Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, an outspoken critic of the Liberals' plan to restructure committees, speaks at a news conference in Ottawa on April 14.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The federal government has bluntly rejected a proposal from the Conservatives to tweak the government’s plan to take more control of Commons committees now that the Liberals have a majority.
In a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Official Opposition House Leader Andrew Scheer said the Conservatives would move an amendment to preserve the balance on three oversight committees where the opposition parties hold majorities.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals were elected last year with a minority in the House of Commons, but secured a majority last week after a series of floor-crossings and by-election wins. Despite this, Commons committees remain a point of leverage for opposition parties, which still hold the balance of power on them because committee memberships were determined while the Liberals were in minority.
On Tuesday, the government announced that it planned to bring forward a motion that would leave the number of opposition MPs on committees the same, but add new seats for Liberals. The plan would give the government voting control of committees and cement its hold on Parliament.
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On Wednesday, Mr. Scheer proposed maintaining the status quo on the oversight committees on public accounts; government operations and estimates; and access to information, privacy and ethics.
“We are calling on the government to, at the very least, preserve the balance and preserve the checks that the oversight committees provide to the government,” he said.
But Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon said in a statement that he was not interested in Mr. Scheer’s proposal.
“The answer is no,” he said. Mr. MacKinnon noted that Parliamentary principle says a party that has a majority of seats in the House also has a majority on committees.
“Not some committees. All committees. There are not two tiers of committees in Parliament. They are all the same. And the principle applies to them equally.”
Wednesday’s back-and-forth was part of a wider effort by opposition MPs to push back against the proposed change.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Wednesday that it was revealing of the Liberals to move to adjust committees so soon after achieving majority status.
“You might say heavy-handed,” he said, when pressed during a news conference to describe the action.
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Conservative MP Luc Berthold, arriving for his party’s caucus meeting, said the Conservatives are helpless to reverse the government’s planned actions.
“They have a majority,” he said in French. “So, it’s up to the government to see how it’s going to impose its will on the rest of the members of Parliament, and we’ll see if they really care about democracy or if all they care about is getting more power.”
The Globe and Mail reported March 30, citing two Liberal Party sources, that the government had been considering proroguing Parliament after the April 13 by-elections in order to restructure the committees.
But The Globe reported a day later that Mr. Carney said he would not do that and was content to work with opposition parties.
“Absolutely not. It has never even entered my thinking, a possibility of that, so I couldn’t be more surprised to see suggestions that is under consideration,” Mr. Carney told reporters at the time.
Mr. MacKinnon has been at the forefront of defending the government’s stand on committee-structure changes.
He defended the committee policy during a news conference on Wednesday morning.
“We need to move ahead with committees that work hard to closely scrutinize legislation to make it better, while also holding public hearings on a range of crucial policies where Canadians are demanding solutions,” he said.
He was backed up by other members of the Liberal caucus arriving for their weekly meeting.
Justice Minister Sean Fraser said “it’s a long-standing tradition” that committees reflect the majority or minority status of the House.
Former House speaker Greg Fergus said that if the Liberals had won a majority in the 2025 federal election, then lost that majority, there would have been calls to change the committee structure to reflect that change.
Mr. Fergus, an MP from Quebec, said that selecting witnesses and topics for committees is usually done on a consensual basis among committees, and suggested that will not change with the new structure.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne also said committees reflecting the status of the House are a long-standing tradition in the parliamentary system.
“We’ve been very clear – we’re going to govern with humility and confidence,” he said. “We’re working with everyone that wants to work with us to advance the interest of Canada.”