Parliament grinds to an anticlimactic halt — but 2024 could be chaotic
One morning last week, Pierre Poilievre invited reporters to watch him deliver a speech to his caucus. With cameras rolling, the Conservative leader vowed to “block” the government’s agenda until the Liberals agreed to his demand to roll back the federal carbon tax.
“You’ve ruined Christmas for Canadians, [so] common sense Conservatives are going to ruin your vacation as well,” he said, addressing the prime minister directly. “You will have no rest until the tax is gone.”
The Conservatives proceeded to force 136 votes on the government’s spending estimates — a run of votes that kept the House of Commons sitting through the night Thursday and all the way into Friday evening.
But when the House met again on Monday, it was the Liberals who appeared exultant.
Whatever hardships the Conservatives imposed on the governing side (in addition to forcing round-the-clock voting, the Conservatives effectively wiped out Friday’s schedule), they also gifted the government with a series of votes against specific line items.
After the Senate amended a Conservative private member’s bill aimed at providing carbon tax carve-outs for farming fuels that had already passed in the House of Commons, Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre says the Conservatives will keep Parliament in session over the holidays if the government doesn’t scrap parts of its carbon tax.
On Monday, the Liberals were happy to list all of the things the Conservatives explicitly voted against: funding to construct new affordable housing, support for those affected by Hurricane Fiona, military assistance for Ukraine, money for the upkeep of the national historic site at the Plains of Abraham.
And the House has carried on more or less as usual in the meantime. The government passed legislation on housing and competition law on Monday, then advanced its modernization of Canada’s free trade agreement with Ukraine on Tuesday.
There may be more procedural games to come — the Conservatives are proposing 173 amendments to a government bill that might be debated on Thursday. But it’s not clear how the Conservatives would be able to keep the House sitting much (if at all) past the previously agreed-upon adjournment, scheduled for Friday afternoon.
In other words, the prime minister’s vacation seems secure.
But even as Parliament’s year grinds to what promises to be an anticlimactic end, it is fair to wonder whether the last few weeks portend a particularly tumultuous 2024.
The opposition’s power to obstruct
Obstruction and delay are legitimate tools in the opposition’s parliamentary toolbox — just as the government has ways of making things move faster. But both sides have to make tactical decisions about when, and how forcefully, those tools are deployed.
The modern federal standard for vote marathons was set when the opposition parties used dozens of amendments to force hours and hours of voting on a budget bill tabled by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2012. But in that case, the obstruction was directly connected to the thing that was being obstructed — opposition MPs objected to the omnibus nature of the bill and so decided to stage what amounted to a public protest.
In the case of the Conservatives’ tactics last week, the connection was tenuous. While they claimed they were taking a stand against the carbon tax, the Conservatives forced dozens of votes on one of the bills through which the government obtains Parliament’s consent to spend money.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre is playing games with threats of amendments to delay business in the House of Commons, while he added that Liberals are “here to work.”
And the Conservatives don’t seem to have thought through the explicit implications of each vote. Which explains why, by Tuesday, they were left trying to argue that what they voted against was not what they voted against.
“Last week, we were proud to vote against more inflationary bureaucratic spending that does nothing for working-class Canadians,” Poilievre said.
The threat of obstruction and the vote marathon were not a total loss for the Conservatives. Poilievre’s team still found fodder for a half dozen tweets and a handful of YouTube videos — including one showing Poilievre delivering fast food to his appreciative MPs.
The Speaker’s narrow escape
While the Liberals were taunting the Conservatives over their votes, the other major flashpoint of a week ago — the controversy surrounding Speaker Greg Fergus — seemed to be fizzling.
Though the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois continue to demand Fergus’s resignation, committee hearings on the Speaker’s video message failed to produce any great new revelations. And the NDP announced Tuesday that they would only seek disciplinary action against Fergus — perhaps in the form of a fine.
That probably means Fergus can enjoy Christmas at the Speaker’s official residence, if he is so inclined. But Fergus can’t go into the new year feeling entirely secure in his job. It remains to be seen how well he’ll be able to preside over a House that is divided over his claim to the speakership — and how willing some MPs might be to challenge him.
At the very least, he could still face a confidence vote, triggered by Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer, possibly as early as Thursday.
Speaker Greg Fergus apologized and admitted he should not have recorded a video for longtime friend, Liberal MPP John Fraser, during testimony at the procedure and house affairs committee on Monday.
The Speaker’s job security isn’t the only question mark facing this Parliament, of course. There is still the small matter of the Liberal government’s ability to maintain its confidence-and-supply agreement with the NDP — although NDP health critic Don Davies and Health Minister Mark Holland seemed to be competing during question period on Monday to see which of them could be more enthusiastic about the latest progress on dental care.
“Congratulations to any party that stands up for ideas and getting things done in this country,” Holland said.
Mutual appreciation notwithstanding, Holland and Davies have yet to agree on a pharmacare bill. But if a compromise is reached, the confidence-and-supply agreement might be able to celebrate its second anniversary in March.
Whether Conservative threats of obstruction resume in January may depend on what, if anything, they think they gained from their threats to ruin the prime minister’s Christmas.
The Liberals might be delighted to see them try again. Beyond noting the votes that were put on the official record, the Liberals have been happy to compare Conservative tactics to the obstructionism practiced by Republican lawmakers in the United States Congress.
That might be a comparison the Conservatives don’t want to encourage. But maybe the Conservatives are pleased with anything that keeps the words “carbon tax” in the news. And maybe the fight was a useful rallying cry for Conservative supporters.
One of the Conservative side’s specific concerns — Bill S-234, which would further exempt farms from the carbon tax — arrived back in the House on Wednesday after being amended by the Senate. The Liberals might be content to let that bill collect dust. If so, the Conservatives might decide to put up a fight.
And if there are enough likes and retweets to be gained, there may be more vote marathons to come — even if this one didn’t quite live up to the hype.
