QP: Continued weaponising of human misery

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While the prime minister was in town today, he was not in QP, though his deputy was on the day that “debate” began on the budget implementation bill. Most of the other leaders were present, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, he worried about the cost of housing in Quebec, and lurid tales of certain people in media who have lost their homes. Sean Fraser got up to praise their agreement with Quebec to build more affordable housing. Poilievre dismissed this as “more expensive processes,” and took a shot at the Bloc for agreeing to government spending, and falsely blaming that on inflation. Chrystia Freeland praised the government’s plan to build more housing and for the green industrial transition, which the Conservatives voted against, before patting herself on the back for the renewed Moody’s Aaa credit rating. Poilievre switched to English to blame the government for the approximately sixty deaths that happened over the past ten days, as though they were solely because of decriminalisation. Ya’ara Saks stood up to say the problem is the toxic drug supply, and that were working with BC to amending their decriminalisation proposal. Poilievre insisted that they need to ban hard drugs and get people into treatment, and called the policy “insane.” Saks said they were working on a comprehensive solution with BC, and called out misinformation on the file. Poilievre went full Helen Lovejoy to worry about needles in parks, which have been happening for decades, and this time Freeland stood up to reiterate that they are working with BC, and to pour scorn on the opposition for trying to score points on this tragedy. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he railed about the possibility of CBC and Radio-Canada being brought closer together, and demanded they be kept independent. Pascale St-Onge said that French services will not be affected by internal restructuring, and that their position was closed to the Conservatives on trying to pit CBC and Radio-Canada against one another. Therrien again raised this spectre of a merger and St-Onge pointed out how the Conservatives were applauding the Bloc position, which spoke volumes.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, to decry the Conservative amendment to block contraception in pharmacare legislation, and Mark Holland got up to give a paean about women having control over their own bodies. Singh repeated the question in French, and Holland repeated his paean in French as well. 

Round two, and Jasraj Hallan read an angry word salad about budget, including lying about what Tiff Macklem said about it (Freeland: We are fiscally prudent and Moody’s just reaffirmed about rating and stable outlook; Your leader told business leaders to attack our government because he’s too afraid to say he’s in favour of the highest earners), Philip Lawrence also lied about what Macklem said (Freeland: Here is what he really said), and Pierre Paul-Hus needled the Bloc about supporting the government (Champagne: Your party has no ambition, no vision, and no plan).

Mario Simard demanded a First Ministers’ meeting on immigration (Miller: I am meeting with my counterparts on Thursday about settlement capacity).

Luc Berthold blamed the Bloc’s support for the government for causing misery in Canada (Freeland: Quebeckers need investment in healthcare, childcare, and housing and we’re doing that; Duclos: When your leader was responsible for housing, he got six housing units built while we are built in 8000 in Quebec), and Gérard Deltell asked about a change of status for a Quebec university and took a swipe at Duclos about it (MacKinnon: You know we have the strictest rules round conflict of interest).

Jenny Kwan demanded and end to immigration detention (LeBlanc: We are concerned about the rights of individuals, but there are a small group of individuals with a violent criminal past for whom releasing into the community is not appropriate), and Gord Johns wanted restoring funding for a coastal cleanup fund (Lebouthillier: Projects have been implemented and we are working on them).

Round three saw yet more questions on Bloc support for the government (MacKinnon: You know full well there are no such decriminalisation requests from Quebec; Freeland: Perhaps you should talk to the Quebec government that does invest in housing; Fraser: You voted against housing funding for Quebec; Duclos: We have already built 180 affordable units in your riding). It also saw questions on foreign interference (LeBlanc: You know I can’t talk about a bill before it’s tabled; We agree there has been an increase in hostile state activities, and she could not draw any definitive conclusions; We should be very credulous to not take what she said out of context), opioids (Saks: We are working to get this right to save lives from a toxic drug supply; Freeland: We have a collaborative relation with BC, and it’s insulting to say they have to beg us for anything, and we’re not playing partisan politics on this; Holland: We all care about this crisis, and the Conservatives’ ideas have been tried and failed), allegations around Randy Boissonnault (MacKinnon: We answered this, and your leader wants to use the Notwithstanding Clause to rollback rights), Israel moving against Rafah (Damoff: The violence must stop, and we continue to call for a sustainable ceasefire), and not meeting climate targets (Guilbeault: Here are some quotes from other institutes).

Overall, it was a fairly mediocre day in the Chamber, and there were a couple of familiar patterns—one was the complete dichotomy between French and English questions, where French questions were solely focused on needling the Bloc about their support for government budgets and policies, and blaming them for everything under the sun, and English focusing again on the disinformation about BC’s drug decriminalisation pilot project, and blaming that project for the deaths that are clearly the result of the contaminated supply, and that these same problems exist everywhere else in the country where the decriminalisation isn’t in place. It’s disingenuous, and it’s frankly a little bit gross that this kind of human misery is being weaponised in this way.

I would also note that for the very first time, Chrystia Freeland actually pushed back against the falsehoods the Conservatives have been spreading about what the Bank of Canada governor, Tiff Macklem, said at committee, and she literally read transcripts into the record to counter their bullshit. It’s about time that she and the government do that, because the way that the Conservatives in particular have weaponised out-of-context clips of the governor taints him and his office, and it would be great if more media outlets would do the same (though I will give credit for The Canadian Press for finally doing so over the weekend).

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Anju Dhillon for a long white jacket over a grey and black dress, and go Sukh Dhaliwal for a dark blue suit with a crisp white shirt and a dark purple tie and pocket square. Style citations go out to Mike Kelloway for a burnt orange suit over a dark blue shirt and a navy diamond-patterns tie, and to Pam Damoff for an off-white long-sleeved dress with a collection of competing patterns across it. Dishonourable mention goes out to Shelby Kramp-Neuman for a black jacket and skirt over a bright yellow top.