Canadians dodge snap election as Liberals survive confidence vote with help from NDP and Green MPs

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By Brian Platt

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Canadians dodge snap election as Liberals survive confidence vote with help from NDP and Green MPs Back to video

OTTAWA — The Liberal government will live another day, as a confidence vote that could have triggered a snap election went in the Liberals’ favour due to help from the NDP and the Green Party.

The vote was on a Conservative motion to create a special parliamentary committee to investigate the WE Charity scandal and other controversies around the Liberal government. The Liberals deemed the motion a confidence matter, meaning they would seek an election if it passed.

But NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said he would not support an election call, alleging that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to want an election by making the vote a confidence matter.

“New Democrats will not give Prime Minister Trudeau the election he’s looking for,” Singh said at a news conference before the vote. “We’re not going to be used as an excuse or a cover, we’re going to continue to do the work that we need to do.”

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The vote on the Conservative motion failed with 180 votes against and 146 in favour. The NDP and Green Party MPs joined the Liberals in voting against. Independent MPs Jody Wilson-Raybould and Marwan Tabbara also voted with the Liberals.

Bloc Québécois and Conservative Party MPs all voted in favour of the motion.

Government House Leader Pablo Rodriguez said he was pleased with the result of the vote. 

“Today parliament chose Canadians over politics,” he said.

Rodriguez said his party made no special deal with the NDP for their support, but said he believes other parties came to see the Conservatives’ proposed committee as a potential abuse of power. 

“I presume that they realized, as we did, how ridiculous and abusive this motion was,” he said. “There was a general consensus that the conservative motion was totally abusive. It was paralyzing to government.”

All party leaders had insisted they do not want an election, and the opposition party leaders blasted the Liberals for choosing to make this a confidence matter.

“Creating a committee has never in our history been grounds for a confidence vote,” said Conservative leader Erin O’Toole on Wednesday. “It’s Mr. Trudeau that is making it a confidence vote because Mr. Trudeau would prefer to try and go to an election rather than (answer) questions about insider spending scandals.”

The Conservatives also grilled Trudeau in question period about whether he had consulted with health officials over whether a national election would exacerbate the spread of COVID-19.

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Trudeau didn’t answer the question directly, but said the opposition had a choice to make between working with parliament or heading to the polls.

“Our focus is on working with members of this house to deliver concretely for Canadians. We want this house to work constructively,” he said. “What the members opposite face in a few minutes in the vote is whether they want this house to work constructively.”

Green Party leader Annamie Paul said her party’s caucus decided it was not in the interest of Canadians to have an election.

“We never should have arrived at this point,” she said. “This was a game of chicken between the Liberals and the Conservatives, and it was very unbecoming of them…I hope that every Canadian who saw how close we came to a general election in the middle of a pandemic calls their MP to express their disagreement. This shouldn’t be an idealistic sentiment.”

The vote took place by the unusual hybrid system that saw some MPs voting virtually from their homes, and other MPs voting in person in the House of Commons. If technical problems prevented an MP from virtually voting when they were called on, the Speaker circled around to them at the end to make sure their vote was counted.

The defeat of the motion means the Conservatives won’t get their proposed special committee that would have been tasked with calling witnesses and ordering the production of documents to further study the WE Charity scandal and other controversies.

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Instead those issues will continue simmering in the other parliamentary committees, such as the finance and ethics committees, where the Liberals have been filibustering opposition motions.

However, both the NDP and the Liberals have floated alternative proposals to create a special parliamentary committee that would have a different focus than the Conservative proposal, but could still examine the WE Charity scandal. Such a committee could be created if the Liberals and NDP can agree on the committee’s scope.

Singh also said on Wednesday that the NDP would introduce a motion to have the ethics committee “continue to have witnesses and documents provide testimony and evidence to ensure that the Liberal government isn’t spending money on their rich friends, but instead is focused on helping people we’re going to continue to do that work.”

• Email: bplatt@postmedia.com | Twitter: btaplatt