The PM was still in Laos, and his deputy was off to Toronto, as was Pierre Poilievre, meaning only one of the mainline leaders were present today. That left Andrew Scheer to lead off, and worried about the rise in antisemitism and hate crimes, blamed Justin Trudeau’s so-called “divisive rhetoric,” and that it takes too long to list terrorist groups as such, giving the example of the Houthis. Arif Virani says that they denounced the actions of Samidoun in Vancouver, and that they are being reviewed for a designation. Scheer then raised the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s updated report on the carbon levy, grossly mischaracterised it, and cited numbers out of context before demanding an election. Steven Guilbeault quoted the report to point out that eighth out of ten households are net beneficiaries. Scheer insisted that Guilbeault was also misleading because he only focused on the direct costs and not the net economic impact. Guilbeault recited more passages that made his point that only the wealthiest are impacted. John Barlow took over to insist that the impacts were worse for farmers. Guilbeault cited grain reports that prove that droughts have reduced grain yields. Barlow cherry-picked another citation from the report and demanded an election. Guilbeault listed the indirect economic impact costs on things like farms, and that they had the support of different agricultural associations.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc and demanded that the Senate be abolished because they weren’t passing a Bloc bill on Supply Management (and good luck getting the constitutional amendment to make that happen). Lawrence MacAulay recited his support for Supply Management and impressed upon the Senate to pass it. DeBellefeuille demanded that the two senators be brought into line (which is not how this works), and Marie-Claude Bibeau reiterated support for the sector.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and complained about “greedy CEOs” and Thanksgiving dinners, to which François-Philippe Champagne said that they should thank the government for reforming competition, and gave props to Singh for his contributions. Singh switched to French to give the same again, and Champagne patted himself on the back for summoning the grocery CEOs to demand action.

Round two, and Jasraj Hallan rhymed off slogans and angry word salad about that PBO report (Guilbeault: Canadians should take everything you say with a big grain of salt; Sudds: We are fighting for Canadians with programmes like the Canada Child Benefit, which you would cut), Lianne Rood, direct to camera, got her clip condemning the carbon levy (Bendayan: Today’s report was clear that most households get more back and the costs of inaction are higher; Duclos: 300 economists have confirmed most households get more back), and Pierre Paul-Hus finally returned to the privilege filibuster (Gould: The motion was clearly an abuse of authority and the matter needs to go to committee; Duclos: This is not a banana republic, and politicians don’t tell police what to do).

Yves Perron described farmers coming to Ottawa to show support for the Bloc’s Supply Management bill (Bibeau: We supply the system and we are asking the senators to pass; Senators are independent and you should know what that means).

The Bloc continue to refuse to understand how the Senate works, because they like the outrage. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) October 10, 2024

Jamil Jivani recited his own distortion of the PBO report (Guilbeault: Let me quote from the report again; Gould: In the interests of clarity, why not be clear about what you plan to cut), and   Philip Lawrence quoted a StatsCan report on income inequality (Sudds: You want to cut the programmes that help those vulnerable).

Alexandre Boulerice blamed the federal government for a doctor shortage in Quebec (Duclos: Thanks for your support for dental care), and Niki Ashton again raised the arguments from government lawyers on a clean water lawsuit (Hajdu: I just met with those chiefs, and we talked about the importance of our clean water bill).

Round three saw more questions on the SDTC documents (Gould: We had handed over thousands of pages, but the big issue is that politicians shouldn’t be directing police; In the real world, police need to get warrants from judges and follow due process; Virani: The job of the opposition to hold government to account, not to direct the police; I’m not sure what you’re referring to since you haven’t seen the documents that have been turned over; Champagne: Imagine a world where your leader thinks he can direct the police and getting around Charter rights and due process; SDTC helped small clean-tech businesses; ), the demand for OAS increases (MacKinnon: Remember when you opposed returning the retirement age to 65?; You opposed dental care for seniors), the delay in signing of on a CSIS warrant (O’Connell: We have taken foreign interference seriously, while you guys are blocking a study on Russian disinformation), declaring Houthis a terrorist entity (O’Connell: We listen to national security agencies’ advice), doing more to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East (Damoff: Israel has a right to defend itself and we are calling on this not to become a regional crisis), and black mould a First Nation health facility (Hajdu: We are closing the infrastructure gap).

Overall, there was very little to recommend the day. As expected, the release of the PBO’s numbers were once again grossly distorted to present a false picture of what he said by the same tactic that they used with his last report—by focusing on the “overall economic impact” figure, which is not what directly impacts households or their affordability, and claiming economic doom, but this time they also needed to ignore the sections on the costs of inaction, which were included that were not there previously. But they lied repeatedly in the past with very little pushback from media (because both-sides), so they are planning to do so once again because it worked. And today was almost entirely devoted to gathering fresh clips, sometimes delivered directly to camera, for their socials that again distort and lie about the report. I can’t wait for Yves Giroux to once again lament that he didn’t think his report would be used in such a political fashion.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Scott Aitchison for a navy suit with a crisp white shirt and a dark pink tie, and to Karina Gould for a dark grey tailored suit over a white collared top. Style citations go out to Stephanie Kusie for a short-sleeved black dress with orange panels with a black lace pattern along the front and sleeves, and to Arif Virani for a khaki jacket over a light grey shirt, black tie, black slacks and a grey and black pocket square. Dishonourable mention goes out to Ginette Petitpas Taylor for her dark yellow jacket over a black collared top and slacks.