The PM was away on this grey and rainy Monday, off to the UN General Assembly in New York, while that meant other leaders felt they could get away with not showing up. Pierre Poilievre, however, was present, and led off in French, and he raised the story of the secretly recorded call with Gary Anandasangaree about the gun buyback. Anandasangaree said that his comments were “misguided.” Poilievre repeated the question in English, and this time, Anandasangaree talked about Canadians demanding gun control after mass shooting. Poilievre repeated phrases from the recording, and again thundered about playing politics with guns. Anandasangaree repeated his same points about the mass shootings. Poilievre said Liberals only tell the truth when they think nobody is listening, and Anandasangaree said it was a good thing it was on tape, and accused Poilievre of playing politics. Poilievre decried the entire gun buyback scheme, and this time Sean Fraser railed about Poilievre’s record in opposing gun control. Poilievre demanded the government pass their “three strikes” law instead, and Fraser pointed out their tabling the hate crimes legislation and said that more legislation is on the way.
Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and suggested the government was engaging in conspiracy theories with their factum to the Supreme Court. Fraser said they were working toward the national interest in protecting the constitution, and that the Supreme Court was the right forum to debate these issues. Normandin said that this should be litigated in Parliament, and Steven Guilbeault said that her assertions were misinformed, and that their factum doesn’t put forward that provinces can’t use the Notwithstanding Clause. Rhéal Fortin gave his own jab at the factum, which was similarly devoid of facts, and Guilbeault pointed to his own pride in being a Quebecker before pointing to the government’s record on supporting Quebec.
Round two, and Jasraj Hallan gave some nonsense about inflation and food prices (Long: Hooray for our plans for the economy), Leslyn Lewis accused the government of “obstructing Parliament” and introduce a budget that will lower food prices (Hajdu: We have rolled out supports of Canadians), Scott Aitchison railed about housing starts (Robertson: Canadians elected us to deliver on affordability), Gabriel Hardy delivered the French version of the script to demand a budget to lower food prices (MacKinnon: We’re supporting the economy, like with aluminium; You should vote for our measures to help Canadians).
This should have read "a budget to lower food prices." That was a weird autocorrect.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-23T03:03:14.477Z
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe raised a story about organised crime importing people through student visas (Diab: Canadians gave us a mandate to restore the international student programme and restore levels to reasonable levels; We are strengthening our borders with more sophisticated tools, so you should pass Bill C-2).
Michelle Rempel Garner called Diab incompetent after a question about immigration consultants (Diab: I thank the prime minister for giving me this position, and we have established the college for immigration consultants; My provincial record is clear), Vincent Neil Ho accused Diab of taking the summer off instead of dealing with “bogus” asylum seekers (Diab: I won’t thank you for the question, but I spent the whole summer working on reforming the system), Sandra Cobena also accused Dian of doing nothing all summer (MacKinnon: We don’t treat MPs and ministers this way, and why did one of your MPs have international students be forced to campaigning for her?), and Sukhman Gill gave more of the same (Anandasangaree: We are working hard to secure our borders).
Round three saw questions on that Anandasangaree call (Anandasangaree: I have received a great deal of vitriol from the gun lobby, and you are only reinforcing that; Sahota: Conservatives just want American-style politics, and your policies failed in the U.S.; If your leader is so concerned with public safety he should get a security clearance; Provost: I was shot by a legal, law-abiding gun owner 35 years ago), student visas being used by organised crime (Diab: Support Bill C-2), the lack of a map of a Palestinian state on the website (Oliphant: There is no military solution to this conflict at hand and we will work for peaceful solutions; We also support Israel and Hamas is a terrorist group that must release hostages and disarm), oil and gas emission cap (Hodgson: We will support innovation to reach net zero, and Danielle Smith is ready to work with us; the “grand bargain” is about dramatically reducing emissions while increasing our exports); misleading math about the housing plan (Robertson: You are getting the math wrong, and that $13 billion is for several programmes around the country), and about the “Draw the Line” protests against the government (Hajdu: We were elected to focus on Canadians and be pragmatic.
Overall, it was a bit of a weird day, starting with the questions about Gary Anandasangaree’s tenant discussion, and Anandasangaree’s inability to really respond to his own inability to defend his policy, and about halfway through, it turned into fairly unparliamentary attacks on Lina Diab, with Conservatives outright calling her “incompetent.” Now, I will be the first to say that she has been pretty useless in her QP responses, not that she’s the only one on the front bench, but this crossed a line, and is certainly a betrayal of the supposed “new tone” that is supposed to be set in the current Parliament. And I get that the Conservatives see weak links on the front bench, and they want to attack them, but I’m not entirely sure that this was the best way to go about it, especially since most of these ministers need no help in demonstrating their uselessness. It just winds up looking crass and mean-spirited.
Otherwise, there were a few Conservatives who were making utterly bizarre claims, such as claiming the government is “obstructing Parliament” (huh?) and demanding a budget that will lower grocery prices. Huh? How? Wage and price controls? I know that they are probably under the false impression that they mean no deficits which will in turn lower inflation, but that’s not actually how things work. Deficits are not the cause of food price inflation, but could a government minister say this? Of course not. A government minister could also have ridiculed the suggestion about a budget lowering grocery prices (“Zap, you’re frozen!”), but will they? Of course not. They are being handed a gimme on a silver platter and they refuse to actually hit back in a significant way. What are they even doing?
Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Linda Lapointe for a pink jacket over a navy dress with white polka dots, and to Sean Fraser for a tailored navy suit over a lavender shirt and a grey-pink tie. Style citations go out to Blaine Calkins for an eggplant suit over a white shirt with a bright yellow tie, and to Stephanie McLean for a black dress with bright pink florals under a black jacket.