Fresh from the Pride Flag raising on Parliament Hill, the prime minister was present for Question Period today, as were the other leaders. Andrew Scheer was present but did not lead off, leaving that up to Larry Brock, who put on his most serious tone to decry the Auditor General’s report on the “fraudsters” at GC Strategies and the dollars that they got from government, and demand taxpayers get their money back. Mark Carney thanked the Auditor General for her service and noted that the company has been prohibited from government contracts for seven years, and that “Canada’s New Government™” would uphold higher standards. Brock blustered that ministers responsible for those “fraudulent” payments are still in Cabinet, and demanded taxpayers get their money back. Carney instead praised them for supporting their legislation on tax cuts. James Bezan took over and thundered about the AG report on the F-35 procurement, and the increased cost projections and delays to necessary infrastructure for the planes, and demanded that the ministers responsible be held to account. Carney in turn wondered if Bezan held himself to account for military funding falling below one percent when he was in the government, before patting himself on the back for the military funding announcement. Bezan sputtered and insisted that the Conservatives “delivered” for the military, and demanded to know why Anita Anand was still in his Cabinet, as he blamed her for the findings in the report. Carney instead delivered an ode to the Canadian industry that they would be featuring in this military rebuilding. Pierre Paul-Hus asked the same condemnation about the report and Anand in French, to which Carney pointed to this first action he took was to review the F-35 contract. Paul-Hus then turned to the ArriveCan portion of the report and the GC Strategies condemnation. Carney noted that an independent process suspended their ability to bid for contracts already.

Yves-François Blanchet said that the final carbon levy rebate was paid out before the money was collected, then Quebeckers were also owed a payment. Carney responded that while he was “proud” to cancel the levy, Quebec and BC have their own systems and didn’t pay into it. Blanchet tried a second time, and Carney repeated that they didn’t pay into it. Blanchet put a price that of $814 million on that, and Carney noted that Blanchet himself created Quebec’s carbon pricing system, and that their not getting a rebate was coherent.

Round two, and Kelly McCauley read a script about GC Strategies (Lightbound: They had their clearance striped in March of 2024 and they have had their status revoked; We acted on previous reports from the Auditor General), Stephanie Kusie overdramatised a script about GC Strategies (Lightbound: They were rendered ineligible in an independent process), Ted Falk tried again (Lightbound: Same answer), and Luc Berthold tried again in French (Lightbound: Same answer in French).

Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay demanded local procurement for the military (McGuinty: We will meet the two percent goal, which is an investment in our defence industry in Canada).

Melissa Lantsman accused the government of just building bureaucracy instead of homes (Lightbound: We accept the Auditor General’s report on office space but she noted that we are ahead on our goals on the public lands initiative; Robertson: We are focused on moving forward on building housing using federal lands in partnership), Jamil Jivani tried the same (Robertson: We are focused on building big), Tamara Kronis gave more of the same (Robertson: Same answer), and  Dominique Vien repeated the question in French (Robertson: Same answer in French).

Round three saw questions on the F-35 cost overruns (McGuinty: There have been cost increases in part because of the pandemic but we are working on it; We will work to get the best costs; Hooray for the work our Armed Forces are doing in the Caribbean and at home), the GC Strategies report (Lightbound: Same answer as before, over and over and over again), using the AG report to demand a budget (Lightbound: Same talking points), and Bill C-5 steamrolling over provinces (Freeland: We met with the premiers and they all talked about the need to build significant projects), and rescinding invitations to the G7 (Anand: There has been an agreement for continued law enforcement dialogue with India, and the RCMP’s independent investigation is ongoing). 

Overall, I would on the one hand note that it’s nice to see an Auditor General’s report finally feature in Question Period on the day it was released, like it was back when the opposition at least pretended to care about holding government to account and not ignoring it in favour of the predetermined narrative of the day. On the other hand, good gods on Olympus, this was a boring QP where the same three questions got asked for nearly all of it, and Joël Lightbound in particular just read the same response over, and over, and over again rather than varying it, or outright ignoring it after the fifth time to feature some kind of good news announcement. Nope. It was even more repetitive and mind-numbing that it usually is, which says a lot.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Doug Eyolfson for a dark grey suit with a light purple shirt and a dark purple tie and pocket square, and to Sandra Cobena for a well-tailored fuchsia jacket over a black crew-necked top and slacks. Style citations go out to Carol Anstey for a white collared short-sleeved shirt-dress with a pedestrian pattern featuring Paris scenes, and to Scott Anderson for an off-white suit jacket with a navy shirt, blue-grey slacks, and a striped grey tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Dominique O’Rourke for a bright yellow jacket over a black dress.