Bill Updates
C-3 – An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025)
A number of amendments had been proposed to the version of C-3 that came back from committee, which pretty much revert it back to what it was before it went to committee. A vote was held on the amendments and they passed with 170 in favour and 163 opposed.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 163 | 0 | 1 |
| Conservative | 0 | 141 | 1 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 0 | 22 | 0 |
| NDP | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Green | 1 | 0 | 0 |
The reverted version of C-3 was then accepted with a similar vote, though Elizabeth May was absent for the vote. A third vote was held to approve its Third Reading and passed with the same split. It is now waiting for Royal Assent.
Motions
Budget 2025
François-Philippe Champagne (Liberal Minister of Finance and National Revenue, Quebec, Saint-Maurice—Champlain)
Quick and easy one here, François-Philippe sponsored a Motion to approve the government’s budget.
Amendment – Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc Québécois, Quebec, Beloeil—Chambly)
So bit of a funny one here, the right to propose an amendment to the budget motion is supposed to go to the opposition first but Pierre forgot to actually propose it when he finished his speech so the chance was passed to the next party with the most seats, the Bloc.
Now a quick important note on these that I want you to keep in mind as you read the next bit. These amendments and subamendments count as confidence motions. If they pass we could go into an election. The wording in them is extremely important, as a failed confidence vote sets the tone of the election. As you read the next bit remember that this is effectively what these parties want to set as the focus of an election.
Yves-François proposed that:
The House reject the government’s budget statement, which will hurt Quebec because it fails to:
- Raise the Canadian health transfer escalator to 6%
- End discrimination against people aged 65 to 74 who did not receive an equitable increase in Old Age Security
- Repay the $814 million to Quebeckers who were not compensated for the end of carbon pricing in April 2025
- Propose concrete and effective measures to combat climate change
Only part here that might need explanation is the $814 million. When the carbon tax was ended everyone still got their last rebate going into the election. Quebec, being one of the provinces that had their own carbon plan, didn’t get this rebate. These rebates are handed out in advance of the tax being collected, but no more tax was going to be collected so that rebate was paid for from other tax dollars. Quebec isn’t happy about that.
Subamendment – Jasraj Hallan (Conservative, Alberta, Calgary East)
Jasraj has an amendment to Yves-François’s Motion. There’s a lot of the usual buzzwords in this one, keep that in mind when you see it. He wants to change everything after “reject the government’s budget statement” to:
since, instead of presenting an affordable budget so Canadians can have an affordable life, it presented a budget that fails to:
- Consider that every dollar the Liberal government spends comes out of the pockets of Canadians in the form of higher taxes and inflation
- Bring down the deficit to the level Liberals promised in their last fiscal update, which promised $42 billion last year
- Scrap hidden taxes on food, including the industrial carbon tax on farmers, the food packaging tax that adds billions in costs, and the fuel standard tax that adds 17 cents per litre to diesel and gasoline for farmers
- End the inflation tax by bringing down the cost of government instead of printing money to pay Liberal bills
- Include a plan for any oil and gas pipelines that would strengthen our nation’s economy and get our resources to market
So yeah, once again they’re being overly generous with the word “tax”. Inflation is not a tax. Farmers have a number of exemptions and rebates to things like the carbon tax. There is no food packaging tax, he’s talking about the ban on single-use plastics. And I’m pretty sure setting up an entire department dedicated to fast-tracking projects like mines and pipelines says that last point on the list is irrelevant. As I said, it’s important to be aware of this because this is effectively these are the points the Conservatives want to make the focus of an election.
A vote was held on the subamendment and it failed with 139 voting in favour and 198 voting against.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 0 | 169 | 0 |
| Conservative | 139 | 0 | 0 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 0 | 22 | 0 |
| NDP | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| Green | 0 | 1 | 0 |
A vote was then held on the Bloc amendment and it also failed with 30 voting in favour and 306 opposed.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 0 | 168 | 0 |
| Conservative | 0 | 138 | 0 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 22 | 0 | 0 |
| NDP | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Green | 1 | 0 | 0 |
No votes were held on the budget itself.
Closing Fun
And that’s all for the week! The House is on break for Remembrance Day this week, so there won’t be a Wednesday post next week.
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