A pair of Conservative backbenchers shown to be high-fiving on a House of Commons video feed as they voted against a bill to ensure Canadian laws are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are now responding to criticism that they acted inappropriately.
“We know what it looks like,” said Dane Lloyd, MP for Sturgeon River-Parkland, Alberta during a joint scrum on the Hill. “But the god’s honest truth is that we were patty-caking.”
When asked to clarify what that could possibly mean, Lloyd added, “You know, patty cake. It’s a game beloved by children for generations, in which two people alternately clap their own and each other’s hands.”
When asked why adults would choose that exact moment of a vote in Parliament to play a children’s game, Lloyd looked unblinkingly at the reporter for roughly 3 minutes without speaking.
When then asked why the video did not show any form of contact other than the high five, Lloyd pivoted from reporters and started to hum the nursery rhyme typically sung as part of the game.
At that point, the other ‘high-fiving’ Member of Parliament, Rosemarie Falk (Battlefords-Lloydminster, SK), clarified that “the Conservative Party has always supported some version of Indigenous rights — indeed, some of our best MPs are Indigenous, am I right?,” lifting her right hand in the air.
Video of the scrum seems to indicate no reciprocation, effectively leaving Falk hanging.