Liberals caught with their votes down
When compared to making poverty history or hugging American presidents, the business of voting in the House of Commons must seem mundane to many Liberals.
The party has always tended toward hubris, with grace only restored after the inevitable electoral fall every generation or so.
But the Grits may be slightly less presumptuous after narrowly surviving an ambush in the House on the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which changes the airline’s job requirements in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba.
The opposition parties had noticed a tendency for the Liberals to take their time to get back to Ottawa after the weekend and decided to test the government’s 14-seat majority.
The Air Canada bill was expected to move to NDP amendments at the report stage Monday, normally the cause for stifled yawns from Liberals who have the numbers to kill any opposition input.
But on this occasion, the NDP MP who put forward the amendment, Alexandre Boulerice, was not in the House — a victim of parliamentary flu.
Dominic LeBlanc, the Liberal House leader, accused Boulerice of sitting in the lobby adjacent to the House and “playing a stunt.” The rules of the House say that in such an event, the bill goes straight to a vote.
The Conservatives were in on the fun and had most of their MPs in the chamber, as did the NDP.
When the bells started ringing for the vote, the Liberals were forced to send out an all points bulletin to get their MPs into the House from the four corners of the capital, and beyond.
Tom Mulcair said he saw Public Works Minister Judy Foote running down the hallway just before the vote. “I think she was beating Ben Johnson’s record from the Olympics. They obviously were panicking,” he said.
LeBlanc said ministers were called back from a meeting of economic advisers at Meech Lake. “We had people at various family funerals. We have a number, as you know, involved in some medical procedures,” LeBlanc told reporters. “We knew that we had a certain number of members away but obviously they decided to play a game. That’s fine, but it doesn’t lead to a, frankly, very constructive approach to some difficult legislation.”
In the event, the vote was tied and the Speaker, Geoff Regan, was forced to cast the deciding vote. By precedent, the Speaker only votes in a tie and must vote to continue debate, in this case for the bill going to third reading. The bill would have died had Manitoba Liberal MP, Doug Eyolfson, voted against it, as he did at second reading.
WE SEE THEY DON’T EVEN TAKE MONDAY MORNINGS ... SERIOUSLY EITHER.
C-10 allows Air Canada to change job requirements in Mississauga, Montreal and Eyolfson’s Winnipeg riding from “overhaul centres” to “airline maintenance activities” — a shift critics say will allow the airline to downgrade the quality of jobs.
It’s ironic the Winnipeg MP didn’t take the opportunity to kill a bill he disagrees with, given it will almost certainly pass at third reading.
It rather brought to mind the advice of Sir Humphrey Appelby, a character in U.K. television series Yes Minister, that politicians should never follow their consciences because their consciences may not be going the same way they are.
LeBlanc was irate at the “level of immaturity and irresponsibility” shown by the opposition. But the Conservatives were unrepentant. “It’s not our job to get their legislation through,” said one.
And Andrew Scheer, the Conservative House leader, said the lack of Liberals in Parliament suggests a lack of respect for the House. “I think we already know they’re looking to get rid of Fridays. Now we see they don’t even take Monday mornings very seriously either,” he said.
It all indicates things are warming up in a chamber that lacks air conditioning.