Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, left, holds up the budget book with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Ottawa last month.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
The Liberal government’s budget bill is stuck in the opening round of debate with just one week to go before an increasingly acrimonious minority Parliament breaks for the holidays.
As a result, it is highly unlikely that the bill will be studied in committee – let alone approved into law – this year.
Liberal MP Karina Gould, the chair of the House of Commons finance committee, said the lack of a formal partner for the government in the House of Commons is proving to be difficult.
“It’s a really, really challenging configuration of a minority Parliament, and so there’s a bit of a stalemate in terms of how to move that forward,” she said in an interview Friday.
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Unlike during most of the previous minority Parliament, when the government struck a co-operation deal with the NDP, the Liberals do not currently have a formal ally among the opposition parties. As a result, they are outnumbered and do not have the ability to shut down debate on bills to move them along through the legislative process.
This is particularly challenging for the government in committees, where only the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois have standing.
The House is scheduled to rise on Dec. 12 and won’t resume until Jan. 26.
On Friday, MPs debated C-15, the budget bill, for a ninth day. It can only be put to a second-reading vote to send it to committee once the debate has “collapsed,” meaning no further MPs rise to speak.
Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer said in an interview Friday that there is a genuinely long list of MPs from his party who want to speak on the budget bill and raise concerns about the size of the deficit and other matters.
He also said he’s open to negotiating an end to the debate with the government in exchange for items such as having certain ministers appear for questioning at committees, but no deal has been reached.
Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer says it appears that the Liberals haven't adjusted to the fact that the NDP no longer supports them in the House on procedural issues.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Mr. Scheer said it appears that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals have not adjusted to the fact that the NDP no longer supports them in the House on procedural issues.
“We hold Mark Carney to the standard he set for himself. He said he was the master negotiator, and so far, we haven’t seen that both in his international relations, nor do we see that in his parliamentary negotiations,” he said.
The practical consequences of not passing C-15 before the break include a delayed launch of the early-retirement buyout incentives for public servants, which is a key element of the budget’s plan to find billions in internal savings by shrinking the size of the public service.
Letters recently went out to about 68,000 public servants informing them that they may be eligible for the incentive. But the letter also said the program is subject to approval of the budget bill.
It says the application window for the program would be within 120 days of Jan. 15, 2026, or 120 days from the date the legislation comes into force, whichever is later.
The Conservatives have moved an amendment that says the House should not support the bill because it doesn’t address a list of affordability issues and fails to keep the deficit at no more than $42-billion.
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In recent days, opposition and Liberal MPs have heatedly accused each other of disrupting the work of Parliament on a range of issues.
Conservative MP Luc Berthold said Thursday that “the Liberal government is causing chaos in parliamentary committees,” pointing to meetings that were suddenly cancelled.
The finger-pointing continued during Friday’s Question Period.
A Liberal MP asked the government a friendly question as to “why our practical solutions are being reflexively blocked?”
Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull, the parliamentary secretary to Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, responded by blaming the opposition for “wasting time and blocking key legislation.”
NDP House Leader Alexandre Boulerice said in a statement that Canadians expect parties to work together in a minority Parliament, but blamed the lack of co-operation on the Prime Minister.
“Unfortunately, Mark Carney is governing like he has a majority. So, it’s no surprise that his budget bill has been stuck,” he said.
Such debates are not limited to the budget bill. Conservative and Bloc MPs accused the Liberals this week of cancelling a justice committee meeting focused on another bill, C-9, amid a heated debate over a Bloc proposal to end a religious exemption to Canada’s hate-speech laws.
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Neither the NDP nor the lone Green Party MP have party standing, meaning they do not have seats in committee. Both of those parties helped the Liberals in the House to gain approval for the main budget motion – the NDP by abstaining in part, while Green Party MP Elizabeth May voted with the Liberals – but that support is not available at the committee level.
The Liberals have unsuccessfully attempted to begin committee studies on the budget bill, but did not receive support from the other parties on the House finance committee.
Before MPs break for the holidays, they are required to approve government spending next week through a process called the estimates. Such votes are generally viewed as confidence matters.
Since the government narrowly survived a 170-168 confidence vote last month to approve the budget, subsequent confidence votes have been approved “on division,” meaning the approval is not considered unanimous. That process removes the political drama because no standing vote is required or recorded. It is likely to be used again next week.