FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS WEEK, THE CONSERVATIVES ARE ASKING PARLIAMENT TO ORDER A PROBE INTO THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT — THIS TIME INTO HOW THE LIBERALS HAVE RESPONDED TO THE PANDEMIC.
NDP support should lead to its passage
OTTAWA • For the second time this week, the Conservatives are asking Parliament to order an investigation into the Liberal government — this time into how the Liberals have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But unlike with the first Tory motion, there doesn't appear to be any danger of a snap election call.
On Wednesday, the Liberals survived a confidence vote after the NDP and the Green Party joined them in voting against a motion that would have set up an “anti-corruption” committee to study the WE Charity scandal and other controversies.
The minority Liberals had drastically raised the stakes by making it a confidence vote, meaning it would have triggered an election if the motion had passed.
But two Liberal sources confirmed to the National Post they won't deem the second motion a confidence matter, making the vote scheduled for Monday a much less dramatic affair.
Still, Health Minister Patty Hajdu warned that the motion's current wording — which calls for a wide variety of COVID-19 documents to be produced within 15 days — is unacceptable for the government.
“Our initial analysis of this motion indicates that the very officials that are working day and night on Canada's response will be removed from their immediate tasks,” Hajdu said. “In fact, instead of working together to protect Canadians during this difficult time, the (Conservatives) would prefer to divert their focus to an unnecessary task that does not help Canadians in any way manage the months to come.
“We need to stay focused on what matters now,” Hajdu added. “You don't do the post- battle review in the middle of the fight.”
The motion orders up documents — such as memos, emails and notes — on topics including testing equipment, the procurement of personal protective equipment, the federal vaccine task force, and the operation of the early warning system known as the Global Public Health Intelligence Network.
The documents would be assessed by the House health committee, which would also have the power to call witnesses and study numerous other topics relating to the government's response to the pandemic. The committee would then produce a report to be tabled in Parliament.
The Tories have had a similar motion before the health committee for two weeks, but the Liberals asked for more time to study it and have prevented a vote on it.
Michelle Rempel Garner, the Conservative health critic who put the motion forward, asked Hajdu to suggest a new timeline for document production if 15 days is unworkable.
“What is a reasonable timeline, and when does ( Hajdu) think that they could reasonably be produced to Parliament?” Rempel Garner asked Hajdu during parliamentary debate, adding that waiting as long as three or six months for the documents is “not on the table.”
“I think that's a perfectly reasonable question from the member opposite,” Hajdu responded. “And I'm sure that should we sit together and the House leaders discuss, I'm sure we could determine a time that would be reasonable.”
It appears that the motion will pass as both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP support it, though some amendments are under negotiation.
“We've indicated that we're prepared to support the request for health-related documents with some changes that we're looking for,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Thursday. He said there are fair questions about the timeline, but rejected the idea that it's irrelevant work for government departments to be disclosing documents for MPS to examine.
“What have you done? What decisions have you made? Show us,” Singh said. “That's really the function of Parliament, to be able to have access to information like that.”
Singh justified his vote against the first Tory motion on the grounds that the Liberals appeared to be gunning for an election, and he didn't want to plunge the country into one during the second wave of a pandemic.
However, questions about how long this minority Parliament will last are not going away any time soon.
After the confidence vote on Wednesday, the Liberals resumed their filibuster in the finance committee examining heavily redacted WE Charity documents.
The NDP has also said it plans to bring a motion before the ethics committee for a deeper study into questions related to the WE scandal, and the opposition is still pushing for details of speaking fees paid to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's family.
The Liberals will face another confidence test in November when they present their fiscal update — essentially a fall budget — to the House of Commons.
The Liberals, who hold a healthy lead in national polls, could also simply ask the Governor General for an election at any time of their choosing, even without a confidence vote.