Non-confidence motion in the House of Commons fails, more to come

Article content

OTTAWA — The Trudeau government lives to see another day — for now.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s first non-confidence motion of the fall session was defeated by 211 to 120 votes on Wednesday after the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Greens voted against thus ensuring that the Liberals can remain in government

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Poilievre got hearty cheers from their caucuses when they rose, respectively, to vote against and in favour of the motion.

Article content

“The costly coalition didn’t end when Jagmeet Singh ended his agreement with Trudeau. In fact, it got bigger, with the Bloc-NDP-Liberal coalition,” read a statement from the Conservatives in reaction to the result.

Before the vote, Trudeau and Poilievre were sparring during question period on the timing of the next election.

Poilievre, who has been calling for a “carbon tax election” for many months now, asked Trudeau why he would not call the Canadians to the polls right away.

“He wants a climate change election? Let’s have that election in the right time,” said Trudeau before being drowned by applause from both sides of the House of Commons.

“This is not the time for that. We’re going to continue to work for Canadians,” he added.

Poilievre insisted that Trudeau only said the first part out loud. “He just said he wants a carbon tax election!” he said. “If so, will he call it today?”

Trudeau shot back by saying that Poilievre would soon see that the House does not have confidence in him as leader of the opposition.

Article content

Article content

“We are focused on delivering for Canadians the things that actually matter. While he’s focused on slogans and clapping, we’re going to focus on being there for Canadians,” said Trudeau.

Later, the exchanges took an unexpected turn as Poilievre asked about New York consul general Tom Clark’s new $9 million residence in the Big Apple.

Trudeau claimed that an MP from the Conservative benches made a joke about him and Clark taking a bath together and said he is used to the party’s “homophobic crap.”

Trudeau apologized for his crude language after Speaker Greg Fergus asked him to withdraw the comment.

“I withdraw the comment about defecating,” he said.

Poilievre said that Trudeau was losing it. “What we’re seeing from this Prime Minister today is someone who is erratic and who lost control of himself because he’s so desperate to hold onto power.”

Poilievre has already signalled that he is prepared to table as many confidence votes as it takes to bring down the government.

His party will be debating another opposition day motion on Thursday which will also have to do about non-confidence towards the Liberals, with a vote expected in the following days.

Article content

But the Bloc has already said that they are giving the Liberals a deadline of until October 29 to support two of their bills — to raise the Old Age Security for all seniors above 65 years old and to protect supply management.

If the Liberals don’t ensure that those bills make it into law, the Bloc has said it will withdraw its support and call for an election.

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.

Article content