QP: Gathering clips of vaccine drama

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In the day following the budget, both Justin Trudeau and his deputy, Chrystia Freeland were both present for a rare change of pace in these pandemic times, and it was nice to see both. Erin O’Toole led off, script on mini-lectern, and he immediately blamed the government for the third wave by not having enough vaccines — because they can be procured from thin air. Trudeau reminded him that they have been securing vaccines for Canadians. O’Toole complained about delays for AstraZeneca doses and about the Johnson & Johnson plant being shut down, and demanded the government to go back in time to do something about it, and Trudeau calmly reminded him that they have exceeded their vaccine targets. O’Toole got anger in the demand for more vaccines, and Trudeau reminded him that vaccinations need to be accompanied by strong public health measures, and then noted that the budget must have been so good because O’Toole had no questions on it. O’Toole switched to French to lament that higher, unconditional transfers to provinces aren’t in the budget, for which Trudeau chided him that in English, O’Toole says that the government is spending too much, and in French, says they’re not spending enough. O’Toole accused the government of not helping Canadians with the budget, and Trudeau hit back, citing the programmes that are helping Canadians instead of just choosing to reduce the deficit.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he denounced the “age-based discrimination” in the budget because the additional assistance to seniors over the age of 75 was not extended to all seniors. Trudeau reminded him that older seniors have higher costs and many worry about exhausting their savings, so older seniors were getting additional help. Blanchet claimed that explanation didn’t make sense, and Trudeau listed the assistance they have given to all seniors.

Jagmeet Singh was up for the NDP, and in French, he groused that the budget didn’t choose to tax the ultra-rich and cut assistance to people, and Trudeau stated that was false, and that their first act as a government was to raise taxes on the one percent, which the NDP opposed, and listed tax measures in the budget. Singh switched to English to decry the situation in Ontario, and demanded the government use the Emergencies Act to implement paid sick leave in the provinces. Trudeau reminded him that they have been working with provinces throughout the pandemic.

Round two, and Richard Martel denounced the budget as an “open bar” before demanding higher, unconditional health transfers to provinces (Freeland: The Conservatives need to choose one policy, saying we’re spending too much while at the same time saying we’re not spending enough), and complained about the funding for long-term care (Freeland: Same answer), and Michelle Rempel Garner praised India’s vaccine manufacturing and partnering with them (Champagne: We invested in Canadian options within days of the pandemic being declared; Anand: Your narrative is patently false, we have seven agreements with vaccine manufacturers and 13.4 million vaccines have been distributed already).

Gabriel Ste-Marie demanded increased health transfers and demanded the budget be amended (Freeland: The federal government has been supporting provinces and we sent another $5 billion last week; We invested heavily in healthcare and in bio manufacturing capacity).

Ed Fast gave a false reading of Chrystia Freeland’s mandate letter to complain about the budget (Freeland: Declining debt-to-GDP ration is our fiscal anchor, and we remain the lowest in the G20), and demanded a debt management plan (Freeland: It’s Annex 2 of the budget), and Luc Berthold repeated the same questions in French (Freeland: Same answer), and tried to quote Mark Carney (Freeland: Is the Conservative Party the party of austerity, or do they want to spend even more? Have a consistent approach).

Peter Julian worried about the tens of billionaires and bank profits (Freeland: Here are tax measures in the budget), and Lindsay Mathyssen demanded an end to interest on student loans (Freeland: We committed $6 billion for young people in the budget, and that’s not a platitude).

Round three saw questions on proceedings at the defence committee (Bezan: As vice chair of the committee, I share her disgust on the conduct of the chair), failure to get vaccines (Anand: We have procured vaccines by the millions in a very competitive global environment), increasing pensions for all seniors (Freeland: We share the respect for seniors and we chose to target those with greater needs), Canada apparently paying too much for AstraZeneca doses (Anand: Not breaching our contract secrecy is a priority because every country is clamouring for doses, and we negotiated in good faith with AstraZeneca as they sell at non-for-profit prices), CBSA officers on the border not being vaccinated (Blair: We reached out to provinces, and we’re glad the provinces are doing the job of prioritising them), the costing of the gun buyback (Blair: We have legislation to ensure that none of these weapons can be sold and traded in Canada), local vaccine production (Champagne: We did invest in it), pharmacare (Freeland: We are keeping up the momentum with new investments in catastrophic drug coverage), and a local Canada Post outbreak (Anand: Canada Post’s top priority is keeping its employees safe while maintaining service).

Overall, there were a couple of interesting things to note, such as Erin O’Toole having completely different topics in English and French, which is unusual and points to tactical reasoning. In English, it was about setting the narrative of the federal government’s so-called vaccine failure (because apparently scarcity is not a Thing, vaccines can be produced by magic out of thin air, and they can be delivered in a mathematically impossible time frame), and in the third round, you had a number of Conservative MPs all asking about how the shortage of vaccines was impacting their communities – a coordinated approach for everyone gathering clips for their social media. In French, O’Toole was in full out-Bloc-the-Bloc mode, demanding those unconditional health transfers to provinces, and both Trudeau and Freeland were right to call him out that in English he says they’re spending too much and in French says they’re not spending enough, and that is an incoherent position overall. It’s also simply shameless in terms of the pandering for Quebec votes, but a lack of shame is how the current Conservative party operates.

I also noted a return to the stunt of asking a question to a committee chair in the reasonable suspicion that the Liberal chair would not be able to answer, so the Conservative vice-chair would in her stead, and lo, that’s what happened. (The chair, Karen McCrimmon, was in the Chamber right at the start of QP and then left, so presumably she was in the lobby behind when the question was asked, and the Conservatives knew that, meaning they knew she was unlikely to be able to answer). This particular tactic of asking their committee vice-chairs to denounce the government is a childish tactic and betrays the point of Question Period and harms the rationale for being able to ask committee chairs questions in the first place – not that they care about the bigger-picture impact.

Sartorial snaps and citations remain on hiatus for lack of a sufficient sample size.

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