In advance of the budget vote, the PM was present today, as were most of the other leaders. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, where he trotted out his new line likening the budget to credit card spending “with no limits,” and that this created surges in inflation and taxes, and raise the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s concerns that the size of the deficit has doubled. (And no, a federal budget has absolutely no relation to a credit card, and I wish to the gods our politicians would stop making these comparisons). Mark Carney praised the budget as a “generational investment” budget, and cited the PBO that the policy was sustainable in the long term. Poilievre cried that this was multigenerational debt that is driving up food prices (it is not), and read the food price inflation data from this morning, and blamed “Liberal taxes” (which is also nonsense). Carney reminded him that inflation has slowed down and has been within the Bank of Canada’s target for the past two years. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the line about the national credit card and inflation. Carney repeated in English that it’s a day because inflation is down, unemployment is down, and they have an opportunity to vote for their budget. Poilievre was not slowed, and uttered some complete bullshit about food price inflation, and repeated his nonsense about credit cards. Carney repeated the lines about inflation and unemployment while confidence in our economy is “sky high.” Poilievre repeated nonsense about “hidden taxes,” and Carney pointed out that wages have grown faster than inflation, and exhorted the Conservatives to vote for their budget. Poilievre switched to the rise in extortion, calling it a result of “soft-on-crime policies” and “open borders,” which is a foghorn and not a dog-whistle, and Carney called on them to support their future legislation.
Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, worried about tariffs, and wanted the PM to admit his strategy has failed. Carney reminded him that we have the best trade agreement currently and they are working to a better on. Blanchet mocked this, and demanded the same, and Carney said that Trump is calling his back, before praising investments for Quebec in the budget. Blanchet then demanded that the government capitulate to their requests for the budget, and Carney again repeated the investments for Quebec in the budget.
Round two, and Melissa Lantsman cited the PBO’s analysis of the budget, and worried he was going to be fired for “telling the truth” (Champagne: Inflation is down and we have a generational budget; Kevin Page gave us a passing grade), Sandra Cobena read another script of the same (Hajdu: Hooray for the budget that you should vote for; Eric Lefebvre read the script in French (Lightbound: We have the best fiscal position in the G7 and we are making important investments in Quebec), and Pierre Paul-Hus gave another script of the same (McGuinty: Hooray for the pay raises for the Canadian Forces).
Jean-Denis Garon gave another round of the very same, but from the Bloc benches (Champagne: There is so much good news for Quebec in the budget), and complained that they wanted to replace the interim PBO (Joly: Your region has aerospace industries, so if you vote against the budget, you vote against them).
Raquel Dancho read a script about the deficit (Zerucelli: Canadians are getting the largest investment in industry and union jobs; McLean: Voting against the budget is voting against Canadians), Luc Berthold tried to liken the budget to a credit card in French (Lightbound: There is a tax cut for average families in the budget, and we are giving a raise to the Canadian Forces; We need to stimulate the economy to secure our sovereignty), and Dan Muys returned to the PBO script (Long: Hooray for our budget).
Elizabeth May (who usually only gets a question at the very end), worried about the climate targets in the budget, to which Carney praised the Youth Climate Corps in the budget, and insisted that the government will respect its Paris targets, before rhyming off some slogans.
Round three saw questions on the price of baby formula and “inflationary deficits” (Valdez: We are investing to prevent gender-based violence and women’s economic equality; Gainey: We are working with provinces to combat food insecurity such as with the school food programme), food price inflation (Hajdu: We came to an agreement with Ontario about carrying on the child care programme; Guilbeault: Hooray for the budget; Solomon: Our budget is great; Robertson: The budget has historic investments; Hodgson: We are helping build the best nuclear system in the world), extortion cases (Sahota: We have taken many steps to improve public safety, so vote for the budget; Vote for lawful access; Extortion is taken seriously and has a maximum sentence of life), a bullshit story about Kayabaga’s expenses (MacKinnon: This is a nonsense story, as vacation expenses for employees were reported), and housing investments (Champagne: We are maintaining programmes close to Canadians’ hearts).
Patry Hajdu was reading a statement from a parent praising childcare, who said she would have had to quit her job to become a stay-at-home mom without it. Conservatives started mocking this, to which Hajdu stopped and declared that Conservatives don’t like women in the workforce. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-17T19:57:57.927Z
Overall, it was such a stupid day. I wish I had another word for it, but it was mindless, where the Conservatives have come up with this nonsense about credit cards—which is not how this works—and they kept on about food prices, and the government just kept patting themselves on the back for the inflation numbers this morning, along with back-patting about what is in the budget. Most of the answers were divorced from the questions asked, because again, everyone was just up there to produce clips for their social media channels. The fact that that this was just more dramatic positioning for the budget was ridiculous. Once again, there are answers to be given about inflation or food price inflation, but the government continues to refuse to actually give those answers, which is a problem and allows disinformation to fester in the minds of the public.
The one thing that did stand out was Elizabeth May getting a question that usually goes to the Liberals at the end of the second round, and this was pretty much a gimme that helped to secure her support for the budget by Carney telling her what she wanted to hear, and lo, after QP, she went to the Foyer afterwards and gave a long answer to say that she was going to vote in favour. It was just more manufactured drama on a day full of manufactured drama (and dick-swinging), and it’s so tiresome.
Elizabeth May says she will vote for the budget to stop an election happening by accident. She cites that the PM committed to maintaining Paris Targets during #QP, which helped to convince her.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-17T20:16:19.468Z
Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Ben Carr for a dark grey suit with a crisp white shirt and a pale pink tie, and to Mélanie Joly for a long navy jacket over a white top and black slacks. Style citations go out to, and to Anna Gainey for a black top with purple and yellow florals under a black suit, and to David Bexte for a navy jacket over a pale pink shirt, blue jeans, and a dark blue spotted tie.