By: Mason Mattu, Section Editor
In a minority government, cooperation with other parties is essential to ensure stability and unnecessary elections. Budget votes are where this cooperation becomes non-negotiable, as they are confidence votes. Which means if a majority of members of Parliament do not agree on the budget, it would lose the confidence of Parliament, thus triggering an early election. Thanks to the affirmative vote from Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, and several abstentions from various members of Parliament, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government narrowly survived a confidence vote by passing its budget. However the events preceding this vote expose a dangerous turn in Canadian politics — one that erodes political compromise and transgresses over minority government norms.
“I don’t like the budget,” May bluntly admitted in an interview with CBC. Her support was not an endorsement of the government’s disastrous budget that is riddled with right-leaning spending cuts and corporate handouts. Instead, it was based on fear-mongering from the Liberals with no concrete concessions or compromises made to earn her vote. All she got was a non-binding verbal promise to commit to our Paris climate targets (which Carney doesn’t seem to be steadfast on committing to, given his interest in an Alberta-West Coast pipeline).
Carney’s government embraces further right-leaning policies such as reckless pipeline expansions and handouts to Canada’s top 1% — they are intimidating other parties to go along with their plan under the false notion of keeping our “elbows up.” They use a phrase to call left-leaning parties into line to stand against a common enemy. By doing so, he is effectively asking them to suspend their demands and focus on his vision for Canada’s future — one that doesn’t align with the other parties’ values.
What you will hear from Carney’s Liberal government and its supporters is that anyone who did not support their budget doesn’t want to build a “Canada strong.” Due to threats of sovereignty and the unlikely potential of Canada’s Conservative Party forming government, it is, in Carney’s view, the responsibility of left-leaning opposition parties to vote on Harper-era fiscal priorities born out of a lack of compromise. This framing is simply ridiculous.
In reality, it is Carney with his elbows down. If an elbows up approach was to be truly embraced, there would have been a call for unprecedented collaboration in Parliament.
That would include listening to the voices of opposition parties to ensure the stability of our political sphere and recognizing that, in a minority government, it is the responsibility of the party in power to appease opposition parties.
For example, in the previous government, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made concessions to the New Democratic Party (NDP) to ensure the survival of his minority government — thus securing the stability of the country. Through this partnership, the NDP stipulated Trudeau to pass pharmacare, dental care, and anti-scab legislation — to which Trudeau yielded. This exemplifies how the previous government prioritized cooperation and didn’t lead by fear.
Prime Minister Carney’s government does not display a similar strategy. For example, his declaration before the budget vote — that his government is prepared for an election while refusing to amend his budget — paints a very grim future for Canadian politics. The NDP had asked the Liberals to include “substantial investment in jobs, housing, and healthcare.” The Bloc Québécois wished to see interest-free mortgages for first-time home buyers and increased old aged security benefits. Carney met with the leaders of other parties, seemingly pretending to hear their concerns about the budget and what he would have to do to earn their votes.
Instead, what is developing is a culture of fear and intimidation — where parliamentarians are pressured into voting for a budget that doesn’t align with their values — such as what happened with May, when she had voted for a budget that betrays the Green Party’s principles and embraces right-leaning policies. By using the threat of a Conservative victory in an election as a reason why his government deserves support, Carney is actively going against established minority government political norms of cooperation. Until he decides it’s time to cooperate with other parties, we’ll keep on having extremely close confidence votes. We’ll continue to be politically unstable.
