Prime Minister Mark Carney’s minority Liberal government survived the first in a series of confidence votes connected to the 2025 federal budget on Thursday night.
By a vote of 198 to 139, Liberal, NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Green MPs defeated an attempt by the Conservatives to reject Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne’s economic plans.
With their now-defeated sub-amendment, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives were calling on the House to “reject the government’s budget,” as instead of presenting “an affordable budget,” the Tories claimed the government “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.”
It went on to list concerns over the size of the deficit, the industrial carbon tax, the cost of government and the absence of any plan for new oil and gas pipelines.
Hours before the vote, Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon’s office raised the stakes on the otherwise routine procedural proposals, declaring that the Liberals would be treating both the Conservative sub-amendment, and the Bloc Quebecois amendment that will come up for a vote on Friday, as confidence votes.
Though, not long after the ante was upped, any suspense over whether the government could fall over the vote dissipated when interim NDP Leader Don Davies declared his caucus of seven would be voting against the motion, giving the Liberals the numbers they needed to survive.
“The Conservatives want massive cuts to public spending, that’s exactly the opposite direction that New Democrats think we need to go in,” Davies said before the vote, calling what Poilievre’s party was proposing “absolutely irresponsible.”
Also speaking ahead of the vote, Carney said the NDP “made the right choice.”
“It’s good to see,” he said.
Deputy Conservative Leader Melissa Lantsman also reacting ahead of the vote result, said what other parties decide to do is their choice, but “we’ve been pretty clear … we can’t support this budget.”
Typically, the first amendment to be moved – and second to be voted on – comes from the Official Opposition. However, after his Wednesday speech in response to the budget, Poilievre did not present one.
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet then swiftly moved what should have been his party’s sub-amendment as the first amendment to the government’s budget, essentially flipping the order of these two steps in the parliamentary budget approval process.
“It’s interesting that the Conservatives were asleep at the switch and allowed the Bloc to get the amendment in before they did. I think that speaks to disarray in the Conservative Party right now,” Davies said.
The Bloc amendment also calls for the House to reject the budget, stating it is “harmful to Quebec,” as they claim it failed to increase the indexation of the Canada Health Transfer to six per cent, increase Old Age Security, reimburse Quebecers who haven’t received carbon pricing compensation, or propose concrete and effective measures to combat climate change.
The Bloc proposal will come up for a rare Friday afternoon vote, and Davies said his MPs are still deciding whether to support it or side with the government again.
While the government falling is “always a concern,” Davies said it is not his main consideration, and has previously said his party was keeping abstention on the table.
Should both motions be defeated, when MPs return to Ottawa after spending next week in their ridings – some selling the budget and others hearing constituents’ concerns about it – the final debate and vote on the motion asking the House to “approve in general the budgetary policy of the government” will take place as early as Nov. 17.
