National Post (National Edition)
Tories put spotlight squarely on economy
`We lost a lot of time,' says CPC house leader
• The House of Commons returns on Monday for the first time in 153 days, thanks to an election and an unusually long delay before the Liberals named their new cabinet and called the chamber back into session.
It's a delay that has Gérard Deltell, the Conservative house leader, grumbling at the inaction given the economic shocks still hitting Canada from the pandemic.
“We lost a lot of time,” he told the National Post in an interview. “We lost a lot of time because those guys decided to call an election during a pandemic, at the beginning of the fourth wave.”
But when MPs do finally return, Deltell said there's no doubt what the official opposition will be keen to talk about.
“The most important thing is the economic recovery plan,” he said. “We want to address this specific issue about inflation, and about the shortage of workers ... Those are the two big focuses for sure.”
Deltell said his party was supportive of the initial emergency spending on COVID-19 aid measures because of the unprecedented lockdowns that decimated the economy and forced businesses to close.
But the Conservatives will now be arguing the government was too slow to adjust to changing circumstances, pumping too much money into the economy while running up massive deficits. The result, Deltell said, is that businesses are having trouble finding workers and Canadian families are getting hit with rising prices on everything.
Conservative leader Erin O'Toole already signalled that battling inflation will be top of mind by renaming Pierre Poilievre as his finance critic earlier this month. Poilievre repeatedly warned about the risk of inflation during the pandemic, and has lately taken aim at the $101.4-billion stimulus package promised in the spring budget, which he now dubs the "$100-billion slush fund.”
In an interview on Friday, O'Toole told Post columnist John Ivison that his party's major focus will be on “the economic situation in the country.”
“There's an inflation crisis, there's lack of confidence, wages are flat, the cost of everything is going up, so people are actually losing purchasing power as if they were getting their wages cut, and we've never seen the country more fractured,” O'Toole said.
In a separate interview due to be aired Sunday, O'Toole reportedly told Radio-Canada that all 119 Conservative MPs are now either fully vaccinated or have received medical exemptions, which potentially puts an end to the vaccination status controversy that has dogged the party since the election. (O'Toole's office would not confirm this report when asked on Friday.)
Meanwhile, the Conservatives have also been in negotiations with the other parties on whether to bring back rules for a hybrid parliament, which allows MPs to participate and even cast votes remotely instead of coming in person.
Although the Liberals and NDP are both strongly supportive of allowing a hybrid system, the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois are opposed, making an all-party agreement on the matter unlikely. Ultimately, the Liberals and NDP could still make a hybrid system happen by passing a motion on a simple majority vote.
The Liberals have a list of other issues they promised to bring to the House of Commons within 100 days of the election, including 10-day paid leave for federally-regulated workers; a package of measures aimed at the housing affordability crisis; a renewed bill to ban coerced conversion therapy; and a collection of controversial internet and telecom reforms, including the revival of Bill C-10.
For the most part, Deltell said he could not get into whether his party will oppose these various policies until he sees what's actually put forward on paper. The Conservative caucus met for two full days this week to build a game plan for the upcoming session.
“We have a strategy behind each and every issue,” Deltell said. “I can't be wide open (on the strategy) right now.”
But he did say the Conservatives are very much prepared to fight again on Bill C-10, should it come back in the same form. The previous legislation would have set up the CRTC to regulate online platforms (such as Netflix) the way it does TV and radio broadcasters. The Conservatives — along with many independent experts — slammed the bill as a major infringement on free expression, but the Liberals passed it through the Commons with NDP and Bloc support before it died in the Senate on the election call.
“Obviously, we still have serious concerns with C-10,” Deltell said. “As long as it remains as it was, it will be very difficult, to say the least, for us to reach an agreement.”
He also said the Conservatives have not forgotten about the battle to access documents related to the firing of two scientists from a high-level infectious-disease laboratory in Winnipeg, and whether it relates to Chinese espionage. In an extraordinary move, the Liberals took the House of Commons Speaker to court this summer to block release of the documents, though the issue became moot when Parliament dissolved on the election call.
“There is still a lot of concern with this issue,” Deltell said. “Everything is on the table right now.”