The Conservatives were unable to garner support from the New Democrats in their latest non-confidence motion against the Trudeau government, despite Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre using NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s own words as the basis for the motion.
“I rise today in the spirit of non-partisanship, put our differences aside and take a good idea and a good perspective no matter where it comes from,” Poilievre told MPs last week after tabling the motion.
“Too often in this place, we refuse to accept ideas or input from other people and so I thought I would remedy that by taking the words and the message of the leader of the NDP and putting them in a Conservative motion so that all of us could vote for the very wise things that he said.”
The quote in question referred to when Singh called the Liberals “took weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people” when he announced his party would be pulling out of its supply-and-confidence agreement with the Trudeau government in September.
However, the Conservatives’ motion was defeated just the same, with NDP MPs decidedly voting against the words of their leader.
Neither Singh nor Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were present for the vote, instead casting their votes remotely.
Following its outcome, Singh told reporters in Ottawa that his party could not support the motion because the Conservatives were “playing games.”
“We’re not going to vote in favour of any of their games because that’s what (the Conservatives are) doing. They’re playing games,” said Singh.
Monday’s vote was the third non-confidence motion brought forth by the Conservatives in recent months and marks the third time that the NDP chose to continue to prop up the Liberal government, despite purportedly being at odds with it.
“Sellout Jagmeet Singh’s words are worthless,” wrote Poilievre on X in response to Monday’s vote results.
“Jagmeet Singh has voted against his own words to keep Trudeau in power. He’s putting his pension ahead of workers. Singh gets his pension. Trudeau gets power. You (Canadians) get the bill.”
Poilievre’s pension remarks refer to Singh’s House of Commons pension eligibility not taking effect until February 2025, suggesting he has little incentive to risk getting voted out of office before then.
Dozens of other MPs will become eligible for their pensions in October 2025, although after the currently scheduled federal election date.
Earlier this year the Liberals introduced a bill to alter the Elections Act in a way that would coincidentally allow nearly 80 MPs to qualify for the pension, moving the current scheduled election day from Oct. 20 to Oct. 27, 2025.
However, the Liberals claim rescheduling the date to a week later is to acknowledge the Hindu religious festival of Diwali, saying that the overall bill is designed to strengthen Canada’s democracy.
While Singh has denied any correlation between prolonging calling an election and his pension eligibility date, the coincidence has not been lost on critics and opponents.