The hills notebook | The Press

From Quebec to Ottawa, find out what caught the attention of our parliamentary correspondents this week.

Have a good week: François-Philippe Champagne

True, his meeting with the bosses of the major food chains was like theater. The fact remains that the Minister of Industry is the most proactive in seeking solutions to the rising cost of living. He proposes to strengthen the Competition law in order to encourage grocery stores to offer better prices. This is preferable to imposing fees on them that would be passed on to consumers. He also wants to abolish the GST on the construction of new housing. The effect will be very modest compared to that of the increase in interest rates, and it will also benefit luxury units. But at least it’s a start. If his counterparts were as vigilant, the provinces would have already received the money promised last year in the Fund to accelerate housing construction.

Paul Journet, The Press

Hard week: Canada

Exception this week: instead of talking about an individual, we deal with the whole country. Canada has rarely seemed so isolated. After the glaciation of relations with China, Canada bet on India. However, already difficult relations worsened with the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The free trade agreement project has been abandoned, the trade mission has been suspended and above all, our allies remain discreet. The Minister of Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, wants to encourage other countries to put pressure on large retailers to lower their grocery bills. But for now, the phone doesn’t seem to be ringing very loudly.

Paul Journet, The Press

The figure of the week: 9.6 million

This is the estimated cost of the new one-stop shop for obtaining a daycare space that Minister of Families Suzanne Roy plans to put in place within a year. “If we want it to work, Eric Caire must not touch that! “, mocked Marc Tanguay, interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec.

The quote of the week

“We are not looking for provocation or escalation. »

Justin Trudeau appealed for calm the day after an explosive announcement made in the House of Commons on the possible involvement of New Delhi in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh community leader, in British Columbia. In the wake of these allegations deemed “absurd”, India expelled a Canadian diplomat and suspended the processing of visas for Canadian citizens.

Anna Gainey In English Only

The new Liberal MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount, Anna Gainey, officially entered the House of Commons on Monday. But this entry was inglorious. Even though she represents a riding in Quebec, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presented her to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota… in English only. And this blunder did not go unnoticed. “Quite unusual that the PM of Canada, elected from Quebec, presents to the House of Commons, only in English, the new MP for NDG–Westmount (QC). This once again demonstrates the importance he places on French, one of Canada’s two official languages,” said Conservative MP Joël Godin on the X network.

POILIEVRE

Poilievre. Pierre Poilievre. Not Poilaugnol, Poillieverre, Poliveau, Pois-Lièvre, Polletierre, Polly, or Power Poliver, as said the respondents of a survey by the Pollara firm who were asked to name the leader of the Conservative Party as well as cabinet ministers. “We were generous: Peter Polliver was accepted, as was Chrystel Freelan,” reads the survey results report. Thus, 57% of participants know the name of the leader of the Conservative Party. That of ministers? “Most cannot name a single one, and only a quarter manage to say, with some accuracy, the name of at least 2 of the 38 ministers,” noted Pollara. The three best known: Chrystia Freeland (30%), Mélanie Joly (15%) and Anita Anand (7%).

Newcomer to the federal government

Will we soon see a “Future Canada Coalition” on the federal scene? A new centrist formation is trying to break through. Avenir Canadien courts the “red tories” and the “blue liberals”. The party proposes to move away from the division and clientelism which characterize the political contest. The party is led by Dominic Cardy, Progressive Conservative and former New Brunswick Minister of Education. Like the Coalition Avenir Québec, the new formation was born from a think tank. She is not yet registered with Elections Canada, but is trying to obtain the required 250 signatures.

The new little guy from Shawinigan

Minister François-Philippe Champagne has already jokingly described himself as the “real” little guy from Shawinigan because of his size, but this week, it was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre who gave him this title. “We will have another little guy from Shawinigan as prime minister, perhaps,” he said in the House on Wednesday to highlight the absence of Prime Minister Trudeau, who was in New York to participate in the Assembly General of the United Nations.