As the final sitting week for the year began, the prime minister was in town but absent from QP. Pierre Poilievre was present, however, and he led off in French, and called the Liberals “grinches” before raising the Food Price Report, blaming “inflationary taxes and deficits,” which is of course, nonsense. François-Philippe Champagne said that Poilievre is talking about imaginary taxes, while the main measure in the budget is a tax cut for 22 million Canadians. Poilievre repeated the same question in English, listing the imaginary “hidden grocery taxes” this time. Champagne boisterously praised the “good news” in the budget after being warned by the Speaker for using the budget document as a prop. Poilievre said that if the Liberals want to solve the cost of living crisis, they should build more pipelines to boost the dollar so that they can buy more food and houses, and then gave some revisionist history around the demise of Northern Gateway, and wanted the government members to vote for their own MOU to build a pipeline. Tim Hodgson said it was a “sad day” because conservatives are divided, listing conservative premiers who support the MOU “in its entirety.” Poilievre declared that in the “spirit of Christmas,” he engaged in an “act of generosity” to lift words from that MOU as part of their Supply Day motion tomorrow, to get Liberals to vote on a pipeline to the Pacific and lift the tanker ban, admitting that they were wrong. Hodgson suggested he not cherry-pick parts of the MOU and support the entire MOU like premiers were doing. Poilievre said the only ones dived is the prime minister who is “divided against himself,” and demanded he take a position and vote for their motion. Hodgson repeated the premiers that support the full MOU, and invited the Conservatives to support it. Poilievre said that meant there were parts that they didn’t agree with, and again demanded the government vote for their motion. MacKinnon praised Danielle Smith for signing the MOU and listed the other measures in it that the Conservatives apparently don’t care about.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and took swipes at the Conservatives for pushing back against removing the religious exemption for hate crimes, and now the prime minister has also pushed back. Sean Fraser stood up and said that they need to take action to combat hate, and that the house needs to support it, but suggested that amendments were the responsibility of the justice committee. Normandin wondered why the prime minister sided with the Conservatives and the religious right to keep the religious exemption. Fraser again talked around this before again insisting this was the domain of the committee. Rhéal Fortin took over to ask the same question, and Fraser defended the bill in order to protect communities facing hate crimes, which means collaborating with different parties, and that he looked forward to the decision of the committee.

Round two, and John Barlow turned back to the script about the Food price Report (Hajdu: 66 percent of agricultural land in this country suffered drought, which raises prices, so we are putting money in the pockets of Canadians; We have ensured that benefits keep pace with inflation), Larry Brock read the same script (MacDonald: That very report points to causes like climate change, the trade war and global conflicts; The Climate Institute has proven the industrial carbon price’s effect is negligible), Connie Cody read the script with some anecdotes about poor seniors (Long: Your leader has you voting against affordability measures), and Dominique Vien read the French version of the script (Gainey: Our investments are helping families; We are not fixating on imaginary taxes).

They are today. They don’t every day.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-12-08T19:57:54.744Z

Xavier Barsalou-Duval worried about the problem of drivers for hire and the government not doing enough to combat it (MacKinnon: We take this very seriously, which is why we have put tangible measures in the budget, but you voted against it; This is the first time the Bloc wants federal intrusion into members of provincial responsibility).

Laila Goodridge worried about food insecurity (Valdez: Here are a list of measures we are taking) and infant formula (Valdez: You amplify panic while we have reduced child poverty and you voted against it), Sandra Cobena also asked about baby formula (Hajdu: You voted against help for Canadians), and Grant Jackson read the food insecurity script (Long: Same answer; Blois: The budget has a tax cut you voted against).

Would it kill for someone on the government benches to point out that government spending has fuck all to do with the price of baby formula? FFS #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-12-08T19:47:41.479Z

Round three saw questions on the tanker ban (Hodgson: It’s sad that conservatives are divided because conservatives premiers support the entire MOU; Bendayan: The budget will create local infrastructure that you voted against; MacKinnon: We will work with BC and First Nations to enact the entire MOU; Wages are rising faster than inflation and you are talking Canada down), the food insecurity script (Blois: Your riding has a lot of farmers and your platform had nothing for them; McKnight: We are investing in supports for families; Bendayan: You voted against the school food programme; Olszewski: We have cut taxes and are building affordable homes; Lightbound: We believe we need a strong economy to help people, and GDP and jobs are up while inflation is down), gifts for staffers who worked on a provincial leadership campaign—and the Speaker warned this is not a federal issue (MacKinnon: Federal and provincial parties are separate), Nunavut not getting enough coastal fisheries licences (Thompson: The conversations are still happening and no decisions have been made).

Overall, it was another day of Poilievre not daring to ask any pipeline/MOU questions in French,  which is somewhat ironic because while he blasts the government for saying one thing in BC and another in Alberta, he’s saying one thing in English and nothing at all in French. So very brave! I do think it’s curious that the government doesn’t call him on this, but they are more interested in patting themselves on the back rather than in pretty much anything else. This being said, we had a couple of instances where ministers did the bare minimum of pushing back on the food inflation questions and quoting from the same report, but it was only for one response each, letting it go unchallenged for the remaining eleventy questions of the same. It would seem to me that they have plenty of opportunity to call bullshit and point out that the Conservatives have cherry-picked a report and haven’t bothered to either read it, or they’re lying about what it says, which is a message I would think they would want to push so that message that the Conservatives are trying to rage-bait or outright lie and can’t be trusted, but what do I know? 

Otherwise, the government continues to drop the ball on the infant formula questions, where only once two weeks ago did they actually give an actual response to the causes, but when the questions keep coming, they need to actually have that proper response over and over again, and not just pat themselves on the back for the Canada Child Benefit. There is a very real problem regarding the fact that we don’t produce it domestically, and that we need a domestic supplier in order to ensure we are not held hostage to the shortages coming from the US, but the government is absolutely ignoring this issue when they should be making it known that they are doing something, but instead, they continue to look tone-deaf and like they would feed the grievances the Conservatives want to push.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to David Myles for a dark grey suit with a light blue shirt and a purple tie, and to Rachel Bendayan for light grey suit over a grey-green scoop-necked top. Style citations go out to Stephanie Kusie for an off-black jacket and skirt that were covered in gold sequins, and to Luc Berthold for a blue-grey suite with an off white shirt and a black and blue printed patterned tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Rebecca Alty for a mustard yellow jacket over a yellow and black patterned collared top and black slacks, and to Karim Bardeesy for a black suit with a white shirt and a yellow striped tie.