Tories highlight Carney’s 100th missed question period with cake

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney has missed so many question periods in the House of Commons that he hit a new milestone worth celebrating — or not — with a sweet treat.

The Conservatives’ question period coordinator, Eric Duncan, arrived on Tuesday with a cake with the message “Happy 100 Question Periods Missed!” surrounded by dollops of vanilla icing and rainbow sprinkles. A French translation was also provided on the cake.

“Today marks a very unfortunate milestone for Mark Carney. Today will be his 100th missed question period. He skipped out on 100 out of 136 question periods. That is completely unacceptable,” said Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer.

Carney is currently in France for the G7 Summit. While Scheer said his party takes no issue with the prime minister representing Canada at international summits, most of the question periods Carney has missed since in office happened while he was in Ottawa.

According to the Conservatives’ calculations, Carney was in Ottawa or in close enough proximity to attend 64 out of those 100 sittings to answer the opposition’s questions.

“There’s no excuse for those absences,” Scheer said. “He was literally in the building, or around the corner. He could have easily showed up and defended his government’s record.”

It is not the first time that Carney makes headlines for his infrequent presence in question period. Global News recently reported that Carney has had a much lower attendance rate than his predecessors Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper in their first year or so in office.

“I answer questions all the time,” Carney when he was asked about his attendance earlier this spring. “We have a very strong team in this government, and I believe in the team of ministers, secretaries of state, parliamentary secretaries responding.”

Duncan said he was planning to send the cake over to the Liberal side of the aisle to let them know that the prime minister should be in question period “a lot more.”

National Post calevesque@postmedia.com

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