Tories force delay of government bills and spending as holiday recess nears

OTTAWA — The official Opposition continued to force the delay of government bills and billions in spending on Thursday in an attempt to get the Liberal government to remove the federal carbon-pricing plan from all home heating by the holidays.

The Conservatives were doing it by prompting 135 votes in the House of Commons on Thursday, most of them on the government’s estimates.

The party said it would result in around-the-clock voting that would likely last until tonight and stall the Liberal agenda as the holiday recess nears.

The Tory votes oppose small amounts of money to billions of dollars in spending that have been earmarked for different government departments.

Some votes oppose from $0 to as little as a loonie in funding for departments and agencies such as Indigenous Services Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The Tories launched their campaign to delay government work a day earlier, saying they won’t stop until families, farmers and First Nations are exempted from the federal carbon-pricing plan, which, they say, is increasing the cost of living for those groups.

Also on Wednesday, MPs put forward more than 20,000 amendments to an 11-page government bill that aims to create sustainable jobs as part of the transition to a net-zero emissions economy.

NDP MP Charlie Angus, who sits on the natural resources committee where the amendments were proposed, accused the Conservatives of “legislative abuse.”

“Under Pierre Poilievre, we are seeing goon-squad tactics at committees. We’re seeing harassment, intimidation,” Angus said Thursday.

“I want to put on the record that what is happening in Parliament right now is a very, very dangerous trend. A trend to shut down the work that we do.”

In response, a Conservative spokesman pointed to comments Alberta Conservative MP Garnett Genuis made in the House during question period on Thursday.

Genuis had accused the NDP and Liberals of ramming through the bill “under the cover of darkness,” calling it an “antienergy agenda”

The Liberal government believes the Conservative tactics ultimately failed at Wednesday’s committee, because many of the 20,000 amendments were similar in nature, meaning there was no need to vote on each of them.