Freeland's budget bill passes House after Poilievre pledges to block it
The federal budget implementation bill passed the House of Commons on Thursday, after days of Conservative attempts to block it.
By a vote of 177 to 146, Bill C-47, the Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1 as it's titled, passed the final stage in the House with support from the Liberals and NDP while the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois voted "nay." It is now off to the Senate, where a pre-study of the omnibus legislation is already underway.
The 430-page bill was tabled in April following Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiling a plan of continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care, and the clean economy.
After some hold-up at the House Finance Committee in May, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre came into the House this week with , after the Liberals signaled plans to use midnight sittings to work through the final stages of Bill C-47 over Monday and Tuesday.
This journey into the Official Opposition's procedural toolbox started with stacking the notice paper with more than 900 amendments seeking to wipe out most of the budget, and a demand from Poilievre that if the Liberals didn’t heed his demands to present a plan to balance the budget and cancel any future carbon price increases, that he'd use other measures to block it.
Then on Wednesday night, after MPs moved through the permissible amendments in batches, Poilievre vowed to filibuster debate at the final stage. Except the House had already passed a time allocation motion meaning that Poilievre the final hours of debate, the clock struck midnight.
On Thursday, with the final vote already scheduled for Thursday afternoon, he came to the Hill with a new plan, telling reporters he was now willing, if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cancelled his other plans, to rewrite a budget that balances budgets in order to bring down inflation and interest rates."
Poilievre said he thought his efforts this week, seeing the bill come to a vote a few days later than the Liberals had initially hoped, were "very successful."
By the time the vote took place, Poilievre was not in the Chamber, opting to vote virtually, instead.
The bill's passage was met with cheers from the government side of the House, while one opposition MP could be heard suggesting that now the Liberals could prorogue, a rumour that continues to circulate despite repeated government denials.
In criticizing the Conservatives for trying to hold up the rest of the budget this week, a number of Liberals rose in the House and posted on social media to highlight the workers benefits and housing affordability measures they said the Official Opposition was delaying seeing rolled out the door to Canadians.
"Does [Poilievre] not support dental care? ... Does he not support supports for workers or students? Does he not support the vast preponderance of what's in the budget which is for health care and for changing to the new economy?" said Government House Leader Mark Holland on Thursday.
With just a few weeks left before Parliament is slated to adjourn for the summer, even with the advanced study underway, it remains to be seen if Conservative senators try to tie up the legislation in their own ways.
In a move that had all-party backing, in May Freeland was able to fast-track and pass a bill that pulled out two measures from the federal budget: the grocery rebate and the health transfer top-ups.
IN DEPTH
Jagmeet Singh pulls NDP out of deal with Trudeau Liberals, takes aim at Poilievre Conservatives
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has pulled his party out of the supply-and-confidence agreement that had been helping keep Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority Liberals in power.
'Not the result we wanted': Trudeau responds after surprise Conservative byelection win in Liberal stronghold
Conservative candidate Don Stewart winning the closely-watched Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection, and delivering a stunning upset to Justin Trudeau's candidate Leslie Church in the long-time Liberal riding, has sent political shockwaves through both parties.
'We will go with the majority': Liberals slammed by opposition over proposal to delay next election
The federal Liberal government learned Friday it might have to retreat on a proposal within its electoral reform legislation to delay the next vote by one week, after all opposition parties came out to say they can't support it.
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½
Recall issued for 38,000 GM vehicles in Canada over software safety glitch
Transport Canada has issued a recall for 38,000 General Motors (GM) vehicles for safety risks related to a software glitch, the agency reported in a notice on Wednesday.
Top Hezbollah commander among 12 killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and other senior figures in the Lebanese movement in an airstrike on Beirut on Friday, vowing to press on with a new military campaign until it is able to secure the area around the Lebanese border.
11-year-old boy dies after subway surfing in NYC
An 11-year-old boy died Monday after subway surfing in New York City. He's the fourth person to die from subway surfing in the city this year.
Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.
Canadians say they fear they've been scammed out of thousands of dollars by car moving company
An Ontario man says he’s still waiting for a vehicle he purchased on Kijiji to be delivered to his home. But after more than a month, he says he’s losing hope that the car will arrive and believes that he is a victim of a scam.
The search for a missing six-year-old boy in Shamattawa is continuing Friday as RCMP hope recent tips can help lead to a happy conclusion.
BREAKING
The New Brunswick RCMP has issued an alert as officers search for an armed teenager in the Moncton and Shediac areas.
An Ontario man says it is 'unfair' to pay a $1,500 insurance surcharge because his four-year-old SUV is at a higher risk of being stolen.
DEVELOPING Here's what we know about Israel's latest strike in Beirut
Israel’s military has struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, in a dramatic escalation in a year-long period of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Local Spotlight
They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.
A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.
Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.
The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.
It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.
A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.
David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.
Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.