The prime minister was out at Fort York, having made his big defence spending announcement, while the opposition was having their first allotted Supply Day in the Commons, with a nonsense motion calling for a budget because of food price inflation, blaming it on government spending when that’s not even remotely correct.
Even though Andrew Scheer was present, he didn’t lead off, leading that up to Michael Barrett, who signalled to their motion, and demanded a budget that will bring down grocery prices (How? Price controls?) François-Philippe Champagne assured him that there will be a budget in the fall, and said it was ironic that the Conservatives consistently voted against measures to help people. Barrett claimed that the savings from the tax cut would be “vapourised” by “inflationary spending,” and demanded a budget again. Champagne said that they will always side with Canadians, like they sided with children to give them a national school food programme, or seniors with dental care, or families with child care. John Brassard took over to give the same mendacious framing of food price inflation, to which Wayne Long praised their cutting the consumer carbon levy. Brassard repeated the line about tripling food price inflation, and Long praised the headline inflation number, the workforce participation number, and the triple-A credit rating. Luc Berthold cited the “food professor” to blame food price inflation on government spending in French, to which Champagne pointed out that the Conservatives voted against any measures to help Canadians. Berthold repeated the same falsehoods to demand a budget, and Champagne retorted that the responsible thing to do was to cut taxes which they did.
Once again confused about all these questions in QP about food prices.Eliminating the carbon tax was supposed to take care of that.
— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-06-09T18:21:50.749Z
Christine Normandin worried that the bill on trade barriers would force a pipeline through Quebec, and demanded the bill be split apart. Chrystia Freeland said that this is a critical moment for the country, so everyone needs to work together to build one Canadian economy. Normandin called the bill a step backward for the environment and democracy, and this time, Steve MacKinnon said that this bill is a response to an economic crisis caused by the Americans. Patrick Bonin also worried about the declaratory powers in the legislation, and Dabrusin says the difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives is that the Liberals believe in protecting the environment.
Round two, and Doug Shipley read another script on food price inflation to demand a budget (Hajdu: We have reduced child poverty and poverty in the general population and the Conservatives could help by not voting against supports), Blaine Calkins listed other people who have budgets and demanded one from the government (Champagne: We will have a budget in the fall, and it’s responsible for us to lower taxes), Mel Arnold blamed family budgets being “destroyed” by government spending (McLean: We are doing important work to protect vulnerable Canadians including vulnerable seniors), James Bezan claimed the Liberals “gutted” the military (McKnight: We have announced that we will meet the NATO spending target this year; You guys cut military spending to below one percent), Richard Martel repeated the same in French (Joly: We will build ships and planes in Canada, create jobs and protect our sovereignty).
Bezan rails that the Liberals “gutted” the military. He was parliamentary secretary for the minister of defence when the Conservatives cut military spending to below 1% of GDP. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-09T18:35:56.947Z
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay said the Bloc supports the military spending but they want a budget to see the fiscal picture of the country (Lightbound: We welcome your support), Jean-Denis Garon asked the same (Champagne: It’s a historic moment that the Bloc wants to build a strong Canada, and hooray for investing in Canada’s sovereignty).
Kyle Seeback blamed food bank use on government spending (Zerucelli: Hooray for the Canada Child Benefit, child care and dental care for reducing poverty), Greg McLean demanded a budget (Hajdu: Our tax cut is the relief people are looking for, on top of our programmes), Eric Lefebvre demanded a budget in French (Champagne: There will be a budget tabled in the fall; Lightbound: Thousands of people in your riding were helped by our programmes like dental care).
Seeback claims federal spending drove Ontarians to food banks. Nope. Food Banks themselves pointed to insufficient provincial social programmes, including lack of rent controls. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-09T18:45:11.878Z
Round three saw questions on housing (Robertson: We are taking action starting with the GST break; We don’t control the prices of housing but we want the cost of new housing to come down; Joly: I would like to believe in the desire of all Canadians to help get more homes built, which is why I hope you will support our One Canadian Economy Bill; One of our policies is to build more modular housing to get more housing built faster; Hajdu: Modular housing is not a shipping container and you have disrespect for low and middle-income Canadians; Long: You and your colleagues should look in the mirror to ask why you voted against help for housing), vetoes on pipelines (Hodgson: We presented our One Canada Economy bill), selling LNG to Germany (Hodgson: Same answer; Dabrusin: Your government couldn’t build pipelines because they didn’t have a credible process), layoffs in Ontario (Joly: Our defence spending will create jobs), the concerns over the One Canada Economy bill (Freeland: We effectively impose a seven percent tariff on one another).
Overall, it was yet another day where you had a serious of absolutely mendaciously-framed scripts that were all based on a false premise, and yet the government didn’t challenge the false premises or framing at any point, and instead just patted themselves on the back for their programmes over the past decade, or the tax cut they can’t afford that they are pushing through right now now. There is absolutely no basis to claim that government spending has anything to do with food price inflation, and you would think that a minister could actually say as much in order to embarrass the Conservatives for constantly repeating the same falsehood over and over again. There are economists in this government who can explain this. But nope. Not once. It’s just so gods damned exhausting to listen to because it doesn’t need to be this way.
Otherwise, both the Bloc and Elizabeth May raised some of the very real problems about the One Canada Economy bill, which should be alarming to anyone who actually reads the bill, but their questions were completely ineffective in doing so, and they basically let Chrystia Freeland steamroll over them with talking points. And I will repeat—there are very, very concerning elements in that bill that need to be changed, and the opposition has a job to do in raising those concerns because they are very real, but thus far, they have been inept at doing the work they are supposed to do in bringing these issues to light, and that’s really not great.
Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Melissa Lantsman for a textured dark blue jacket over a white collared to and black slacks, and to Mike Kelloway for a dark teal suit and tie with a crisp white shirt. Style citations go out to Gabriel Hardy for a dark grey jacket, white shirt, light grey patterned tie, and tan brown slacks, and to Marilyn Gladu for a short sleeved leopard-print top with a ruffled front with tan brown slacks. Dishonourable mention goes out to Rachel Bendayan for a custard yellow jacket over a black high-necked top and slacks.