Conservatives poised to prompt marathon voting session on government spending

Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are poised to prompt what could become an overnight marathon voting session in the House of Commons, signalling Thursday afternoon they plan to make good on their threat to delay the government’s agenda by forcing votes on more than 100 line items from the latest spending plans.

On Thursday, following the debate on the Official Opposition’s last “supply day” motion of the season—once again on a call to scrap the carbon tax—the Conservatives have given notice that when MPs move to consider the latest batch of supplementary estimates for 2023-24, they plan to trigger what could be an estimated 27 consecutive hours of votes. 

“This evening we’ll be dealing with the supply bills. You may know by now that Conservatives have put on a number of opposed items in an effort to highlight the pain that the Liberal carbon tax is imposing on Canadians who are struggling with food prices at grocery stores,” Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer said after question period, setting up the session.

He said the Conservatives would be willing to back down and allow the estimate process to proceed in “an orderly and timely manner,” if the government pushed the Senate to repeal the amendment that essentially gutted a backbencher’s farm fuel carbon tax carve out legislation.

“If not, in order to ensure Canadians understand the devastating impact the carbon tax will have on them. we will be voting around the clock until this government gets it through their minds, that the carbon tax is causing all this misery on Canadians,” Scheer said.

The supplementary estimates are a document that outlines additional government spending, and before this spending package can be voted on, the rules state MPs have to deal with any “opposed votes.” There are currently more than 100 “opposed votes” posted by the Conservatives, which as a procedural tool, forces the House to take a specific position on various line items from the estimates.

As a sampling, the Conservatives have asked for votes on repayments to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation; CRA, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, and Canadian Food Inspection Agency operating expenditures; funding for the RCMP, CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment; and grants and contributions to Health Canada.

Poilievre fired a warning shot about throwing up all possible procedural tools they have in their arsenal, when speaking to his caucus on Wednesday.

“We’re going to put in thousands of amendments at committee and in the House of Commons, forcing all night round-the-clock voting to block your $20 billion of inflationary spending and the rest of your economically destructive plans, until you agree to our demand to take the tax off farmers, First Nations, and families,” Poilievre said Wednesday.

Poilievre was not in question period on Thursday and is not expected to be in Ottawa this evening. According to the Conservative Party of Canada’s website, he’s scheduled to attend a reception at a steakhouse in Montreal. 

Government House Leader Karina Gould said Thursday that what the Conservatives are planning to do amounts to holding Canadians back, but she’s confident these Official Opposition motions will fail as the government and “reasonable opposition parties” will “stand against bullies,” and “keep working in Ottawa as long as it takes.”

“They’re proposing over 100 cuts,” Gould said. “This is typical of the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre… We’ve seen this playbook from the extreme right wing of the Republican Party that has tried to shut down the U.S. government and now Pierre Poilievre and his caucus are trying to bring those same tactics here to Canada.”

The marathon voting session is expected to kick off around 5:45 p.m. ET Thursday and could last overnight and well into Friday, which is typically a shorter sitting day allowing MPs to travel back to their ridings in time for weekend constituency events.

While the stakes are higher given votes on government spending are generally considered matters of confidence, thanks to the pandemic-era-invention of an electronic voting application, MPs are able to register their yeas and nays from anywhere in the country. 

This is not the first time the Conservatives have used this procedural tactic to prompt overnight vote-a-thons. In 2021 there was a 21-hour procedural standoff over the Liberals’ handling of the Jaspal Atwal India incident, and in 2019 they led a record-setting voting session over the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

In both past examples the hours-long procedural showdowns ended with little fanfare or policy change, beyond leaving MPs and Parliament Hill staff bleary-eyed and with less House time left to pass priority legislation.

This is a developing story, check back for updates…