Waking up the Liberals to their minority status
CONSERVATIVE MOTION TO GIVE OPPOSITION PARTIES MORE LEVERAGE IN CONTROLLING AGENDA
Opposition parties are firing the first major shot across the bow of the Liberal government with a move meant to remind them they didn’t win a majority government last fall. On Monday, the House will vote on a Conservative motion meant to give all of the opposition parties one more “opposition day,” special days on the House calendar when they control the agenda.
Usually, even in a minority parliament, it is the governing party that decides what bills get debated on which days.
Conservative House leader Candice Bergen said the Liberals haven’t adapted to their new minority status.
“That motion was specifically a response to what the Liberals have been doing, habitually, over the last couple of months, not quite realizing that they’re in a minority parliament,” she said.
With some restrictions, the government decides when opposition days fall in the sitting calendar, and in this case the Liberals decided to put the Conservative opposition day on a Friday, which is a shorter day in the House and also coincides with when many MPS leave Ottawa to return to their ridings.
“They were trying to punish us by giving us a Friday,” said Bergen. “We had to send a signal that they couldn’t do that kind of thing.”
The Liberals have a strong minority and will be able to pass their budget or any other confidence motion with the help of any one of the three major opposition parties, but on committee votes, motions and private member’s business, they may not have the control over Parliament they did in the past government.
The motion, which is expected to pass, would give the Bloc, NDP and Conservatives one additional opposition day in the next three sitting weeks and would prevent the government from putting any of them on a Wednesday or a Friday, the two shorter days.
With fewer days left for debate, the government will be forced to slow down its own legislative agenda. The Liberals are trying to pass the new NAFTA agreement through the House and have several other bills they would like to make more progress on.
Deputy government whip Ginette Petitpas Taylor raised the problem in the House during debates on the Conservative motion.
“Let me remind the House that this motion will delay several important bills, such as Bill C-4, the bill to implement the historic trade agreement between our great country, the United States and Mexico,” she said during debate on the issue. “Let us remember that the United States, Mexico and all premiers want this bill to be passed, and passed quickly.”
The Liberals haven’t announced a budget day yet, but they would have a limited set of options in that three-week window to choose from with the opposition getting so much time.
Bergen said the government should be managing its legislation better and the Conservatives have given them an opportunity to move NAFTA forward.
“It is the government’s responsibility to manage the business of the House.”
Despite having few ideological allies, Bergen’s motion is one of several the Conservatives have managed to get through the minority parliament.
The first vote in the new parliament was on a Conservative motion to establish a new committee on Canada-china relations that has already led to some difficult headlines for the Liberals. They have also successfully moved to have the Liberals $187 billion infrastructure program audited.
Bergen said the Conservatives are being deliberate in the motions they put forward, aiming to have something achievable with their demands.
“We are absolutely looking for motions that can pass and will deliver concrete results,” she said. “We anticipate now we will have a few more opposition days, so you will see that the motions we put forward are designed to deliver real results.”
NDP House leader Peter Julian agrees the government hasn’t fully adapted to its new reality.
“It took time for the government to understand that it could not just come in and make all the decisions itself,” he said.
He said pushing opposition days to the sidelines is the sort of move the Liberal and Conservative majority governments make, but this isn’t a majority government.
“The government is using the tools that majority governments have and I don’t believe that is appropriate,” he said. “That is historically what both the Harper government and the Trudeau government did, but it is a disregard for Parliament.”
Julian said minority governments have consistently delivered good results for Canadians and he is hopeful this one will be no different, but that is up to the Liberals.
“A minority government, often in Canadian history, has become the time when we achieved the most.”
As a smaller party, the NDP has received only one opposition day in this parliament so far, though it will get another if Bergen’s motion passes. It used its one day for a broader goal, calling on the House to support a national dental-care plan.
How the parties make use of the minority parliament is up to them, Julian said, but he believes Canadians will judge the parties on how they use this opportunity. He said the Conservatives are making their own choices, about quick wins, but he is happy to push for something bigger.
“Our sense is that there is an appetite from Canadians for building a better country.”
In a statement sent after the Post’s story was published online, Mark Kennedy, a spokesperson for the government house leader said the Conservatives were playing political games.
“They have a track record in recent years of holding Parliament hostage with political tactics and manoeuvres, repeatedly obstructing MPS from debating important legislation,” said Kennedy.
He said despite the Conservatives complaints now they often scheduled opposition days for Fridays and Wednesdays when they were in power.
“Unfortunately, the Conservatives have chosen to play political games.”