QP: Poorer than Alabama

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The prime minister was jetting off to Paris for the Francophonie summit, and his deputy was off to Toronto, so other leaders also took the cue to be absent for QP. Pierre Poilievre, however, was there and started off in French by listing times the Bloc leader supported the government, and wondered if the government wanted to thank him. Jean-Yves Duclos talked about dental care, and all of the seniors getting treatment, which the Conservatives claim doesn’t exist. Poilievre then turned to the current privilege fight and that the government is refusing to turn over documents related to SDTC. Karina Gould called this out as misleading and an attempt to overturn Charter rights and politicising police independence. Poilievre repeated that in English, and Gould repeated her response with the added coda that if Poilievre doesn’t understand that, it would be worse if he does understand and doesn’t care about Charter rights. Poilievre turned to the police shooting in Toronto yesterday and trotted out the “hug-a-thug” line. Gould said that while their hearts go out to the officer, but turned to the issue of Poilievre trampling Charter rights. Poilievre complained about the Charter rights of criminals and asked the Liberls “What is wrong with you people?” After being warned by the Speaker about directing questions through the Chair. Arif Virani reminded him that bail is decided upon by provincial-appointed justices of the peace and Crown prosecutors.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded a royal recommendation for their OAS bill or face an election. Steve MacKinnon pointed out that the Bloc voted against dental care when 6,900 people in his riding were signed up. Therrien pointed out the number of seniors on MacKinnon’s riding not getting the OAS enrichment, and MacKinnon reminded him that the government’s track record on taking care of seniors spoke for itself.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and complained about rent, which is a provincial jurisdiction. Duclos got up to talk about how Poilievre dismissed social housing as “soviet.” Bonita Zarrillo demanded immediate enhancement to the Disability Benefit, to which Kamal Khera read her bankrupt talking points about how historic the clearly inadequate is.

Round two, and Michael Chong read some more quotes from the Economist about declining GDP-per-capita (Beech: You are cherry picking statistics, and if you want to compare us to the U.S., you could start with our lower deficits, interest rates, and higher economic growth), Adam Chambers recited the same quote (Holland: Canada is the greatest nation on earth, and you are currently filibustering a study at committee on private healthcare; Everywhere on earth there are challenges, and we have a plan where they only have slogans), and Dominique Vien complained about debt and deficit spending (Duclos: We did spend on affordable housing units where your leader built a mere six units, while we built 305 in your riding alone; St-Onge: When your party was last in government, they cut services and delivered austerity).

Andréanne Larouche raised yesterday’s vote to demand the royal recommendation on her OAS bill (MacKinnon: In your riding alone, 13,300 people have signed up for dental care, which you voted against; The seniors in my riding are happy we supported them through the pandemic; During the pandemic, when we needed to support Canadians, we and our Quebec MPs were there for Quebeckers, not the Bloc.

Andrew Scheer repeated slogans before demanding SDTC documents (Gould: You are false in what you are stating, and your motion would blur the separation between the legislative and judicial branches; Your erratic and unhinged behaviour is because you know you’re in the wrong), and Rick Perkins gave more of the same (Gould: You are only interested in your naked pursuit of power rather than protecting Charter rights).

Leah Gazan demanded the government support her residential school denialism bill (Anandasangaree: I look forward to working with her), and Taylor Bachrach raised a tugboat safety issue (Anand: We have the TSB report be are working with stakeholders to implement its recommendations).

Round three saw more questions about Mark Carney (Holland: You are smearing a great Canadians, but since you are fascinated with Alabama, here are some stats about it; Gould: You continue to talk down Canada, the bigger concern is your attempt to override Charter rights; You engage in personal attacks when people don’t agree with your vision of Canada; The Auditor General and the RCMP said they are extremely concerned by your motion because they will destroy rights; Duclos: How about that dental care for people in your riding?), a demand to force senators to pass their Supply Management bill (Duclos: We have always supported supply management, and senators are independent), Boissonnault’s former business partner (Gould: When witnesses testify, they are obliged to give information requested), the procurement ombudsman (Gould: You have abused the power of this place to override the Charter rights of Canadians), “corporate greed” (Holland: It’s great when we can work together for Canadians as opposed to just giving slogans), programme funding for opioid addictions (Brière: Another meeting has been scheduled with the department to discuss this further).

Overall, while the heckling was at a fairly low roar today—Speaker Fergus making a more concerted effort to call out some hecklers today—there were still elements about the day that felt pretty gross, particularly in the complete mendacity that surrounded the back third of QP when it comes to the privilege fight over the SDTC documents. The Conservatives have cooked up a completely false narrative around the now-folded Crown corporation (which, it bears reminding, they set up and decided on its governance structure), and have lied consistently about “Liberal insiders” and the government shielding “corruption,” which has nothing to do with what the Auditor General found in her report. Yes, there were instances of conflicts of interest, but nobody in government was implicated in any of this because SDTC was arm’s-length from government (as the Conservatives designed it to be), and for the Conservatives to keep pretending this was the case—without any correction from the government—is maddening. And while I will give full points to Karina Gould today for raising the very real concerns about the banana-republic nature of this production order that blurs the lines between the legislative and judicial branches, and tramples on Charter rights. It is important, but there need to be more facts on the table rather than just letting these cries of “Corruption!” go unchallenged.

Otherwise, I am getting to the point where I am willing to pay real money for Cabinet ministers to shut up about dental care already, particularly as a non sequitur response that has nothing to do with the question being asked of them, and Jean-Yves Duclos has become one of the worse offenders there, which is disappointing, because he’s a credible economist who should be fielding a lot more questions a lot more seriously than he’s doing right now, and who should have been the one to school Michael Chong and Adam Chambers on their GDP-per-capita doomsaying. But no, we get “your leader pretends dental care doesn’t exist.” Would it kill this government to be adults when it comes to providing proper responses?

Felt this during #QP today.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-10-03T20:39:43.212Z

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Sameer Zuberi for a tailored dark grey suit with a white shirt and red tie, and to Ginette Petitpas Taylor for a black jacket with a grey grid pattern, over a white collared shirt and black slacks. Style citations go out to Lisa Hepfner for a fluorescent orange jacked over a brown top and black slacks, and to Alain Therrien for a navy jacket, white shirt, light blue tie and faded blue jeans.