Conservatives: Trudeau throne speech an ‘insult to people of Alberta, Saskatchewan’
BQ leader indicates his party will support the speech
OTTAWA — The new minority parliament opened on Thursday with a throne speech from the Liberals that emphasized collaboration but was immediately attacked as an insult to the West by the Conservatives.
“Finding common ground, forging bonds, and working together,” the speech said. “It is in that distinctly Canadian spirit of collaboration that the government and this parliament will build on the progress of the last mandate, and deliver a better Canada for all Canadians.”
But Conservative leader Andrew Scheer called it an “insult to the people of Alberta and Saskatchewan” because the speech didn’t address the tough times in the energy sector and he vowed to try to amend the speech in the parliamentary debate to come in the next two to three days.
“(The amendment) will highlight the things that we believe should have been in the speech,” Scheer told reporters.
He said the amendment would echo the Conservative election promise to build a national energy corridor to move oil east and electricity west, and would call for the repeal of the tanker ban off the West Coast.
Scheer said the speech included nothing about protecting Canada from a possible economic downturn; nothing about energy workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan, or forestry workers in British Columbia, and “most importantly, nothing really on national unity.”
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said the speech was “not good enough,” pointing to the lack of details about a national pharmacare program. “It sounds like they’re moving backwards (on pharmacare)…If they want our support they’ve got to work for it,” Singh said, though added he’ll wait for more discussion before deciding whether to oppose it.
But there appears to be little danger of the speech failing to pass, as Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet said he would vote in favour because he saw opportunities to “make gains for Quebec.”
Blanchet added that it was easier for him to vote in favour because there was nothing specifically about oil in the speech. The Liberals only need the support of one of the Conservatives, NDP or Bloc to get a House of Commons vote passed.
The speech, written by the Prime Minister’s Office and delivered by Governor General Julie Payette in a packed Senate chamber, ran for a half hour and largely contained a rundown of Liberal election promises.
It opened with an intergalactic flourish provided by Payette, the former astronaut appointed to the vice-regal role in 2017. “We know that we are inextricably bound to the same space-time continuum and on board the same planetary spaceship,” she told the parliamentarians. “If we put our brains and smarts and altruistic capabilities together, we can do a lot of good.”
Payette was re-using the same “space-time continuum” line that she’d said in her installation speech on Oct. 2, 2017.
Alberta Conservative MP Michelle Rempel vented her frustration on Twitter after the speech. “The ‘space time continuum’ and ‘spaceship earth’ got more airtime and detail in Trudeau’s list of priorities for Canada than the workers in my province,” she wrote.
The speech, as expected heading into a minority parliament situation, called on MPs and senators to cooperate on behalf of Canadians.
“The mandate of this recent election is a starting point, not the final word. The government is open to new ideas from all parliamentarians, stakeholders, public servants, and Canadians — ideas like universal dental care are worth exploring, and I encourage parliament to look into this,” the speech said, giving a nod to an NDP election plank.
Climate change, middle-class finances, Indigenous reconciliation and healthcare all got dedicated sections in the speech, giving an indication of what the Liberals will be most focused on in this session.
“A clear majority of Canadians voted for ambitious climate action now,” the speech said. It promised to set a target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and to “continue to lead in ensuring a price on pollution everywhere in this country.”
The government’s first action, however, will be to table its taxcut legislation promised during the campaign. This plan will increase the basic personal exemption by $2,000 (meaning the first $15,000 of income won’t be taxed federally) for people earning less than $147,000 annually.