QP: Slogans after the summer

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The first day back from summer break, and nearly all of the leaders were present and ready to perform for the cameras. After the newest Conservative MP was introduced to take his seat, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he noted how many times the Bloc has voted in favour of the government, before reciting some slogans. Justin Trudeau said that if he had spent any time talking to Canadians over the summer, he would have seen a desire for solutions, not things in his own interests. Poilievre claimed that they had overseen the biggest expansion of the federal government in history (not even remotely true), and recited his slogans again. Trudeau praised the investments into Telesat and mocked the Conservatives trying to call up Elon Musk. Poilievre switched to English to recite come slogans that obliquely called for an election, and Trudeau repeated the line that Poilievre is only out for his own interests. Poilievre blamed the carbon price for child hunger, and demanded an election. Trudeau reminded him is that climate change costs money, and that Poilievre’s do-nothing plan would be even more expensive. Poilievre said that the carbon price hasn’t stopped any fires or floods, and took a swipe at Mark Carney before again calling for an election. Trudeau repeated that Poilievre’s do-nothing plan would help nobody and endanger the future.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and raised the by-election in Montreal, and raised the “discrimination” that seniors over 75 get higher pension cheques. Trudeau noted that people over 75 have higher expenses and more depleted savings, and called out the Bloc for voting against dental care. Blanchet said that dental care encroaches upon provincial jurisdiction, and said that he misled people when he said that Anglophones in the province were getting poorer services. Trudeau said that the provincial government itself said that they were not clear but had not provided a clarification. 

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, named the two ridings with the by-elections, before reciting talking points about corporate landlords. Trudeau needled him for hiding once the Conservatives pressured them, while the government is doing the hard work of progressive policies. Julian switched to English to name the two ridings and accused the government of making people pay for healthcare. Trudeau needled them even more forcefully about how they turned tail when hard things got hard.

Round two, and Melissa Lantsman accused Freeland of being by the arrival of Mark Carney (Freeland: I am not going anywhere, and you would rather focus on mud-slinging rather than the economy), Michelle Rempel Garner took some more swipes at Freeland and Carney (Gould: This kind of behaviour is typical of Conservatives; Freeland: Welcome back to the QP roster after your absence), and Michelle Ferreri gave another recitation of the same points (Freeland: The only people being humiliated are the Conservatives having to recite these personal assignations; Freeland: You are running away from the good news about the economy).

Andréanne Larouche returned to the claim that seniors are being “discriminated” against (MacKinnon: You have continually voted against supports for seniors; Actions count and votes count in this Chamber).

Pierre Paul-Hus took a swipe at the Bloc, accusing the government of bribing them (Freeland: We are proudly progressive; Lebouthillier: You have no shame, and your only claim is to austerity), and Richard Lehoux claimed there was a Bloc-Liberal “coalition” (St-Onge: I took my fellow MPs to places where the Conservatives made cuts).

Lisa Marie Barron gave some boilerplate about “corporate greed” (Turnbull: It is too bad took the path of the Conservatives after we worked together to reform competition laws), and Rachel Blaney accused the government of GIS clawbacks (MacKinnon: Those payments go up quarterly, and there are no clawbacks).

Round three saw more questions on the protection of caribou impacting forestry (Guilbeault: The government of Quebec committed to present a plan in 2016 and still have not done so), some angry word salad about carbon prices (Guilbeault: We had a carbon tax election in 2021 and your platform had a carbon price in your platform; Gould: You want to distract from your real agenda), advanced requests for MAiD in Quebec (Holland: This is a very sensitive topic and we need to take the right amount of time to study the legal implications; Virani: I have respect for Quebec’s work here, but there is one Criminal Code for Canada and we are not ready to grant an exemption to Quebec), some slogans (Gould: Good on you for your three-word slogans), tough-on-crime slogans (Virani: Here is a list of things we’ve done; Victims want intelligent policies, but the next steps on bail is at the provincial level), cod access (Lebouthillier: I was pleased to announce new quotas that will lead to sustainable, prosperous fishing), Maine poachers in the lobster fishery (Lebouthillier: Our DFO officers do a difficult job, and it’s irresponsible to say there is no enforcement), Jordan’s Principle and back payments to service providers (Hajdu: Children are getting the services they need), and the Northvolt site setting up on contaminated lands (Guilbeault: The Agency received a request for an assessment and it is underway, oh, and a swipe about the NDP).

Overall, it wasn’t too different from where we left off, and in spite of the Liberals promising that Trudeau “unleashed” was going to be their secret weapon, well, he wasn’t all that unleashed and resorted to pretty much the same talking points as he did before, so I’m not sure what was all that different. Ditto for Poilievre, who was just repeating different slogans in an oblique way to call for an election. It was interesting that the Conservatives used their second round to put up women MPs to try and call out Chrystia Freeland, and insist that she’s being “humiliated” by the mere presence of Mark Carney, and using this to once again police Trudeau’s feminism, which…doesn’t seem to be very feminist of them, particularly since they weren’t exactly supporting Freeland (and isn’t there a special place in hell?) Regardless, if they want to talk about humiliation, the fact that they had their newest MP stand up to read more of these slogans into the record like a mindless automaton must rank up there. Honestly.

Otherwise, the Speaker was yet again fairly lax in his enforcement of the rules, particularly around Jasraj Hallan’s questions, which were insulting and unparliamentary, and Fergus didn’t force Hallan to apologies for use of his claim that Guilbeault was lying (when in fact Hallan was not exactly telling the truth about what the PBO said), but hey, Hallan gets away with it once again, with a mere chiding about his use of language. Come on. 

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Chrystia Freeland for a long-sleeved navy dress with a boat neck, and to Ben Carr for a dark blue suit with a white shirt and a pink tie. Style citations go out to Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe for a tan brown jacket over a white shirt, blue tie and dark blue jeans, and to Patty Hajdu for a short-sleeved canvas-white dress with beige and orange patterns.