here is a quote from Premier Legault on the climate crisis; You’re from BC, who is not under the federal programme, so you are either ignorant or disrespect your province; Champagne: Last year was the hottest on record, and you want to do nothing; Guilbeault: You were part of a government in Quebec that instituted a carbon price and now you want to vote against it; Rodriguez: Which speech from your leader are you referencing?; Hutchings: We understand climate change is real and that it has a cost on farmers with drought). It also saw questions on immigration targets (Miller: Read article 13 of our agreement with Quebec), violent crime and car theft (LeBlanc: The CBSA seized 68 stolen vehicles last week; Virani: We strengthened bail, and Ben Perrin, Stephen Harper’s former advisor, said that mandatory minimums don’t work), air quality in Edmonton (Guilbeault: We are the only country to have phased out fossil fuel subsidies, and have the best performance in G7 countries about GHG reductions), and Flair airlines stranding passengers (Rodriguez: We will always stand up for passengers’ rights).

Overall, it wasn’t quite as raucous as I expected it might be, but that isn’t to say that it wasn’t a bit weird. Poilievre spent much of his time trying to single out Nova Scotia MPs on this upcoming vote, and in particular tried to put Kody Bloise, the aforementioned chair of the agriculture committee, on display because Bloise was one of the MPs who voted in favour of Bill C-234 on giving more carve-outs for farmers (which the government disagrees with). The fact that Poilievre spent six questions, in abuse of procedure, to try and call out Bloise was weird and the Speaker should have said something, because the questions were clearly out of order, but of course he didn’t, and I’m sure that there will be some new shitposts about “Trudeau censoring his caucus!” or some other such bullshit online before the week is out. 

As for Trudeau (and Freeland), I’m not sure why it’s so difficult to say that Poilievre has been choosing misleading figures from the PBO’s report to say something that the report didn’t say, and that he’s trying to take Canadians for fools as a result—or even point out in a parliamentary way that he is lying to Canadians, because that’s exactly what he’s doing. But they don’t. They stick to the script about how much people get back in their rebates while Poilievre puts out a false statistic about what they are spending, and around and around it goes. They keep ceding rhetorical ground to him, and wonder why people have a false impression about the levy and the rebates. It boggles the mind.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Rechie Valdez for a black jacket with silk lapels over a black v-necked top and black slacks, and to Rob Oliphant for a tailored navy suit over a crisp so white shirt and a dark purple tie. Style citations go out to Darren Fisher for a powder blue jacket over a white shirt, a light grey tie, and olive tan slacks, and to Brenda Shanahan for a maroon leather jacket over a golden yellow turtleneck and maroon slacks. Special mention goes out to Catherine McKenna, who was in the Gallery for QP, and wanted me to know that her dark green dress (with a black short jacket) was in honour of Brian Mulroney’s lying-in-state.