The nation’s capital is in the midst of chaos, turmoil and instability. Sure, it doesn’t look like the government will fall on a non-confidence motion next week, but that doesn’t mean the government is functional.
Justin Trudeau is losing his Quebec lieutenant, Pablo Rodriguez, who is leaving cabinet for a run at the leadership of Quebec’s provincial Liberals — a party currently in third place. This comes just two weeks after Trudeau lost his national campaign director, Jeremy Broadhurst, reportedly because he doesn’t think Trudeau can win the next election.
Senior staff in ministers’ offices are leaving, resumes from the Liberal political class are filling the inboxes of consulting and lobbying firms.
“Everyone just wants to know when the election is, that’s all anyone is talking about,” said one Ottawa insider.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had hoped that would be next week.
The Trudeau government confirmed that the Conservatives will have an opposition day next week, a move that would allow them to move a motion of non-confidence, defeat the government and launch an election by Nov. 4.
“The House has no confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government,” is the wording the Conservatives put forward for their motion.
It’s a straightforward motion, no mention of the carbon tax, nothing to scare off the NDP or Bloc and give them a reason not to back the motion. Given what both parties have said about the Trudeau government, you would think that the motion would pass, and the government would fall.
“We’re voting no,” Blanchet told reporters on Parliament Hill.
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He went on to say that he believes Poilievre’s motion is just about replacing Justin Trudeau with Pierre Poilievre, and he isn’t interested in doing that. He’s also hoping to get more concessions and money for Quebec, something Trudeau will be all too willing to give him to stay in power.
The NDP, meanwhile, are floating the idea that they will continue to support the government to ensure the pharmacare bill currently before the Senate passes. The bill doesn’t provide even half of what the NDP demanded from the Liberals for their support during the coalition. It was a bare-bones minimum, but is now the reason the NDP will support the Trudeau Liberals.
Singh has called the Trudeau Liberals weak, selfish and beholden to corporate interests. He has said that the Trudeau Liberals have failed Canadians and continue to disappoint them, and yet he will still vote for them.
“He ripped up the coalition agreement, but then he taped it back together,” Poilievre told me in an exclusive interview last week.
It seems that is an accurate description of what is happening.
Singh made a big show of divorcing himself and his party from the Trudeau Liberals, but it turns out they are still staying in the same house.
Meanwhile, the government is rudderless, big files are not moving forward, and key staff needed to make the government function are looking for the exists. This is now the least stable Parliament since the early days of Stephen Harper’s first Conservative minority in 2006-07.
While it looks like the government will survive the vote next week, what the future looks like is a mystery. We could still see Trudeau hang onto power until October 2025 if he is willing to give the Bloc Quebecois anything they ask for.
If that’s what happens, the cost to the country will be much more than financial. In many parts of Western Canada, there is already outrage that Trudeau looks like he will stay in power thanks to a separatist party.
That resentment will only grow the longer this new informal coalition lives on.