QP: Friday energy on a Thursday

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The prime minister was again absent from QP today, as was his deputy, and all of the other leaders were also away. Melissa Lantsman led off, railing about the carbon levy increase, and demanded the prime minister respect the vote on having a televised meeting with the premiers and on what day it will be. Steve MacKinnon noted that today they are debating their sustainable jobs bill, and that the Conservatives have put forward 20,000 amendments generated by AI, calling them the “robo-caucus” doing “robo-work” and told them to stop gatekeeping opportunities, Lantsman said that was false and not an answer, before she listed food bank stats, and again demanded a meeting. MacKinnon suggested they “plug into the reality channel,” because of the jobs at stake that they are standing in the way of. Lantsman insisted that the prime minister was being defiant and wondered what he was covering for. Anita Anand noted that the invitation is open for premiers to come up with a better plan but they haven’t put any forward, and that Scott Moe even stated this was the most cost-effective plan. Dominique Vien took over in French and listed failures from the government, before citing the premier of Quebec telling the federal government to butt out of its business. Jean-Yves Duclos noted that Poielivre only built six housing units when he was minister, and invited her to visit an affordable housing project in her riding. Vien claimed federal incompetence in fiscal management, and repeated the demand to butt out. MacKinnon got up to point out that she was in Charest’s Cabinet and voted for a carbon price, and now she wants to be hypocritical about housing.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, claimed that Quebec was being short-changed and demanded higher unconditional housing transfers to the province. Duclos praised an affordable housing project in her project. DeBellefeuille tried the same demand a second time, and Duclos again praised the agreement signed with the province a few weeks ago, which was the largest in provincial history.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and blamed the federal government for rental increases in Montreal and for not building enough affordable housing. (Guess whose jurisdiction that is?) Duclos returned to his talking points about Poilievre’s six units. Lindsay Mathyssen decried inadequate military housing across the country, and Bill Blair pointed out that the work has already begun to build new units on bases across the country. 

Round two, and Andrew Scheer listed off a bunch of falsehoods before demanding the prime minister listen to the premiers on the carbon levy (Wilkinson: Why won’t you support our clean transition legislation?; MacKinnon: Scott Moe admitted there was no less costly way to reduce GHGs than the carbon levy, and we will stand up for the workers in your riding), Warren Steinley accused the prime minister of cowardice (Ien: Here are things we did for youth across the country; O’Regan: Here’s what “Danielle from Foothills” said about the carbon rebates), and Luc Berthold demanded a meeting in French (Champagne: You have slogans while we act for Canadians; Guilbeault: You are climate vandals and the member behind you voted to bring carbon pricing in Quebec).

Christine Normandin listed the immigration powers Quebec was demanding (Miller: We came to an agreement with the province in our exclusive areas of jurisdiction), and Martin Champoux raised the prime minster of France visiting to demand the federal government not challenge Quebec’s so-called “secularism” bill (Virani: When it reaches the Supreme Court, we will defend the Charter and minority rights).

Lianne Rood read some nonsense about carbon prices and Bill C-234 (O’Regan: Here are more comments from Danielle from Foothills;  MacKinnon: Most on-farm fuels are tax exempt and your House Leader can call the vote on that bill when he likes), and Dan Mazier lied about what the chair of the environment committee said about the carbon levy (Wilkinson: You all ran on a carbon price).

Lori Idlout decried the infrastructure gap for First Nations (Atwin: We have been investing and are working to close the gap), and Taylor Bachrach said the government is cutting off counselling to survivors of residential schools for lack of funding (Anandasangaree: We have an action plan on MMIW developed with communities).

Round three saw yet more questions on supposed interference in provincial jurisdiction (Champagne: We will take no lessons from Conservatives, and slogans don’t create housing or jobs; Hooray the NorthVolt investment; Duclos: You want to vote against our plan to help children get school meals; We announced additional billions to help cities build necessary infrastructure for housing; The Conservative leader insulted mayors while we are building houses; MacKinnon: You know Quebec will proper in a green economy and need to get out of the way). It also saw questions on Bill C-234 (MacKinnon: Your House leader can bring it to a vote when he wants), whether a Liberal Party official disclosed to Han Dong he was under surveillance (LeBlanc: Let the inquiry do its work), ArriveCan procurement (LeBlanc: Just because you say something doesn’t make it true, and there are ongoing investigations; Duclos: Same answer), not sending weapons to Israel (Joly: We haven’t since January), and building more co-op housing (Fragiskatos: The national association is happy with our investments).

Overall, there was some Friday energy happening with none of the leaders around, and it was mostly quieter as a result (with a few outbursts along the way). Most of the questions were reruns of earlier in the week, whether the demands for this televised meeting with the premiers, and this theatrical concern for the jurisdictional competence of provinces, most particularly for Quebec. There is something I would mention which is the way in which the Conservatives have been ratcheting up their use of the word “corruption,” particularly around what happened with ArriveCan, and are smearing a lot of people with an overly wide brush that it not only distorts what happened, but has completely distorted what political corruption actually means. It’s really not helpful to call everything “corrupt” (even if there are some real questions as to what happened with this procurement), and it’s especially a problem to consider senior civil servants as “Liberals” or to pain the contractors as “Liberal insiders” when in several cases, they were card-carrying members of the Conservative Party. But again, this is more of the use of ever-increasing maximalist apocalyptic language to describe the government, and to distort reality because they know they can get away with lying because nobody is going to call them on it.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Dominique Vien for a navy jacket over a white shirt with a banded collar and khaki slacks, and to Eric Melillo for a tailored dark grey suit over a crisp white shirt and a dark blue tie. Style citations go out to Greg McLean for a milk chocolate brown jacket over a white shirt, pink tie and black slacks, and to Valerie Bradford for a black and gold zebra-esque print top under a dusky rose jacket. Dishonourable mention goes out to Marie-Hélène Gaudreau for a dark yellow jacket over a black top and slacks, and to Darrell Samson for a black suit with a faded yellow shirt and bow-tie.