After rallying his party’s caucus and staffers on Parliament Hill Tuesday with his vision for the “gutsy” campaign he eventually intends to run, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh signalled that he’s still not ready to help the other opposition parties trigger an early election, yet.
Though, as the only party still propping up the Liberal government, there will be a few chances in the next two weeks, where the NDP’s readiness to send Canadians into that campaign early, will be tested.
After two months of gridlock, on Monday, House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus informed MPs that he’ll be halting the Conservate-led filibuster of a privilege motion regarding documents related to a now-defunct green technology fund, so that a series of potentially high-stakes votes can happen before the holidays.
Fergus ruled that the now months-long debate that’s blocked most other House business from advancing can take a back seat temporarily, so that remaining “supply” or opposition days and the supplementary estimates can be delt with.
“A privilege motion must take priority over all other orders of the day, still, this practice is not absolute,” Fergus said. “The Standing Orders require the House to dispose of supply matters by Dec.10.”
The Speaker ordered that this Thursday and Friday, and then next Monday and Tuesday will all be allotted as opposition days.
Thursday will be a Conservative opposition day, and today the party confirmed it will be advancing a non-confidence motion that quotes Singh’s past criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government.
“Whereas the Leader of the New Democratic Party said he ‘ripped up’ his supply and confidence agreement with the Liberal government. Whereas the NDP Leader said, ‘the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people,'” the motion reads in part.
Asked Tuesday afternoon how his caucus will vote on this motion pushing for the House of Commons to declare “it has lost confidence in the prime minister and the government,” Singh said he wouldn’t “play Pierre Poilievre’s games,” but didn’t go so far to confirm how his party will vote on the other coming confidence vote opportunities.
Friday’s opposition day will go to the NDP, but the Singh has already said his party won’t be using it to advance a confidence motion.
Both Thursday and Friday’s opposition day motions are expected to come to a vote next Monday.
Today, the Conservatives confirmed they intend to use all three of their remaining opposition days to try to topple the Liberal minority government and trigger an early election.
“Now that even the Liberal Speaker has ruled that Justin Trudeau must face opposition debate on nine years of his failures, common sense Conservatives will put forward three confidence motions that will be debated and voted on starting this week,” said Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer in a statement.
This decision comes after the Tories shot denied unanimous consent for the Singh-citing opposition day non-confidence motion to be debated yesterday, a move Government House Leader Karina Gould called “quite weak.”
“But, you know, that’s where we are,” Gould said.
After the Liberals blew off the Bloc Quebecois’ ultimatum, Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet has said his party would be ready to join the Conservatives in voting non-confidence in the Liberals when opportunities arise.
The Bloc sided with the Conservatives last week in voting against the federal government’s five-page piece of legislation to enact Trudeau’s promised two-month tax break on a range of consumer goods over the holidays.
The Liberals – who first tried unsuccessfully to advance the remaining opposition days by using similar procedural mechanism as seen last week with the GST bill – welcomed the Speaker’s decision.
“Despite the ridiculous games that the Conservatives have been playing in their attempt to really obstruct the important work of parliamentarians, that we do on behalf of Canadians, we are going to get this work done,” Gould said.
While facing successive confidence tests in the days ahead, the Speaker’s intervention also means Treasury Board President Anita Anand’s supplementary estimates — which need MP’s sign-off for billions in additional spending to flow for certain departments — will be able come to a vote, preventing a potential U.S.-style shutdown.
As of next Tuesday, there will be just five scheduled House of Commons sitting days left until MPs are set to break until the new year.
Gould indicated Tuesday that she’s “having conversations” with her counterparts about all avenues forward, though barring a major breakthrough, or an agreement to adjourn early, it’s expected that the privilege debate filibuster would resume in those remaining days.