OTTAWA 鈥� The Conservatives have set the table for a second round of filibustering in the House of Commons, in protest over what they view as continued government obfuscation over the Atwal incident.
Overnight, 15 Conservative MPs regarding committee work. The motions either call for committee reports to 鈥渂e concurred in鈥�, or to have certain bills be divided up into smaller portions for study at committee stage.
In short, these motions could take considerable time to go through, essentially bringing the Commons to a standstill not allowing House business to move forward. This would mean hours of debate on government legislation and policy would give way to more partisan procedural back and forth, all of which the Opposition is within their rights to do.
All of this is over continued insistence from the Conservatives to have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau鈥檚 national security adviser Daniel Jean appear at committee, to give the same briefing he offered reporters after photos surfaced of attempted murderer Jaspal Atwal with Sophie Gregoire Trudeau at an event in India. In that background briefing, Jean suggested that factions in the Indian government may have tried to sabotage Trudeau's trip to India in February, a theory others have since disputed.
The government has argued that the public committee is not the appropriate venue for Jean to speak, and say they had offered Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer a private briefing of his own on the matter.
MPs got a taste of this on Monday when, about half an hour in to the first round of debate on the Liberal鈥檚 new gun control legislation, Bill C-71, Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus asked for debate to be adjourned. A vote was initiated on whether or not to do so, and the Liberals supported ending the debate, but the Tories voted against, despite being the ones asking for it.
The motion to end the debate passed, forcing the government to put something else on the agenda for the remainder of the day. Government House Leader Bardish Chagger stated it would be Bill C-68 regarding fisheries, and in doing so she prescribed a limited amount of time for it to be debated, otherwise known as closure, and the Conservatives balked.
"Once again we are seeing the government shut down debate specifically on a bill that is so fundamental 鈥� Why is the minister and the government shutting down debate on this important bill?" said Conservative MP Todd Doherty.
This potential second round of parliamentary wrangling comes after the Conservatives forced MPs to endure 21 hours of non-stop and overnight voting in the House on the government鈥檚 supplementary and interim estimates.
In deciding to end the marathon voting on Friday, Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen pledged her party was not finished pushing the government to answer for its India trip.
It is yet to be seen whether or not these new Conservative motions will be moved, and if so when, and how many.
"We need to get work done on behalf of Canadians, so that鈥檚 what we鈥檒l continue focusing on. My goal is a well-functioning House of Commons and that鈥檚 what [I鈥檒l be] persistent on," Chagger told reporters Tuesday morning.
MPs have already collectively decided to take Friday off, and sit the usual shorter Friday hours on Thursday, in advance of the Easter weekend.
