OTTAWA (TIP): After losing the first two battles to bring down the minority Liberal government, Conservatives, the Official Opposition Party, tabled its third successive no-confidence motion in the penultimate week sitting of the House of Commons. The House of Commons will adjourn for holiday break at the end of next week. Unmindful of the earlier failed attempts to topple Justin Trudeau‘s Government and force an early election to the House of Commons, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre tabled his motion before the House of Commons on Thursday.

Structuring its no-confidence motion on the past criticisms, especially the quotes from the statements the NDP leader Jagmeet Singh made while tearing down the supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals.

Earlier no-confidence motions moved by Conservatives in September and October failed. The minority Liberals are likely to survive the third no-confidence motion as well as the NDP leader had already declared that his party would not play Pierre Poilievre’s game. The Liberals need the support of one of the other parties – Bloc Quebecois or NDP – in the House of Commons to continue in the saddle in the New Year. Voting on the no-confidence motion will take next week when the House of Commons resumes its sitting on Monday.

While introducing the motion on Thursday afternoon, Pierre Poilievre said he was presenting this motion in the “spirit of non-partisanship.”

The language of the motion refers to a statement the NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh made when he announced in September that his party was pulling out of the supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberal government.

Pierre Poilievre said, “I rise today in the spirit of non-partisanship, put our differences aside and take a good idea and a good perspective no matter where it comes from.” He further commented, “Too often in this place, we refuse to accept ideas or input from other people and so I thought I would remedy that by taking the words and the message of the leader of the NDP and putting them in a Conservative motion so that all of us could vote for the very wise things that he said.”

“Whereas the NDP Leader said, ‘the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people,’” the motion states in the preamble and continues to ask that: “Therefore, the House agrees with the NDP Leader and the House proclaims it has lost confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government.”

The motion further includes Singh’s comment criticizing the Liberal government for imposing binding arbitration to end the railway shutdown in August.

The minority Liberals are likely to survive the third no-confidence motion as the NDP leader had already declared that his party would not play Pierre Poilievre’s game.

As the debate on the motion started, the Conservatives held that the next federal election would be an axe Carbon tax election that would bring face-to-face the Conservatives vs the rest – the Liberals, NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Greens. Pierre Poilievre while moving the motion held that Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon’s order to impose binding arbitration on railway workers violated their right to strike. In a debate that followed the tabling of the motion, MacKinnon accused Poilievre of backing anti-union bills.

“On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, Liberals have been there for workers from day one. On this side of the House, we stand on our record, not an empty slogan,” MacKinnon said.

Since the NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was not at the debate, NDP MP Matthew Green criticized Poilievre’s stance on workers’ rights. “Despite all this cosplay we see in front of us … has this member ever once in his life visited a picket line?” he asked. To which Poilievre responded: “Yes, Mr. Speaker.”

Early this week, when the Conservative leader revealed the content of the next no-confidence motion, Jagmeet Singh reacted by saying he won’t play Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s games. He maintained he was not going to vote non-confidence and trigger an election as he believed Pierre Poilievre would cut programs the NDP fought for, like dental care and pharma care.

“I am not going to be playing Pierre Poilievre’s games. I have no interest in that. We are frankly not going to allow him to cut the things that people need. I want to have dental care expanded, I want people to start to benefit from the pharma care legislation we passed,” Singh said.
Another two Conservative motions would be heard Monday, December 9 and Tuesday, December 10, with both set for a vote on Tuesday, December 10, barring changes to those plans.

(Prabhjot Singh is a Toronto based award-winning senior journalist. He can be reached at prabhjot416@gmail.com)