OTTAWA – The House of Commons Speaker has intervened to end a parliamentary impasse, ruling that members of Parliament must debate and vote on opposition motions and government spending before returning to a Conservative filibuster that has dragged on for two months.
Speaker Greg Fergus made the ruling Monday afternoon as a deadline for those motions and spending votes to happen just one week away.
“This is a situation that Parliament has never been in before,” Liberal House leader Karina Gould told reporters on Monday.
Last week, the Conservatives signalled an intent to introduce a non-confidence motion quoting NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s criticism of the Liberals, in a bid to get his caucus to vote to bring down the minority government.
That would be the third non-confidence motion the Conservatives have introduced this fall sitting.
No opposition days have been held since early October because the House has been bogged down in debate over a matter of privilege, which has consumed most of the sitting time for nearly two months and is jeopardizing the government’s ability to get spending approved.
The filibuster stems from a Conservative demand that the Liberals provide unredacted documents to the RCMP about allegations of misspending at a now-defunct green technology fund.
Monday morning, Gould offered to hold opposition days this week if members of Parliament unanimously agreed to temporarily suspend the filibuster, but the Tories rejected that.
Gould characterized the Conservatives’ tactics as “disappointing or pathetic,” saying all other parties had agreed to move forward.
“They’re talking of a big game and all this stuff, and when the rubber hits the road they’re actually too afraid to move forward,” she told reporters on Parliament Hill.
Eventually, Fergus told the Commons he had scheduled opposition days for Thursday and Friday, meaning the government could face another non-confidence vote as early as Monday.
Gould’s office later said the first motion to be heard Thursday will come from the Conservatives, and is set for a vote Monday after question period. The second motion, set to be heard Friday, will come from the NDP and would receive a vote around the same time.
Another two Conservative motions would be heard Monday and Tuesday, with both set for a vote on Tuesday, barring changes to those plans.
Voting on departmental spending would likely follow.
Fergus said his ruling was a way to balance the opposition’s right to have its motions debated and Parliament’s prerogative to scrutinize government spending. He said he had asked the parties to find a solution to the gridlock, for which “the discussions do not seem to have been productive.”
Opposition parties must be given four days to introduce their own motions before Dec. 10.
That is also the deadline for the House to vote to approve billions of dollars in spending, without which some government departments risk running out of money. Treasury Board President Anita Anand introduced a request last month for $21.6 billion to fund programs including housing, dental care and the national school food program.
Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer wrote in a statement that Gould’s proposal amounted to a coverup of the misspending allegations.
“The Liberals tried a sneaky procedural trick today to suspend questions into their scandal,” he said in a statement.
“Even the Liberal Speaker has ruled that Justin Trudeau must face opposition debate on nine years of his failures,” he wrote, confirming the Conservatives will put forward three non-confidence motions.
The Tories say they will only end their filibuster if the Liberals provide documents they’re demanding, or if the NDP agrees to vote non-confidence in the government.
Two Conservative opposition motions declaring non-confidence in the government were defeated in September with the Bloc Québécois and the NDP voting against them.
The Bloc has since pledged to work with the other opposition parties to defeat the government after the Liberals refused to adopt a Bloc bill to raise old age security payments for seniors under age 75.
However, Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet said his party would only vote in favour of non-confidence motions that are deemed to be in the best interests of Quebec.
Singh has said his party will take each non-confidence vote on a case-by-case basis, and has said that while his party is ready for an election it does not want to push for one immediately.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2024.
