Parliamentary protest could last 40 hours
Tories seek answers on PM’s trip to India
Parliamentarians were bracing for a long night as the Conservatives planned to force nearly 260 votes in the House of Commons overnight Thursday to protest the government’s refusal to have its national security adviser testify before a parliamentary committee about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent trip to India.
On Thursday evening, the Liberals defeated a Conservative motion, supported by the NDP, to have Daniel Jean appear before the Commons public safety committee by the end of the month.
When their motion was defeated, the Conservatives intended to force up to 259 consecutive votes, which could last for 30 to 40 hours. It’s an unusual move, though all-nighters in Parliament are not without precedent. In 2012, the opposition parties forced votes on 871 amendments to the Harper government’s omnibus budget bill, a protest against what they saw as an abuse of Parliament.
This time, the Conservatives are responding to a briefing given to journalists during the prime minister’s trip to India last month by a government official they say was Jean, Trudeau’s national security adviser. The official suggested to reporters that factions within the Indian government may have orchestrated the presence of Jaspal Atwal, who was convicted of the attempted murder of an Indian cabinet minister in B.C. in 1986, at an official event in an attempt to embarrass Trudeau. The Tories want the official to appear before parliamentarians and repeat what was told to reporters.
“When a convicted attempted murderer appears at an official Government of Canada event, that is serious,” Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said in a statement on Facebook on Thursday evening, as the voting marathon began.
“When the prime minister then blames a foreign government for his mistake, that is even worse. Canadians deserve to know the truth about what happened during the Atwal affair. Justin Trudeau is trying to hide the one person who can set the record straight.”
Ahead of the votes, Conservative and NDP sources said their MPs would take shifts. “We’ll have a bit of a rotation to keep things moving and make sure people are properly fed and properly rested and all that stuff,” said a Conservative.
The source said the Conservative caucus had been asked to change travel plans. Many MPs return to their ridings on Thursday evenings or Fridays, but these votes could last through the day on Friday.
Since each of the 259 votes is a confidence vote, the Liberals must ensure they have a majority for as long as the voting lasts, meaning they’re also looking at last-minute travel changes.
Yukon Liberal Larry Bagnell said he had a flight booked to Whitehorse for 7 a.m. on Friday that he’d have to re-book in the wee hours if the votes were still going strong.
Bagnell, who chaired the House of Commons procedure committee during an extended filibuster last year, said the key to making it through these marathon sessions is to stop drinking — “for obvious reasons.” He also took to eating chocolate bars with coffee beans in them for the caffeine, he said.
NDP finance critic Peter Julian said he’s previously spoken for 14 hours straight during a filibuster in the Commons, suggesting this is peanuts by comparison.
“Speaking for 14 hours … is tough, but voting? You only get up once every 10 minutes,” he said, claiming he’d use the time to stay in touch with his constituents.
In 2012, NDP MP Matthew Dubé sat through the extended votes on the Conservative budget bill. “So you kind of start doing some work at the beginning, and as you get to the later hours, you tend to give up, crack open a novel, cue up Netflix on your iPad,” he said, adding that he opted for an XFiles marathon.
In 2012, Tory MP Michelle Rempel was reportedly spotted with half a dozen containers of Play-Doh on her desk.
But on Thursday, the Conservatives took a more serious tone as they faced the long hours ahead.
“We’re prepared to sit 40 hours straight voting if that’s what it takes for us to get some actual answers, rather than the double-speak we’re hearing from the prime minister,” defence critic James Bezan told reporters.