Hello everyone! Busy week last week, including a massive voting marathon that I’m sure you’ve all heard about. Get details below!
Matters of Privilege
Unparliamentary Language – Damien C. Kurek (Conservative, Alberta, Battle River—Crowfoot)
Damien was kicked out of the House. He declared that the Prime Minister was lying, which isn’t something you’re allowed to do in the House. (Note that this benefits Damien as well, nobody is allowed to accuse another MP of lying). When the Speaker asked him to apologize he refused. Damien was then given one more chance, refused, and was asked to leave the House.
The Speaker and the Ontario Liberal Party Convention – Andrew Scheer (Conservative, Saskatchewan, Regina—Qu’Appelle)
We also have a Matter of Privilege regarding the Speaker participating in an Ontario Liberal Party convention. Andrew declared this is a breach as the Speaker is supposed to maintain a position of neutrality, and appearing at any political party’s convention brings that neutrality into question. He proposed the following Motion:
That the Speaker’s public participation at an Ontario Liberal Party convention, as Speaker of the House of Commons, constitutes a breach of the tradition and expectation of impartiality required for that high office, constituting a serious error of judgment which undermines the trust required to discharge his duties and responsibilities and, therefore, the House refers the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs with instruction that it recommend an appropriate remedy.
Luc Berthold (Conservative, Quebec, Mégantic—L’Érable) proposed an amendment to this, adding the following to the end:
provided that the committee: (a) meet within 24 hours after receiving this order of reference to consider the matter; (b) ensure this matter take priority over all other business; (c) shall have the first priority for the use of House resources for the committee meetings, subject to the special orders adopted on Monday, May 16, 2023, and Monday, December 4, 2023; and (d) be instructed to report back to the House not later than on Thursday, December 14, 2023
The amendment passed with everyone voting in favour of it, then the main Motion passed with unanimous consent.
Motions
Carbon Tax- Pierre Poilievre (Conservative Leader, Ontario, Carleton)
Pierre proposed a Motion:
That the House call on the Liberal government to immediately repeal the carbon tax on farmers, First Nations, and families.
The Motion failed with 112 voting in favour and 202 voting against.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 0 | 151 | 6 |
| Conservative | 112 | 0 | 3 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 0 | 25 | 3 |
| NDP | 0 | 24 | 0 |
| Green | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Independent | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Voting Marathon
As everyone may have heard the House had an extremely long day last week as they did a line-by-line vote on the supplementary spending in the government’s budget. This covers spending for things such as:
- The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (operating expenses)
- The Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (grants and contributions)
- The Department of Employment and Social Development (operating expenses)
- The Department of Transport (capital expenses)
- The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (grants and contributions)
- The National Research Council of Canada (operating expenses)
And many, many more. This type of thing doesn’t normally happen, but the Conservatives decided it needed to so it did. It’s also worth noting that, as these are all part of the budget, that these votes all count as a Confidence Vote. If any of them fail it could trigger an election.
Now I’m not going to get too deep into this mess, it’s obviously a bit excessive. Suffice to say the Conservatives voted against everything and everyone else voted in favour. Instead, with all the talk I’ve seen about attendance (especially with Pierre), I’m going to look at just how many MPs from each party were present for votes over the course of the night.
It’s worth noting that an MP doesn’t have to be physically present to cast a vote. Ever since the COVID lockdowns we’ve been working with a hybrid system that allows MPs to cast their votes remotely. So, let’s take a look at the attendance records for each party!
| Number of MPs | Lowest Attendance | Highest Attendance | Total Attendance | |
| Liberals | 158 | 90.5% | 96.8% | 94.4% |
| Conservatives | 117 | 51.2% | 96.5% | 81.2% |
| Bloc | 32 | 37.5% | 87.5% | 69.2% |
| NDP | 25 | 32.0% | 88.0% | 68.6% |
| Independent | 3 | 0% | 33.3% | 11.8% |
| Greens | 2 | 0% | 50.0% | 42.7% |
- Number of MPs – The total number of MPs in each party
- Lowest Attendance – The lowest percentage of the party to show up for a vote
- Highest Attendance – The highest percentage of the party to show up for a vote
- Average Attendance – The average percentage of MPs for the party at a vote
- Total Attendance – The final attendance of MPs across all votes
Two interesting notes in all of this are that there were two instances of Conservative MPs voting against the rest of their party in support of a line in the budget:
- Chris Warkentin (Conservative, Alberta, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie) voted in favour of paying for the grants and contributions of the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada
- Philip Lawrence (Conservative, Ontario, Northumberland—Peterborough South) voted in support of paying for the operating and capital expenses of the National Museum of Science and Technology
It’s possible that these were mistakes, but MPs are pretty quick to ask for corrections for things like incorrect votes and I don’t see anything about that here so I think it was intentional.
Now as a final thing to look at here, especially with the news coverage of this, how many of these votes did the party leaders attend?
- Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister, Quebec, Papineau) only missed two votes, voting on 98.3% of them
- Pierre Poilievre (Conservative Leader, Ontario, Carleton) also only missed two votes
- Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc Leader, Quebec, Beloeil—Chambly) was voted for 49.1% of the votes
- Jagmeet Singh (NDP Leader, British Columbia, Burnaby South) voted on 61.6% of the votes
- The only Independent MP to vote on any of these was Han Dong (Independent, Ontario, Don Valley North)
- Elizabeth May (Green Party Leader, British Columbia, Saanich—Gulf Islands) didn’t vote at all during this
The budget Bill all of this was about eventually passed, skipped its committee step, and passed its Third Reading.
Bill Updates
C-322 – National Framework for a School Food Program Act
C-322 went up for its Second Reading vote and passed with 204 voting in favour and 110 voting against.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 150 | 0 | 7 |
| Conservative | 0 | 110 | 3 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 28 | 0 | 4 |
| NDP | 24 | 0 | 0 |
| Green | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Independent | 1 | 0 | 0 |
The Conservatives voted against C-322 on the grounds that education falls under Provincial jurisdiction, and they would rather see the Carbon Tax removed. (Worth noting that there was a lot of bickering here as the Bloc and NDP repeatedly interrupted to call out that the Conservatives were talking about the Carbon Tax and not C-322, and the Deputy Speaker kept giving them time to show how the Carbon Tax was relevant.)
C-322 will now be sent to committee.
C-295 – An Act to amend the Criminal Code (neglect of vulnerable adults)
C-295 went up for its Third Reading vote and passed with everyone voting in favour. It’s now going to the Senate.
Closing Fun
And that’s all for the week! Bit of a busy one. The House only sits for the rest of this week then is off for the holidays, so next Wednesday’s post is going to be pretty short and then we’ll be switching to more Bill coverage until they come back next year!