The scrums: Conservative critics, skills training, retail prices

Three highlights from this afternoon’s post-Question Period scrums:

1. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair on Conservative treatment of criticism: It’s not hard to understand how the Conservatives get to the point where they’re attacking everything that moves in government. Anybody who tells them something they don’t want to hear, it’s because they’re no good or they’re partisan. We saw that with Kevin Page, we saw it with a Rapporteur from the United Nations yesterday. So it’s the same thing here.

2. Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae on skills training programs: I think both the provinces and the federal government need to get their act together on training. There’s no disputing that. No one’s arguing about that. What we’re arguing about is the process. And we’re also arguing about a government that does not know how to negotiate, and does not know how to deal effectively with the provinces on a program of this nature.

3. NDP MP Brian Masse on retail competitiveness at the border: We’ve seen recent reports that have actually shown the same goods are priced higher in Canada. Even Target’s talking about pricing some of their goods higher in Canada, and I’m not buying the argument that we have a lower distribution amount. Simply, 80 per cent of Canadians live on the border, so we have plenty of access points to be competitive. So I think it’s fair for calling for a review at this time.