Wednesday October 21, 2020 | NATIONAL
by Mary P Brooke, editor | Island Social Trends
For the last 24 hours it looked like Canada was on the brink of a possible snap election.
But a vote in the House of Commons today (final results at 1:33 pm Pacific Time October 21, 2020), saw the NDP, Greens and independents give their backing to the Liberal government, causing failure of the Conservative motion about a special committee would have looked further into the WE Charity controversy.
The government stands (there will be no election as a result of today’s vote). Votes went 146 votes in favour (Conservatives & Bloc) and 180 against (Liberals, NDP, Greens and independent).
The government has a lot on its plate dealing with the health and economic aspects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A fiscal update is expected in November.
NDP worked hard to prevent an election:
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said earlier today in a press conference in Ottawa that his party would not give Prime Minister Justin Trudeau an “excuse” to send Canadians to the polls in the middle of a global pandemic.
That was a few hours ahead of a vote in the House of Commons, and indicating that Trudeau’s government will survive today’s confidence vote.
By Trudeau having declared today’s vote a ‘confidence motion’, if it had passed it would have triggered an election.
Singh said Canadians do not want to deal with an election right now in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If he wants an election, he should just call one,” said Singh yesterday, rather than putting the NDP in a spot to either support the Liberals (who have done the NDP’s bidding for month’s now), not to mention the stress on Canadians at this time.
Style of governing going forward:
The federal Liberal government has been trying to govern in the past year (since being re-elected in October 2019) as if they are a majority government, largely using the support of the NDP along the way in the past year (especially on pandemic-related legislation).
Going forward, the Liberal government may settle in a bit more to the realities of being a minority government, having to patch their way forward with the support or collaboration with other parties in support of proposed legislation.
Independent Wilson-Raybould voted to support Liberals:
Today it was an interesting moment in Canadian politics to see Independent Member of Parliament Jody Wilson-Raybould voting to support the Liberal government which (last year) she challenged in a high-profile way and in so-doing was dropped by the Liberals in the October 2019 election (so she ran as an independent in Vancouver-Granville.
Shenanigans are tiresome:
The political shenanigans in the House of Commons and politics in generally are a tiresome thing for Canadians and for many politicians themselves. It will be interesting to see how long today’s stability continues in favour of getting legislation passed for the benefit of Canadian society.
