The PM in the building, just down the hall, making an announcement with Doug Ford, but not in QP, and won’t be this week at all as he jets off to Türkiye later today. Pierre Poilievre was present, however, and he led off in French, and he raised Food Banks Canada’s latest report, and wondered what happened to Mark Carney saying people can judge him by the prices at the grocery store. Joël Lightbound thanked him for the question and recited how many Canadians benefit from programmes like dental care and the Canada Child Benefit. Poilievre complained that the government voted against their Supply Day motion that there is an affordability crisis, and Lightbound responded that Poilievre has spent twenty years voting against help for Canadians. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the question about the Food Banks Canada report, and Evan Solomon got up to first express his thanks for the work Poilievre did in Wainwrigth, before patting himself on the back for programmes the government delivers. Poilievre quoted a line from the Food Banks report, to which Solomon thundered about the benefits that they deliver to Canadians, and insisted that the Conservatives were all talk on because they opposed it. Poilievre took the bait, and listed the things that the government as all talk about (even though most of the items on that list were either torqued or out of context). Solomon got up to repeat his same points with added excitement. Poilievre insisted that the only thing the government was feeding was interest on the federal debt, and Solomon listed the statistics on growth and cherry-picked job numbers.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and denounced Bill C-39 as conservative authoritarian overreach, that this exceeded the wildest dreams of Stephen Harper, and it was no surprise that Conservatives were crossing the floor to the Liberals. Sean Fraser disputed this and praised its goal of building more. Normandin listed groups that are against the bill, and said the only people in favour are the Conservatives. Julie Dabrusin patted herself on the back for all of the green projects that this legislation would support. Andréanne Larouche took over to decry that the same bill is an attack on labour rights, and wondered how the Liberals could be more anti-union than the Conservatives. Joël Lightbound insisted that they only want parties in labour negotiations to get along.

Round two, and Poilievre got back up to blame the prime minister for the CRA’s contract that chose another company over the Commissionaires (Fragiskatos: Do I need to remind you of the Conservative record on veterans, and there was a transparent process; McKnight: As was stated, the CRA used a fair and open process and selected a Canadian firm), John Barlow related a sob story about food bank use (Fragiskatos: We shouldn’t politicise hardship, and here are supports we provide; If you are going to cite the Food Banks Canada report, you should read how we are acting on their recommendations), and Rhonda Kirkland cited the same report to denounce the government (Church: The report talks about the benefits we are providing that you vote against).

The Conservatives’ logic is that government benefits don’t work because there are still people at food banks, so we should cut them. “Liberal taxes” are not why people struggle to make ends meet. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T18:50:40.551Z

Martin Champoux got up to repeat yesterday’s concerns that the cultural sector has not received money from the federal government after the cancelled Online Streaming Act funds (Miller: The funds are coming shortly; Miller: I funded a poutine festival in your riding, and here is a list of funds that are getting more supports).

Sandra Cobena returned to the food banks script (Gainey: You voted against school food; Why do you vote against breakfast for kids at school?), Bob Zimmer read it again (Thompson: You voted against the projects actually making a difference in this country), Joël Godin read the script en français (Lightbound: You vote against measures to help people).

Round three saw questions on housing starts (Robertson: Build Canada Homes is scaling up; We are pushing forward and just launched the affordable rental protection programme; There are challenges in the housing sector, and there are cities with good uptake and others that need more action; Desrochers: We would invite you to be here for the budget as we will have new measures to unveil; You should get the data before you stand up to speak in the House), new rules around temporary foreign workers (Church: We will always favour Canadian workers, and the process is simpler for key, in-demand areas; Diab: We have a clear focus of building the strongest economy in the G7, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce praised it; This is for high-skilled in-demand areas), parole (Anandasangaree: The parole system works independent of government; You stalled and opposed our law reforms), airport privatisation (Kelloway: We need to modernise airports to make them competitive, and the idea is to help invest in regional airports), and a denunciation of C-39 (Kelloway: Building Canada Strong™!).

Rempel Garner just used the BioWare shutdown announcement to couch an anti-immigration question. Gross. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T19:05:58.976Z

Overall, it was a pretty mediocre day, where the Conservatives reheated some old scripts by cutting and pasting the numbers in the most recent Food Banks Canada report, and the government recited by rote the very same talking points about the programmes they deliver, and nothing will change as each gets the clips they were looking for. We got a few more anti-immigration questions from the Conservatives, who are doubling down on this racist discourse, and today it was mostly in the form of changes to the changes to the temporary foreign worker programme for highly skilled individuals in high-demand sectors, and no one from the government adequately explained the changes and why the Conservatives are just being xenophobic, and instead their ineptitude just made the Conservatives sound like they have a point. It would be great if the government constantly shit the bed like this in the face of legitimately racist nonsense coming from the Conservatives, but they have thus far proven unable to do so, and that’s absolutely shameful all around.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Iqra Khalid for a white collared top with a dark blue (possibly denim) skirt, and to Adam Chambers for a dark blue suit with a light blue shirt and a pink tie. Style citations go out to Rosemarie Falk for a long-sleeved black drew with a tight orange, peach and cream floral pattern, and to Glen Motz for a black jacket with a white shirt, blue jeans, and a light grey tie with a square pattern.