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The Bloc Québécois is ruling out the possibility that Canadians will be plunged into an early election next week, signalling Wednesday their intention to vote against a Conservative motion of non-confidence in the government.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he will put forward such a motion for debate on Sept. 24, and specifically challenged NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to back it.
"The decision will be up to Jagmeet Singh and the NDP," Poilievre said. "Are they going to vote to keep this costly carbon tax prime minister in power?"
Singh, who recently ended his supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals and says Canadians are fed up with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has not indicated what his party will do.
But Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Wednesday he and his MPs work for Quebec, not the Conservatives.
Blanchet said the Tory motion is essentially asking MPs to replace Trudeau with Poilievre.
"We're voting no," he told reporters in French outside the House of Commons.
Poilievre last introduced a non-confidence motion in March, asking the House of Commons to declare they did not have confidence in the Liberals over the carbon price. Both the Bloc and NDP voted against it.
A Conservative spokesperson said the motion this time will simply state that "the House has no confidence in the prime minister and the government," though Poilievre is still referring to it as "a motion for a carbon tax election."
The Conservatives don't have enough votes to pass a motion with just one of the Bloc or the NDP.
Now that the NDP has ended the supply-and-confidence deal with the Liberals, the minority government needs to shore up support from opposition parties on a vote-by-vote basis. Not all votes in the House are matters of confidence, but if a motion of non-confidence passed it would defeat the government and most often trigger an election.
Government motions and bills including a throne speech, budget bills and the fall economic statement are considered confidence votes and if they fail to pass, the government would be defeated.
Blanchet has previously indicated he is willing to vote with the Liberals on confidence motions, but he has some stipulations.
He said the Liberals must green-light his party's private member's bill that would bring pensions for seniors aged 65 to 74 to the same level as those paid to people 75 and over. The Bloc need a royal recommendation from a government minister to OK the financial implications and get the bill through the House.
When asked whether he's ready to bargain with the Bloc on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded, "We're going to keep making Parliament work."
The Liberals have accused the NDP of caving to Poilievre by pulling out of their deal early.
"It's up to the opposition parties now to determine what they want to do with Canadians, but I think for Mr. Singh in particular it's now going to be on his shoulders as to whether yet again, another week he does exactly what Mr. Poilievre asks or if he's actually going to stand up for the things Canadians care about," Liberal House leader Karina Gould said Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
Comments
Triggering an election just because some egomaniac wants one is irresponsible. Particularly when the nutbag has nothing to offer but the other guy is bad, will raise taxes and cost you your job. 50 years I have been watching and still seeing the same old scams.
Not much changes with the conservative party over the years it seems. Hungry for power, corrupt, spread disinformation, have nothing to offer Canadians but empty talk. Pierre "Snake oil Salesman" Poilievre is by far the worst leader the party has ever elected to lead. No real work or real world experience, yet thinks he knows everything. Pee Pee has just sucked off the tax payers tit from day one and has ZERO idea what it is like to work a real job.
It is time that politicians meet some form of criteria to become an MP or MPP. Having worked a real job for work experience for several years and a minimum education level (university degree) should be a must-have requirement.
Pee Pee as usual will grand-stand and waste productive time in HoC as usual.
Personally, I have always thought we should subject a prospective MP to the same psych testing we use on the army and police before we give them a gun. I don't see PP's lifelong campaign to convince me he should be king as healthy at all.
The next move is the old standby, another blitz of corruption accusations, tuned into a media circus, that ends in a whimper.
It's almost laughable that PP and the Cons think they can bully another party leader into doing what they want him to do. I was proud of Singh for confronting the bullies with the cell phones the other day.......we need more images of those big mouths pretending it wasn't them....so all Canadians get the picture. We are being pushed around as a nation by a gaggle of white nationalists who likely don't have a clue about governance.........but want what they want, NOW.
Anyone who imagines that PP's accusations....or the name calling catcalls of PP's followers, are going to dictate what the NDP does in the next months, are dreaming. The NDP will see the pharmacare gains enshrined in law, before they let ax the tax, tough on crime conservatives push us into a fall or winter election.
Another 6-9 months of listening to the character assassination they think passes for politics in our country....while the NDP works for real programs that help people....is exactly what the country needs just now. P.S. The rain forests are burning, people dying from flash floods in Europe and Asia.
It might just be time to AX THE CLIMATE DENIAL...if we have kids and grandkids that deserve a habitable earth.