As Carney government scrambles to lure support for budget, Poilievre’s Conservatives struggle to define the opposition narrative

“It’s just looking at leadership styles and whether we are doing the right thing for Canada or we’re doing the right thing for ourselves. And I would rather be on the side of Canadians,” d’Entremont said.

Carney hailed d’Entremont as “a community leader and a dedicated parliamentarian. Your desire to build the future of Canada will greatly contribute to the government’s mission at this crucial time for our country.”

But Carney’s Liberals, which now have 170 MPs, still two shy of an outright majority in the 343-seat House of Commons, need more Opposition MPs to vote with them, or to abstain from voting, in order to survive the looming budget votes.

Hours later, the Conservative leader stood in the Commons and laid out his objections to the government’s fiscal blueprint — as all official Opposition leaders traditionally do. He delivered a more-than 25-minute speech on the first day of debate on the budget, castigating the Liberal plan for $141-billion in new spending over five years, and answered a few MP questions.

But then he failed to present the party’s desired changes via an amendment — an oversight the Liberal government said is unprecedented.

The backrooms of Parliament quickly went into overdrive. 

“It is a historic f—-up,” said one Liberal government official with knowledge of the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss confidential matters. 

Traditionally the official Opposition leader has proposed the main budget amendment.

The Bloc Québécois seized on the unexpected opening to swiftly present notice of their own motion to amend the budget — which now becomes the main proposed change to the document — as Conservatives scrambled to fix the oversight. 

The BQ is the third party in the Commons and would not ordinarily be the lead party to frame the opposition’s objections to a government budget.

The Liberals said it left the Conservatives stuck with trying to change the BQ’s wording in order to express their own budget objections.

BQ officials agreed with the Liberals. A BQ official told the Star it was a big Conservative procedural error, and noted it is the first time the BQ gets to move the main budget amendment since the Quebec separatist party was last the official opposition in Parliament, back in 1997. 

The BQ motion states: “This House rejects the budget statement of the government, which harms Quebec,” because it does not include the BQ’s demands, specifically to increase health transfers by six per cent, to raise pension benefits for those aged 65-74, to reimburse Quebecers more than $800 million over the cancelled carbon tax, and because of the lack of climate change measures.

Poilievre will leave it to his finance critic Jasraj Singh Hallan to rise in the Commons Thursday morning to move the official Opposition’s proposed changes as a sub-amendment to the Bloc Québécois’ motion rejecting the Liberal budget.

The Conservative motion will state the House of Commons “rejects the government’s budget statement since, instead of presenting an affordable budget so Canadians can have an affordable life, it presented a budget that fails to” reflect the Conservatives’ demand that it bring down the deficit to the 2024 fiscal update projected level of $42 billion, fails to eliminate the industrial carbon tax and the fuel standard, fails to reduce government spending, and fails to include a plan for oil and gas pipelines.

The Conservatives would not answer the Star’s questions about whether Poilievre had made a mistake to not move a formal amendment. 

Spokesman Sam Lilly said only, “amendments and sub-amendments can be made anytime within the first two days of (budget) debates.”

It was emblematic of a trying time for the Conservatives. MP Scott Aitchison told CBC that d’Entremont’s departure had come as a “shock.”

Another Conservative caucus source told the Star the party made efforts to persuade d’Entremont to stay, knowing he had not been happy recently. After the MP quit Tuesday, several Conservative MPs publicly launched biting criticisms of their former colleague. One called him a “coward,” another said d’Entremont, a former deputy speaker, was “an idiot.”

D’Entremont told reporters he knows of other Conservative MPs who are unhappy and are considering also crossing the floor, but refused to name them. Carney dodged direct questions about whether he is personally involved in efforts to convince them to cross.

It may all come to a head very quickly in high-stakes votes Thursday and Friday.

The House of Commons rules, known as the standing orders, say a budget sub-amendment motion (the Conservative one) must be voted on the second day of the budget debates, which is Thursday, and an amendment (the BQ one) must be voted on the third day of debates.

A government source told the Star that the government is not trying to avoid a critical expression of the House’s confidence or non-confidence in the budget, and so Friday will now be designated as the third day of budget debate.

Budget votes are usually considered matters of confidence. If a government loses a key vote on a money bill as critical as a budget, it would trigger a snap election.

It is up to the prime minister to decide if a vote is a confidence measure, and as of Wednesday night, the Liberals would not say what Carney’s decision is.

However, the government official noted that the word “reject” in both the Conservative and the BQ motions is a “pretty clear” declaration of the House of Commons’ position on a government budget.

Curiously, both the BQ and the Conservatives may have nevertheless sowed the seeds of the government’s survival.

While the Liberals do not yet appear to have the support in sheer numbers of votes to pass the budget with a majority, neither do the Bloc Québécois or the Conservatives have clear dance partners.

The opposition parties, whose combined seats total 173, must all vote together if they want to bring down the government which now has 170 MPs. 

By wording their changes to the budget in very detailed and partisan terms likely to be rejected by the other, instead of simply proposing the House of Commons rejects the budget, full stop, each opposition motion appears designed to register their party’s budget objections, but not a desire to trigger an election.

The votes of the NDP’s seven MPs could be decisive — and could ensure the government’s survival if they choose to abstain from votes, or if they choose to vote with the government.

The BQ official also acknowledged that the prime minister could choose not to treat the BQ motion as a confidence measure.

Carney did so once before. Last May, after the Bloc Québécois successfully amended Carney’s first throne speech with the support of the Conservatives, the NDP and the Green Party’s Elizabeth May, the Grits chose not to declare the ultimate throne speech vote as an expression of confidence. It passed, “on division” — meaning without a recorded vote.