While the prime minister was present today, no doubt still jet-lagged from his international summits, Andrew Scheer was off in Vancouver to make a policy announcement for the election that is still nearly a year way. Lisa Raitt led off, demanding to know the the date the budget will be balanced. Justin Trudeau picked up a script to read about how great their policies including the Canada Child Benefit was, while unemployment was at its lowest rate in 40 years. Raitt said that Canadians’ choice was to keep deficits to $10 billion for year, and this time Trudeau eschewed a script to decry the last years of the Harper government, which nickel-and-dimed veterans and made cuts while his government invested in Canadians. Raitt listed tax credits that were cancelled, and Trudeau noted that those non-refundable tax credits weren’t available to low-income Canadians whereas the CCB was better off for those Canadians. Alain Rayes took over, asked the same again, and Trudeau reiterated this points about low unemployment and enhanced growth in French. Rayes reiterated the demand for a date, and Trudeau reminded him how much debt Harper left as a legacy. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, raising the Auditor General’s report on CRA not going after rich corporations. Trudeau took up a script to praise the report and said that CRA would examine their internal processes to ensure fairness and uniformity. Caron asked again in English, and Trudeau read a list of investments made in the CRA to ensure more off-shore audits were completed. Alexandre Boulerice raised a report that said Canada’s climate policies would rise global temperatures (somewhat out of context), and Trudeau read a script to say that things were not fine and listed actions that the government was taking. Boulerice switched to French to demand more action, and Trudeau, sans script, insisted that they were taking action to fight climate change.
The PM had his porridge this morning. All fired up in QP.
— John Ivison (@IvisonJ) November 20, 2018