OTTAWA — After
a nail-biter vote that nearly plunged Canadians into a snap election
on Monday evening, the minority Liberals survived yet another confidence vote on Tuesday. But the sequence of events was not nearly as dramatic as the night before.
The House of Commons voted on Tuesday on a ways and means motion to introduce the Budget Implementation Act I — a bill to enact certain measures of the Nov. 4 budget. Tabled after the vote on the motion, the 600-page legislation will be debated in the House and in the finance committee in the coming days and weeks.
A spokesperson for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the bill includes tax-related and non-tax related measures to build on the government’s priorities.
“Amongst a range of measures, this includes investing in Build Canada Homes, delivering on our promised Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credits and Productivity Super-Deductions, combatting financial fraud and making modernizations to our financial and banking sectors,” said John Fragos in a written statement.
Because it was related to budgetary matters, the ways and means motion automatically became a confidence vote for the government. That means that if it was defeated, the government would be forced to resign or dissolve Parliament and call a snap election.
In the end, MPs agreed to carry the motion “on division” — meaning that the decision was not unanimous, but no vote was held to determine its outcome.
The fourth confidence vote in just under two weeks puts an end to the high-stakes drama in Ottawa that could have seen Canadians head back to the polls during the holiday season.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, whose party voted unanimously against the main motion of the budget on Monday, expressed hope on Tuesday that the budget bill could be amended to make it more palatable for his MPs to eventually support it.
Blanchet also expressed some relief that he would be able to attend his Christmas family gatherings and see his children during the holidays instead of knocking on doors.
But he said the way the Liberals are managing their minority situation is “not sustainable.”
On Monday evening, Canadians held their breath as they saw the Bloc and nearly all Conservatives and New Democrats vote against the main motion on the budget. The opposition parties, with their majority of votes, could have defeated the government.
The final tally was 170-168. The motion passed thanks to
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May’s last-minute show of support
after Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to respect the Paris Accord and four abstentions — from two Conservative MPs and two NDP MPs.
New Democrats Lori Idlout and Gord Johns said they deliberately abstained because the budget contained important measures for their communities, while Conservative MPs Matt Jeneroux and Shannon Stubbs were not in the House and did not vote.
Jeneroux has not been seen in the House and has not voted since he announced he would resign as an MP next spring. As for Stubbs, her team said she was on approved medical leave after “major jaw and chin surgery” and was ordered weeks of “strict bedrest.”
After the vote was done and that the motion was sure to pass, Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer and Conservative MP Scott Reid ran back into the House, to tell the Speaker that they had an issue with the voting application and wanted to vote “no.”
On Tuesday morning, Carney told reporters he was “very pleased” that the vote passed.
“I salute the 170 members of the House who supported it. I’m glad it came through, and we’re going to continue to work on implementation,” he said.
In recent weeks, opposition parties — the Bloc and the NDP, in particular — criticized the government for failing to include some of their suggestions in the budget. Once it was tabled, they lamented the government not properly negotiating to obtain their support.
Champagne said it was “a matter of perspective” since he said he met with different parties and said he engaged with them “constructively” in the lead-up to the budget.
Government House leader Steven MacKinnon would not say if his government’s strategy of releasing a budget and hoping for the best is a sustainable strategy moving forward.
“We’re just going to keep working away and putting things in front of Canadians that we believe are in the best long-term interests of the country and we’ll hope to attract support for those things in Parliament,” he said.
“I think the minority Parliament’s working. We just passed a budget.”
National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com
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