QP: Back-patting on the global fiscal position

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The prime minister was present for proto-PMQ day, though his deputy was not. All of the other leaders were in the Chamber, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, recited his slogans, and turned that into a question about rent in Montreal, blaming it on so-called “inflationary policies.” Trudeau suggested that Poilievre share facts instead of disinformation to stoke anxiety, and praised their international fiscal position. Poilievre mocked the notion that he is spreading disinformation, and continued his rant about rent. Trudeau again repeated their strong fiscal position, and how they were using that position to help families. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his slogans and cherry-pick a few down economic statistics, to which Trudeau again praised using their strong fiscal position to help people when they need it. Poilievre accused him of spending the most to achieve the worst, and Trudeau dismissed this as coming from a former “housing minister” who didn’t believe in investing in housing, before touting what the government is investing in. Poilievre padded his record as minster, and again cherry-picked certain statistics. Trudeau asked if they should be investing in Canadians,or cutting their services.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, mentioned the controversy of Francis Drouin’s comments at committee, before worrying about funding of French-language universities. Trudeau noted that Drouin apologised before pointing out that the Bloc don’t care about French outside of Quebec. Blanchet took another swipe at Drouin, and Trudeau said this was the Bloc attacking Franco-Ontarians.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and with a hoarse voice, accused the government of giving “big grocery” a free ride, and demanded they do something. Trudeau took up a script to praise their competition reforms, the grocery code of conduct, and the school food programme. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the same response in French.

Round two, and Poilievre got back up to point out that Singh’s spokesperson and brother have been lobbying for Metro, and asked if he would support an investigation (Trudeau: This is a sign the lobbying stories have rattled you, and you won’t say if you support the capital gains changes), Poilievre said he supports taxing the prime minister’s trust fund and railed about carbon pricing (Trudeau: You are still avoiding answering, and carbon pricing works), wanted support for his magical technology plan for carbon (Trudeau: You just want to do nothing), claimed the carbon price was making food unaffordable (Trudeau: The PBO says more people more money back, but you should support our child care), Poilievre groaned and claimed he has to walk Trudeau through that report again—which is a false reading of it (Trudeau: Your campaign is to simply axe the facts), and accused Trudeau of being an intellectual lightweight—which was clearly projection (Trudeau: Not only the PBO, but a score of other economists have shown that most families get more money back).

Blanchet got back up took another swipe at Drouin (Blanchet: The member apologised), and accused the prime minister of pitting Quebeckers against Francophones outside of Quebec (Trudeau: I would love to work with the Bloc around Francophone communities outside Quebec, but that threatens the Bloc).

Poilievre returned to French to worry about rent in Quebec (Trudeau: We invested $900 million in the housing for more housing, and the province matched that), the usual accusation about spending more to get less (Trudeau: You under-invested in housing for too long), gave some revisionist history of the previous government’s housing record (Trudeau: You only want to cut), and blamed government spending on inflation and interest rates (Trudeau: Inflation is coming down, and you are mixing different measures).

Lori Idlout wanted more spending on clean water for Indigenous communities (Trudeau: We have lifted more advisories than we had when we took office, and are still investing), and Lisa Marie Barron worried about increasing poverty versus “handouts” to CEOs (Trudeau: Our latest budget is focused on generational fairness, which means asking the wealthiest to pay a little more).

Round three saw Poilievre ask about the opioid crisis (Trudeau: You are exploiting tragedies to fear-monger, and no one in this country other than you are talking about legalising hard drugs), accusing him of extending legalising to Toronto (Trudeau: Nobody is talking about legalising), accusations of word games (Trudeau: Maybe you should do your own homework about the difference between legalisation and decriminalisation), demanding more treatment (Trudeau: You are trying to go back to a system that Harper’s own former advisor now calls obsolete and immoral), accusations the government is killing people (Trudeau: We are working with jurisdictions in thoughtful ways), money laundering driving up housing costs (Trudeau: We are investing in police and intelligence services), took his own swipe at Francis Drouin (Trudeau: Hey, you’re finally showing concern about French in Canada), bonuses for CBC management (Trudeau: Nobody who speaks French in this country thinks that the Conservatives won’t cut Radio-Canada). It also saw questions on Drouin’s outburst at committee (Trudeau: The member apologised for his remarks), accusations about appealing English Quebeckers (Trudeau: We have recognised we need to do more to protect French), civil servants being brought back to the office three days a week (Trudeau: This was a decision by the professional civil service), and the construction of Trans Mountain Expansion (Trudeau: This project was in the national interest, and we got the job done and we look forward to divesting it).

Overall, the day was weirdly sedate until nearly the end, when Poilievre’s opioid questions started to get pretty heated, and frankly, started crossing lines. I will say that the entire second round was a pretty free-flowing exchange between him and Trudeau, which somewhat unusual in this age of fully-scripted performances, and that was good to see. Where things started to go off the rails was on those opioid questions, where Trudeau called out Poilievre’s choice of word games, and it degenerated to Poilievre accusing the government of killing people, using out-of-context statistics and causal relationship that really, had no such thing. And while it looked like it was going to get a lot more heated, the Speaker said he would return to the issue after QP, and doesn’t appear to have, but seriously. That was beyond the pale.

Otherwise, I cannot believe the Bloc spent all of their questions on the fact that Francis Drouin said a bad word at committee, and that the Conservatives picked up on this not only during QP, but in points or order afterward. Once again, everyone needs to grow up on this. 

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Eric Melillo for a medium-grey fitted suit over a white shirt and a dark blue tie, and to Lori Idlout for a pale pink jacket over a black and white patterned dress. Style citations go out to Dominique Vien for a rare mishap—in this case, a high-necked black dress with a floral pattern and wizard sleeves, and to Alistair MacGregor for a dark blue suit with a blue-grey shirt and a fluorescent orange tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Filomena Tassi for a black dress with a bright yellow jacket, and to Lisa Hepfner for a darker yellow jacket over a white top and black slacks.