Canada is saved from an election by the political party that wants to break it up

Who would have thought Canada might be saved from an election by the only political party that seeks to break up the country? , after the Liberals decided to play chicken by offering Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives a chance to defeat the government next week. On Tuesday, without engaging any of the parties in substantive negotiations, the Liberals decided to lay the future of the government on the tracks of the oncoming Conservative train. They tempted the fate not just of their own political lifespan, but also that of all the policies they say they want to accomplish: a more compassionate and responsive immigration system; action to curb greenhouse gasses; a school food program; a pharmacare program that provides free contraception and diabetes medication; better (though inadequate) disability payments; and the entrenchment of a dental care program that has seen a huge uptick of subscribers.

They put at risk all those progressive policies — policies the NDP also supports — to avoid looking weak and to try to avoid a possible trip to the polls later this fall. Aside from Conservatives, few people want an election right now. Fifty-six per, cent according to , want the parties to work together to make Parliament work.



Some potential Conservative voters may not even want a contest when they realize that the policies they they support — child care, dental care — are policies Poilievre won’t say he’ll keep. Political parties in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, where provincial elections are about to get underway, certainly don’t want a competing contest. And no party, aside from the Conservatives, is ready for one.

Not the NDP with 17 per cent of candidates signed up and lacklustre fundraising, nor the Liberals who have no campaign director and at least half of their caucus wishing they were running under another leader, not even the Bloc Québécois who have only two candidates nominated so far. So it’s understandable that the Liberals expected the Bloc or the NDP, or maybe both, would come to their rescue. That they would support the government in the hopes of getting something through legislation this fall, or money in the fall economic statement, two months from now.

The challenge the Grits face is that they must, before Dec. 17, grant the opposition parties seven opposition days — seven opportunities for the parties to bring forward any motion and have the House vote on it. The NDP and the Bloc get one day each, the Conservatives get five.

The Liberals could allocate them all now, or all closer to December, or sprinkle them throughout the autumn. The Conservatives get the first two. The Liberals knew Poilievre would, at the earliest opportunity, use this chance to defeat the government.

He said it publicly. And how could he not? He’s been telling the country for two and half years now that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ruined the economy, mismanaged immigration, made life more difficult and more expensive, and recently claimed the Grits supports drug dens (when, in fact, the federal government doesn’t currently provide funding for the operation of supervised consumption sites). Last spring, when Conservatives used one of their opposition days to introduce a motion of non-confidence, they asked the NDP and the Bloc to support a “carbon tax election,” condemning the Grits’ plan to raise the carbon price (as well as the accompanying rebates).

It didn’t work. So Wednesday, Poilievre announced a very simple motion not tied to carbon pricing. Just that, “The House has no confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government.

” Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet could have said to the Liberals — and to Canadians: “You want to show you’re not scared of an election, fine, have at it.” Public opinion polls suggest the Bloc is not only ahead in Quebec, but the prospect of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre — an Albertan who wants to get rid of carbon pricing and drill for more gas and build more pipelines — would be a pretty sweet opponent for the separatists. But that is not what Blanchet chose to do.

Instead, he quickly announced that despite the lack of overtures from the Liberals — Trudeau has, in fact, been insulting the Bloc and Blanchet in question period, claiming, for example, that “They do not give a damn about seniors” — he would give them a chance to come to the table. Then Blanchet listed reasonable proposals — protection of supply management (which the Liberals say they support) and more generous pensions for seniors (while avoiding making specific demands regarding the amounts or the eligibility, thereby opening the door for considerable negotiations). Blanchet’s actions are not free of politics.

Coming out first is an attempt to box in the NDP. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been given the opportunity to make good on his statements that the Liberals can’t be trusted, that they are in the pocket of big business and therefore don’t deserve a chance to continue to govern. Some of his MPs seem to want to vote with the Conservatives.

B.C. MP Gord Johns said he’s “never had confidence in the Liberals.

” But if the NDP votes with the Tories on this non-confidence motion — when the pharmacare bill they want to see passed is still being debated in the Senate — they will likely have to vote non-confidence the four other times the Conservatives are expected to bring forward this motion. So the only partner the Liberals will have is the Bloc. So Blanchet hopes to get the Trudeau Liberals’ by the jugular.

Huh. Thank goodness for the sovereignists?.