QP: Hosing the field with doomsday disinformation on capital gains

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The prime minister present today, as was his deputy, for one of the few remaining times this spring. All of the other leaders were present as well today. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and worried that the prime minister’s watch has seen the wealthiest double their incomes while youth can’t afford a home. Justin Trudeau said that they are rising the capital gains exemption in order to fund the housing and programmes that younger people need. Poilievre insisted that Trudeau’s own numbers show that the wealthy got wealthier, and that his tax increases only punish the poor and middle class. Trudeau insisted that this was just the Conservatives going to bat for the wealthy. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question, and got much the same reply from Trudeau, who added that if it didn’t have real-world impacts, it would be funny to watch the Conservatives tie themselves into rhetorical knots. Poilievre railed that everyone was paying higher taxes thanks to Trudeau, linking the carbon levy in that, and Trudeau trotted out the lines about the carbon rebates, and helping people who need it. Poilievre trotted out an illiterate and innumerate line about the capital gains changes, getting it completely wrong, and Trudeau took this as an opportunity to take shots at the Conservatives choosing to vote against youth and the Middle Class™.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, read a headline about the RCMP saying they don’t have the legislative tools to fight hate speech, and demanded support for their bill to remove the religious exemption from hate speech. Trudeau listed measures they have taken, such as the Online Harms bill and the legislation to criminalise Holocaust denial. Blanchet considered this wasted breath, and raised rhetoric being shouted on the streets of Montreal, to which Trudeau insisted they were trying to fight hate speech and calls for violence.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP and clumsily insisted that the government did nothing on taxing the wealthy for eight years, to which Trudeau reminded him that the first thing they did in office was raise taxes on the one percent and lower it on the Middle Class™, and that the NDP voted against that. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the same answer.

Round two, and Andrew Scheer read an innumerate screed about lowering living standards (Freeland: For the last eight weeks, we have watched the Conservatives squirm on this, and now they are siding with billionaires), Melissa Lantsman read an angry condemnation of the government’s tax policy (Freeland: Same answer; It’s really hard to put lipstick on a pig and that’s what the Conservatives are trying to do today), and Jasraj Hallan read his angry word salad (Freeland: Here’s a quote from Poilievre about capital gains creating an aristocracy).

 Martin Champoux worried about new rules the NFB is putting into place (St-Onge: We support the NFB, and we have increased all budgets in culture; We are listening and have shown this budget after budget).

Stephen Ellis bemoaned that the capital gains increases will force doctors out of practice—as though this wasn’t a provincial culpability (Holland: It’s great you re finally asking a health question as the critic, and we are making critical investments with provinces but we need a fair tax system to do that), and Luc Berthold repeated this in French (Holland: You are concerned about the healthcare system only when we talk about equitable taxation), and claimed the capital gains changes would hurt farmers’ futures (Freeland: As the daughter of a farmer, I understand their concerns and we increased the cumulative exemption for farmers but the Quebec finance minister needs to make his own changes).

Alexandre Boulerice worried about a senior living in his van (Martinez Ferrada: We are putting in place that will put in place fairness that will help invest in housing and pharmacare), and Bonita Zarrillo lambasted the inadequate Canada Disability Benefit (Zuberi: Praising the benefit with a straight face).

Round three saw yet more questions on the supposed doom scenarios relating to the capital gains changes (MacAulay: You slashed half a billion from Agriculture Canada, which we reinstated; MacKinnon: You keep voting against tax cuts for the Middle Class™ and against help for families; Freeland: You are showing your true colours and voting in favour of multi-millionaires; Your leader only built six affordable housing units when he was in government; You think a nurse should pay more taxes than a multi-millionaire; Fragiskatos: You voted against housing solutions for your community; Martinez Ferrada: Look at this morning’s record high building permit numbers!) There were also questions on triggering agri-recovery in Quebec (MacAulay: This is shared with the provinces and are working with them closely), funding a new hospital near James Bay (Hajdu: We are working with the hospital and the province, and the prime minister has written a letter confirming our commitment to the project), and pay for child care workers—which is provincial responsibility (Sudds: We are working with the provinces on a national workforce strategy).

Overall, it was a complete change of topic from yesterday. There were absolutely no calls to release the names from the NSICOP report, which may have been mere coincidence given Elizabeth May’s press conference earlier in the morning where she, having read the unclassified report, said that no one in the current House of Commons is implicated by the report, Rather, the Conservatives had finally needed to take their position on the capital gains tax changes, as the Ways and Means motion was being debated and voted upon today, and so they had a full-court press media strategy, which was completely soaked in bullshit characterisation of the change and who it affects, so they loaded their QP roster up with all manner of doomsday scenarios that painted these entirely false pictures, one after another. And did Chrystia Freeland correct any of these false assertions? Of course not. She instead taunted the Conservatives about their “dither and delay” and “squirming and slithering” on not coming to a position until today, and their decision in order to side with multi-millionaires. It was animated as a result, and they were boisterous, but completely unedifying.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Pascale St-Onge for a light grey suit with a lapel-less jacket over a turquoise-blue top, and to Adam Chambers for a dark grey suit over a crisp white shirt and a thin dark blue tie. Style citations go out to Justin Trudeau for a black jacket over a white shirt, tan slacks, and a black, tan and blue striped tie, and to Anita Vandenbeld for a taupe top under a taupe sweater with black forest patterns across it. Dishonourable mention goes out to Anna Roberts for mustard jacket over a white top and black slacks, and to Leah Gazan for a yellow leather bolero jacket over a black dress with florals.