While Justin Trudeau held a media availability earlier in the day, he was not in QP, despite there being nothing else on his agenda. Rona Ambrose led off to decry the carbon tax in the light of the Trumpocalypse and its promises of slashed taxes, and Jim Carr stood up to take the questions, praising the outcome of the meeting with the premiers on Friday. Ambrose insisted that there was no costing for said tax, and Carr reminded her that each province would determine their own system. After another round again on French, Ambrose turned to fundraising and said the PM “bragged” about people discussing government business at fundraisers. Bardish Chagger got to stand up to start the “rules” talking points. Ambrose asked again, and got the same answer. Alexandre Boulerice was up next to raise fundraising, asking in English (unusually for him). Chagger gave her usual points. Ruth Ellen Brosseau stood up to ask in French, and got the French version of Chagger’s speech. Brosseau switched to English to read some confusing question about fundraising and the MyDemocracy survey, but Chagger took this one for the same response. Boulerice, in French, railed about MyDemocracy, and Maryam Monsef stood up to praise it.

Round two, and Denis Lebel worried about C-29 trampling on provincial jurisdiction (Champagne: We won’t enact that portion to study it further), and Gerry Ritz, Marilyn Gladu and John Barlow worried about the carbon tax (Wilkinson: Yay climate plan). Tracey Ramsey worried intershipping jobs being impacted by CETA (Freeland: This is clearly in our national interest), and Guy Caron raised the problems in C-29 (Champagne: We will defer enacting those provisions). John Brassard and Blaine Calkins worried that companies lobbying the government were also donating to the Trudeau Foundation (Chagger: The rules), and James Bezan and Pierre Paul-Hus worried about a possible mission to Mali (Dion: There is no ulterior motive, serving the interests of peace are part of our international obligations). Murray Rankin asked about CSIS storing metadata (Goodale: Here’s the laundry list of changes we’re making to C-51), and Matthew Dubé asked about information obtained by torture (Goodale: The old ministerial directive is under review, but torture is contrary to all of our values).

Gerry Ritz worries that people will be "taxed to death" and that money will be sent to China.
Okay, then. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 12, 2016

Round three saw questions on safe injection sites, bail reform, daycare costs, the MyDemocracy survey, the survey postcards not going out to rural communities (Monsef: I’ll look into it), Syrian refugees, poverty reduction, carbon taxes, the many failings of the government, and Bill C-29.

Overall, it was a blah day, but not unsurprisingly so given that everyone’s energy levels are starting to wane as the day to rise before the holidays draws nearer. And it was terribly repetitive, with but a single exchange toward the end that prompted a reasoned response from a minister (after a lengthy talking point, natch), with the added insistence on repeating the news from Friday’s QP (around the government’s minor climbdown on Bill C-29) since there weren’t enough people paying attention, apparently. Meanwhile, I was disappointed to see that Chrystia Freeland has retreated to her talking points again and simply accusing the NDP of not supporting any trade deals that actually answering the substance of the question (which was about intershipping regulations, which is an issue).

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Francis Drouin for a dark grey suit with a crisp white shirt and a purple tie, and to MaryAnn Mihychuk for a black top and trousers, with a long white jacket under a long black jacket and white lapels with a leopard print (which I’ve stated before that she can make work despite my usual aversion to animal prints). Style citations go out to Cathy McLeod for a black turtleneck with a black jacket with a gold lace pattern and black skirt, and to Mark Eyking for a dark grey suit with a purple-grey shirt and black tie with purple dots.