Liberal budget clears first confidence vote
Second budget confidence vote happening on Friday
The Liberals, Bloc Québécois and NDP voted down a Conservative sub-amendment on the budget Thursday evening that, if passed, would have forced a new election.
The Conservative sub-amendment was to a Bloc Québécois amendment that calls on the House to reject the budget. A vote on the Bloc amendment will take place on Friday.
A spokesperson for Liberal House leader Steven MacKinnon told CBC News that the government considers both votes matters of confidence.
If the government loses a confidence vote, that typically triggers a federal election.
There was limited risk that Thursday’s vote would trigger a second election in just over six months — interim NDP Leader Don Davies said Thursday afternoon that all seven New Democrat MPs would vote against the Conservative sub-amendment.
Thursday's vote doesn't necessarily mean every Bloc or NDP MP would support the budget itself. That vote is expected later this month. MPs have a one-week recess next week for Remembrance Day and return the following week.
Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet moved the initial amendment Wednesday saying the House should reject the budget because it didn’t meet enough of his party’s demands.
The sub-amendment proposed to remove the Bloc’s wording and instead suggested the House should condemn the budget because it didn’t match Conservative expectations.
The Bloc voted against the Conservatives wording as a result.
Live Q&A: Answering your questions about the federal budgetThe Liberal government tabled the budget on Tuesday. It calls for billions of dollars in new spending to help prop up an economy hit hard by U.S. tariffs, along with cuts to the public service that the government says would lead to billions of dollars in savings.
Blanchet had a highly unusual opportunity on Wednesday to propose the main amendment to the budget — after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre missed his chance.
Traditionally, the Official Opposition leader amends the budget after their speech to the House of Commons. The third party then has a chance to add a sub-amendment.
But Poilievre finished his speech without moving an amendment and Blanchet jumped at the chance to introduce his own.
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With files from The Canadian Press
Carney's budget needs 2 more votes. Here's the local funding that could get it passed
Opposition MPs will have to decide if the sweeteners merit letting the budget through
Prime Minister Mark Carney insists the federal budget was crafted to contain a number of measures championed by MPs from other parties, and that those olive branches will become apparent in the coming days.
With one MP already crossing the floor to join the Liberals, Carney now needs only two more votes, or abstentions, to pass his budget.
The unanswered question is whether any of those measures will convince enough opposition MPs that letting the budget pass is in their interests.
“There were differing degrees of input which we received from the various opposition parties,” Carney said in Ottawa, the day after Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled his first budget.
“I know, in fact, that there’s a lot in this budget that reflects the input from those parties from specific projects to certain programs and reinvestment in them,” he said. “So those parties are aware, and part of this is a process of digesting the budget.”
While that digestion takes place, at least one Bloc MP, four Conservatives and as many as three NDP members now face the prospect of getting funding for projects in their ridings if the budget passes.
Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Deschênes will have to consider if the budget’s support for the Exploramer Shark Pavilion in Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, Que., and the Chantier Naval Forillon shipyard in Gaspé are worth his vote, or at least his abstention.
NDP MPs and the choices they face
The budget also promises funding for the Filipino Community and Cultural Centre in the Vancouver area. While a specific location has yet to be chosen, NDP interim Leader Don Davies's riding boasts a large Filipino population that would surely welcome the project.
Vancouver-Kingsway was the federal riding where the Lapu-Lapu Day Filipino festival turned tragic when 11 people were killed in a car-ramming attack. Davies's riding might not get the centre, but with such a large community in his electoral district, he’ll have to consider whether he really wants to vote it down.
Similarly, the lone NDP MP in Alberta, Heather McPherson, must consider whether support for the Rapid Fire Theatre in her riding of Edmonton-Strathcona will tempt her to either abstain or vote for the budget.
NDP MP Gord Johns, who represents the B.C. riding of Courtenay-Albernihas, been a vocal supporter of implementing a clean technology tax credit for the use of biomass to create energy. The budget pledged to make that happen.
He’s also advocated for the federal government to establish an aerial firefighting fleet. The budget pledges to lease four aircraft at a cost of $257.6 million to “bolster provincial and territorial aerial firefighting capacity.”
Conservatives face personal, party dilemmas
Then there are the four Conservative MPs who might be looking closely at budget measures that hit close to home. They include:
- Kerry Diotte, whose riding of Edmonton-Griesbach has been promised support for the anti-poverty Bissell Centre.
- Warren Steinley, whose riding of Regina-Lewvan will get support for Regina's RCMP Heritage Centre.
- Vincent Neil Ho, whose Greater Toronto Area riding of Richmond Hill South will get funding for a Victims of Flight PS752 Memorial in Richmond Hill's Unity Park.
- Conservative MP Gabriel Hardy’s Quebec riding of Montmorency-Charlevoix has been promised money for an Earth sciences centre in La Malbaie.
More generally, opposition MPs have to consider if the overall moves in the budget merit its survival.
In the last election, for example, the NDP promised to create a Youth Climate Corps to help train and employ young people to respond to climate emergencies and gain work in renewable energy projects.
The NDP election promise was to spend $500 million on the program, while the Liberal budget earmarks $40 million over two years.
The federal Greens said that while the program “could be transformational,” its two-year timeline and much smaller budget mean it's “at best a pilot project.”
The Greens had a lot of criticism for what they said were diminishing climate policy initiatives, but welcomed other measures on affordable housing, school lunches, dental care, high-speed rail and the move to validate foreign credentials.
The question is: are they enough to secure the Green Party's lone vote in the House?
Poilievre and the Bloc
In the lead up to the budget, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre sent a letter to Carney outlining some of his priorities.
The Conservative leader wanted to see a reduction in capital gains taxes, income taxes, taxes impacting homebuilding and the industrial carbon tax.
Poilievre didn’t exactly get what he wanted. The budget doubled down on the industrial carbon tax, held but did not deepen the one-percentage-point cut in the lowest income tax bracket and kept the promise to scrap a planned hike to capital gains made in March.
When it comes to cutting taxes on homebuilding, Carney kept his campaign promise to eliminate the GST for first-time homebuyers on new homes up to $1 million, while reducing it on new homes between $1 million and $1.5 million.
These measures may not be enough for the party’s leader, but it remains to be seen if they are enough for some of his MPs.
Aside from the Bloc's Deschênes, who has some decisions to make about his Quebec riding of Gaspésie-Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine-Listuguj, the Bloc as a whole appears unmoved.
The party made six demands of the budget, which it said the Liberal government “chose not to address.”
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