QP: The worst Halloween-themed response imaginable

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Neither the PM nor his deputy were present today, which was probably just as well considering what an absolute pathetic mess yesterday’s QP turned out to be. Most of the other leaders were also absent, but Pierre Poilievre was present and started off in French, and he selectively quoted the GDP figures released this morning, and claimed this was the government “destroying” the economy. Jean-Yves Duclos noted that inflation, interest rates and unemployment are all down, but it being Halloween, children should be afraid that Poilievre refuses to get his security clearance. Poilievre countered that diminishing paycheques are what is scary, took credit for all housing starts when he was “minister,” and demanded the government accept his GST proposal. Duclos noted that children could count to six, which were the number of affordable housing units he built as “minister” (not really true), and repeated the security clearance point. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his selective economic doom and demanded an election, to which Randy Boissonnault recited the good economic news about inflation. Poilievre gave some specious comparisons to American economic data, and this time Boissonnault recited the security clearance talking points. Poilievre continued to make facile and false claims about the economy, and demanded the government cut taxes. Boissonnault recited a bunch of non sequitur talking points about foreign direct investment in return.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and demanded the government enrich OAS for all seniors, to which Marc Miller noted that the Bloc has consistently all measures the government has put forward to help seniors, including dental care. DeBellefeuille took a swipe at Duclos before repeating the demand, and this time Duclos said that they are simply looking for problems before noting that they have reduced seniors’ poverty since they came to office, and offered a warning about cozying up to Conservatives.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP to worry about software used by landlords to raise rents, and demanded an inquiry be launched. François-Philippe Champagne said he would ask the Competition Bureau do just that with the new powers they have been given. Bonita Zarrillo demanded the same in English, and Champagne repeated that they are going to ask the Bureau to do so.

Round two, and Michael Chong returned to the economic nonsense about a “per capita recession,” which is not a Thing (Turnbull: We lead the G7 in achieving a soft-landing from global inflation and we have seen four rate cuts; Our fiscal discipline has allowed our inflation to drop faster, while wages have been outpacing inflation), Jamil Jivani read more of the same talking points (Champagne: Look at all of the investments we have attracted; Lamoureux: Ten years ago Dean Del Mastro was found guilty of election interference), and Gérard Deltell gave the same in French (Duclos: Your seat-mate should apologise in the House for his comments about French; Inflation is down, interest rates are down, dental care exists, and your seat-mate needs to apologise).

Jean-Denis Garon raised the recent hacks at CRA (Bibeau: The agency is vigilant and the affected accounts are blocked; The law prevents us from discussing specific cases; We did what was necessary in COVID).

Lantsman cited the praise for the GST cut plan (Fragiskatos: If you’re quoting Moffatt, you should include the full quote where he said not to cut the programmes they are promising to; Your own MPs advocated for money from these programmes that you want to cut), and Eric Melillo read his own talking points for the same (Fragiskatos: Here are things these programmes you want to cut are doing).

Leah Gazan demanded the government adopt her bill on residential school denialism (Anandasangaree: I want to acknowledge the report from the special interlocutor, and we will study it), and Lisa Marie Barron demanded and end to oil and gas subsidies (Guilbeault: We are the only G7 country to have eliminated the subsidies).

Round three saw questions on the carbon levy versus food bank use (Guilbeault: None of that is true and the PBO confirmed eight out ten households get more back; If you want to talk about Jasper, you invested zero in fire mitigation when you were in power; Turnbull: Kids should be afraid of the cuts the Conservatives will make and his refusal to get a security clearance; Lamoureux: Your leader needs to get his security clearance; Lebouthillier: You guys are all about chop, chop, chop; Duclos: You talk about hungry children but won’t support a school food programme; ), senators not passing the Supply Management bill (Bibeau: Respect institutions; Duclos: You should be careful about cozying up to Conservatives), the opioid crisis in Belleville (Saks: I met with the mayor and all stakeholders involved, and why we launched the emergency treatment fund; You cut the drug treatment fund by two-thirds when your party was in power), churches being targeted by criminals (O’Connell: Everyone deserves to be safe, which is why we have provided more funding for places of worship to put in place additional measures), families trapped in Sudan (Miller: We worked with families to devise this programme and we helped get 9000 people out of the country), and the Canadian woman who died in a Syrian detention camp rather than repatriate her (Oliphant: Our thoughts are with her children, and we are treating this situation with seriousness and urgency).

Overall, there weren’t quite as many Halloween-themed questions as I feared there were going to be, but that didn’t stop the Liberals from making the absolute worst Halloween-themed responses, where several responses from ministers and parliamentary secretaries recited that “Children should be scared that the leader of the opposition won’t get his security clearance.” Are. You. Kidding. Me? I know you think the security clearance issue is a winner, but framing it in this way was absolutely beyond the pale. Whoever thought this was cute or a good idea needs to rethink their life choices, or possibly get into the sea.

As for the economic talking points from the Conservatives, they were easily refuted if anyone from the government had bothered to read the StatsCan release and just quote it back—that weakness in August data was because auto plants were on maintenance shutdown and retooling, and the rail lockouts, which the government can claim to have ended once it was legally permissible to do so. Weakness in the July data? Thank the wildfires that climate change has wrought. This is easily enough done within the 30-seconds allotted, and Jean-Yves Duclos is a renowned economist and could use his credibility to actually give a substantive rebuke of Poilievre’s cherry-picked nonsense, but instead, Duclos recites the awful talking points given to him with that bemused smile on his face. People keep thinking Poilievre is some great economic mind because he quotes these figures (misleadingly, out of context) and the government just keeps handing him the win there. They could and should be doing something to bring accuracy to the table, but refuse to in favour of mind-numbing pabulum and I just don’t get it.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to James Bezan for a navy suit with a white shirt with a yellow and blue diamond patterned tie and a matching yellow pocket square, and to Iqra Khalid for a tailored navy suit with a white button-up top. Style citations go out to Anita Vandenbeld for her black top with wizard sleeves and giant roses across it with black slacks, and to Denis Trudel for an off-white jacket over a light blue shirt and matching-toned striped tie with black slacks. Dishonourable mention goes out to Anna Roberts for a dark yellow jacket over a dark blue top and black slacks, and to Brenda Shanahan for a mustard turtleneck with a dark grey vest and black slacks. Special mention goes out to Charles Sousa, for his novelty Halloween jacket—black with blue-grey skull and crossbones patterns across it with a black shirt, tie and slacks. 

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