A new session of Parliament starts soon: what you need to know

Politicians will be returning to the House of Commons on September 20, 2022, for the first official sitting day of a new session of Parliament. As this is happening soon, we thought it would be helpful to outline what you need to be on the lookout for in terms of political news in the next few weeks. 

Pierre Poilievre has a new leadership team

Pierre Poilievre, the member of Parliament for the riding of Carleton in Ottawa, was elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, making him the leader of His Majesty’s Official Opposition. 

After being selected to be the leader with 68% of the vote, Poilievre, otherwise known as “skippy” by some, revealed his leadership team. He chose Melissa Lantsman, MP for Thornill, ON, and Tim Uppal, MP for Edmonton Mill Woods in Alberta, to be his two deputy leaders.

Amongst the team one can recognize the name of Eric Duncan, known for being the first openly-gay member of Parliament for the Conservative Party of Canada. When elected in 2020, he stated he believes the party should embrace more modern values in regards to the LGBTQ community. Duncan is Poilievre’s caucus-party liaison. 

Then, Luc Berthold was selected to hold the position of deputy house leader. A fully bilingual MP for the riding of Mégantic-L’érable in Québec, Berthold stated that despite having a diverse party, with some libertarian, socially conservative and progressive MPs, the party’s focus is mainly the economy. 

Poilievre also selected Andrew Scheer (house leader), Pierre Paul-Hus (Quebec lieutenant), Kerry-Lyne Findlay (whip), Chris Warkentin (deputy whip & QP lieutenant) and Jake Stewart (caucus committee coordinator) to be part of his team.

This will be an exciting team to follow. 

Rumours surrounding the ArriveCAN app

The ArriveCAN app has been a disaster, causing immense delays at airports and elderly citizens not being able to enter the country. 

In fact, if the ArriveCAN app is maintained, runners taking part in the Detroit Free Press marathon will be forced to download the app simply to cross the border from Canada to the United States.

After Poilievre was elected as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, serious rumours began circulating about a potential removal of the app. Nothing official has been confirmed yet, but it is possible that it will be discussed in the House of Commons very soon. 

Certain conservative-leaning journalists called this the “Poilievre effect.”

The possible passing of Bill C-11

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s favourite and possibly most cherished bill is Bill C-11. The bill is an attempt at censorship, designed by the Trudeau government to give them the power to regulate content online, and decide what content should be promoted and which one should be censored. 

Rodriguez has been a strong advocate for this Soviet Union, Orwellian-style bill, claiming it would promote freedom of speech online. 

However, in June, when confronted regarding this false claim, the heritage minister could not give any response. Since the bill passed third reading, it is now in the Senate’s hands, where senators will be holding hearings to decide whether or not the bill will be given royal assent.

The first reading was completed on June 21, 2022, and the latest committee hearing took place on September 15, 2022. 

This is an extremely important matter to follow. 

Singh’s complicated relationship with Trudeau

Finally, every marriage seems fantastic towards the beginning. Unfortunately, 50% of them statistically end in divorce in the United States. 

This seems to be the case for the NDP-Liberal alliance, with Jagmeet Singh putting pressure on Justin Trudeau to pass a dental care plan. 

Singh is currently holding the government together, and is possibly, alone, preventing another election from occurring anytime soon. He does this by agreeing to support the Liberal Party, effectively creating an unofficial majority government.

However, their union seems to be less strong than it was initially. Singh appears to be disappointed with Trudeau, and threatens to break the marriage by the end of the year if Trudeau doesn’t pander to his deepest desires. 

This weak marriage will be interesting to analyze in the months ahead, since a break-up between Singh’s NDP and Trudeau’s Liberals could lead to a new election campaign, which would mark the third federal election since 2019.

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To stay updated with everything that is happening in Ottawa and in Parliament, visit OttawaReports.ca.