Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has vowed to vote non-confidence in the Liberal government at the earliest possible opportunity when parliament resumes next Monday, but NDP leader Jagmeet Singh will not be supporting the Conservatives’ efforts.
In a Wednesday press conference on Parliament Hill, Poilievre challenged NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-François Blanchet to join the Conservatives in a non-confidence vote “as soon as possible.”
Parliamentarians can put forward a non-confidence motion against Trudeau’s Liberal government when parliament is in session, which resumes next Monday.
Poilievre called Singh’s announcement last week, which officially ended the NDP-Liberal coalition, a “stunt,” claiming if Singh was truly breaking ties with the Liberals, the NDP would vote to trigger an election with Conservatives at the earliest opportunity.
The Conservative leader said Singh only decided to end the coalition agreement officially due to the upcoming byelection in Montreal where the NDP are neck and neck with the incumbent Liberal party in the polls.
“The costly coalition is called a supply and confidence agreement. So if you’re pulling out, you have to vote non-confidence,” Poilievre said at the press conference in Ottawa. “If you don’t, you’re still in the agreement, no matter what your video stunt would have everyone else believe.”
Poilievre noted that Singh refused to answer multiple times whether he would vote in favour of a non-confidence motion.
He said the NDP needs to “put up or shut up” by committing to supporting the next Conservative-led non-confidence motion or “admit he has sold out again.”
At a press conference outside of the NDP Caucus retreat the same day, Singh, in response, repeated comments he said last week that by “ripping up” the agreement, an election is more likely and that the NDP will consider supporting a non-confidence on a “vote-by-vote basis.”
“I’m not going to listen to you someone who wants to destroy your health care system, who wants to hurt seniors by cutting their pensions, someone who wants to attack workers, someone who wants to strip away dental care from seniors,” Singh said Wednesday. “What kind of person wants to strip away dental care when seniors have just gotten it, when kids are receiving it, who wants to take that away from them? I’m never going to listen to someone like that.”
As the Bloc Quebecois positioned themselves to form a similar agreement with the Liberal government to keep them in power in exchange for “gains” in Quebec, Poilievre aimed at the Quebec separatist party as well.
“This costly NDP-Liberal Government is also receiving the support of the Bloc, which voted to keep Trudeau 188 times and voted to add $500 billion in inflationary, centralist, bureaucratic spending that helped double our debt,” he said. “The Bloc voted with Trudeau to add 100,000 more bureaucrats and add another $10 billion on high-priced outside consultants.”
In the statement, Conservatives said the Bloc’s continued support of Trudeau’s Liberal government only expanded the Ottawa-led federalist government and weakened Quebec’s sovereignty from the rest of Canada.
The BQ did not respond to True North’s requests to comment, though in a press conference yesterday, Blanchet said it was not The BQ’s job to help the Conservatives come to power.
“When (Poilievre) says we’re not helping him replace Justin Trudeau, he’s admitting he’s powerless,” Blanchet said in French. “Our job is not to give him your strength.”