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Regular question period viewers got a little more than the usual “yada, yada, yada” on Thursday as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Government House leader Steven MacKinnon traded Seinfeld-related jabs.
Poilievre kicked off the reference contest with a question about the Canada-EU summit taking place in Montreal this week.
“Is this just another Seinfeld summit? A meeting about nothing?” Poilievre asked, referencing the ’90s sitcom that was billed as a show “about nothing.”
MacKinnon shot back at Poilievre by riffing on a line from the hit show, saying that the opposition leader “lives the same recurring nightmare every single day.”
The cast of Seinfeld poses at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1995. (Reuters)
The Conservative leader kept the references going by arguing that Prime Minister Mark Carney acts like Jason Alexander’s character George Costanza, “running around the office trying to look busy while achieving nothing at all in the real world.”
MacKinnon then tried to cast Poilievre as another character, Cosmo Kramer, suggesting that the Conservative leader “just walks into the room every time and says something weird.”
Ironically, Seinfeld had its own reference to question period in its final season when Kramer says he is “taping Canadian Parliament.” The sitcom went off the air in 1998.
The back-and-forth comes as Carney is meeting with representatives of the European Union in an effort to strengthen ties with the 27-member bloc.
WATCH | Names for EU partnership don’t matter, Carney says:
EU agreement ‘names or nomenclature’ don’t matter, says Carney
Prime Minister Mark Carney says what ‘matters’ at the EU summit set to take place later this week in Montreal is ‘Canada as a whole becoming a more independent, more sovereign nation so we can live our lives as we choose.’
While the prime minister has insisted that the substance of a new agreement with the EU is what matters, questions have swirled around what the label of the new alliance will be.
CBC News reported on Wednesday that words “associate membership” were removed from a joint statement expected to be released at the summit, but that hasn’t stopped European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen from using that branding.
Conservatives have continuously raised questions about what a closer relationship with the EU would mean. Poilievre says Carney should focus on getting nine laggard countries to ratify the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.