Mark Carney meets the battleground of question period
Will the prime minister remain the adult in the room?
One of Mark Carney's greatest advantages over the last five months — the first five months of his political career — has seemingly been his ability to play the part of the adult in the room.
One of the defining characteristics of the House of Commons is its ability to make grown men and women act like children.
Carney's arrival in the House of Commons, as both a newly elected MP and the prime minister of Canada, might thus set up a certain test of wills.
"I would like to welcome the prime minister to his first official question period," said Andrew Scheer, the interim leader of His Majesty's Official Opposition, on Wednesday after the Speaker announced that the time had arrived for oral questions. "This is where democracy lives and this is where we provide rigorous scrutiny on every word he says and every dollar he spends on behalf of Canadians."
After welcoming Carney to the arena, Scheer — an MP with nearly 21 years of experience, including four as Speaker — pressed on with a question about Canada's current levels of tariffs on products imported from the United States, a matter that has come into some dispute since the election. Scheer took the view that Carney had somehow failed to be honest with Canadians.
Standing to respond, Carney first took a moment to thank his constituents in Nepean for electing him.
"Could you also," Carney continued, addressing the Speaker, "indulge me to —"
"Time!" called out a voice from the Conservative side.
Carney smiled good-naturedly and nodded at his tormentor.
"... say how great it is to see you in the Speaker's chair and I trust that you are operating under the period of grace, that will not be accorded to me, appropriately as the leader of the Opposition just said."
Carney proceeded to pump his fist a bit and raise his voice and assure the House that Canada's tariffs were calculated to have "maximum impact" on Americans and "minimum impact" on this country and that all revenue would be used to support Canadian workers. But his time expired without a direct response to Scheer's charges.
"Mr. Speaker," Scheer lamented, "he did not take long to pick up old Liberal habits of not being able to answer questions."
The first question period of the 45th Parliament proceeded from there, largely reverting to the traditional din of taunts, platitudes and ritualistic clapping.
Will Carney be a 'House of Commons man'?
Until now, every person to occupy the prime minister's seat in the House of Commons has spent at least some time elsewhere in the House before taking that chair. The nearest point of comparison for Carney might be someone like Lester B. Pearson, who was a celebrated diplomat before he decided, at the age of 51, to enter federal politics.
The first time Pearson rose to speak in the House of Commons, as both the secretary of state for external affairs and a newly elected rookie MP, he deviated from his prepared notes ever so slightly to throw a light jab at the other side. In his memoirs, he remembered it as a "gratuitous and provocative remark" (he had wondered aloud whether "any of us" were "playing politics with peace" — by the standards of today it would barely register as an attack).
"I think it must have been because subconsciously I realized that I was speaking like a civil servant or a professor and that if I was ever going to be accepted as a politician, as a good member of my own party in the House of Commons, I should make at least one partisan thrust," he wrote. "The fact that I always regretted it was merely another indication I was clearly not a born politician."
Pearson would go on to become prime minister, and a celebrated one at that. But he would nonetheless conclude that he was not a "House of Commons man" (in Pearson's day, they were almost all men). He could respect, even enjoy, the proceedings — even if much of it seemed like a "kind of play-acting." But he had come to the House relatively late in life and "politics and Parliament were not in my blood, at least not as they were with many members of the House."
It is, of course, far too early to say whether Carney will become a House of Commons man. Some of those who are familiar with the goings on of the House of Commons might hope that he doesn't.
(The man who will be Carney's primary opponent in the House this fall, Pierre Poilievre, is an enthusiastic House of Commons man. "I'd love to be in there, it's a great place. I love the excitement and the thrill," Poilievre told reporters on Wednesday when he was asked about not being able to take part.)
Will question period be politics as usual?
But Scheer is still right when he says that the floor of the House is, at least in theory, where democracy lives and where Canada's elected representatives are meant to scrutinize every word the prime minister says and every dollar the government spends (though in practice, it seems to have lately become a studio for generating shouty clips for MPs' social media channels). And a prime minister might hope to contribute — for instance, by answering, or at least directly engaging with, the questions that are asked.
Under Carney's predecessor, the Liberals seemed to merely want to get through the daily airing of grievances without adding to their troubles. Justin Trudeau could summon some rhetorical force — and he liked to take all questions on Wednesday — but for fear of a rhetorical misstep, he tended to retreat into platitudes.
In his first question period, Carney similarly seemed content to get through those 45 minutes. He smiled and seemed to enjoy himself and even tried his hand at a little humour (tweaking the Bloc Québécois for not attending the throne speech). He responded to nine questions without needing to read from notes (a crutch that too many MPs rely on).
But the first day of any new session is typically both the easiest for governments and the least interesting for anyone watching. The harder days will come later, when there is more to ask about and more for the government to account for (or avoid).
When he formally launched his political career in January, the sober-speaking former central bank governor said he knew that he was "not the usual suspect when it comes to politics."
"But," he said, "this is no time for politics as usual."
It remains to be seen how well that sense of himself and the moment will survive contact with the ancient and timeless conflict of question period.
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