Elizabeth May says she will vote for Mark Carney's budget as confidence vote looms
OTTAWA — The Liberals managed to secure one more vote to prevent a snap election.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May announced on Monday that she will be voting for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s budget after hearing a clear commitment from him that his government will respect Canada’s international commitments to reduce emissions.
In a rare move, May directly challenged Carney in the House of Commons on Monday on the lack of mention of those targets and Carney responded.
“I can confirm to this House that we will respect our Paris commitments for climate change, and we’re determined to achieve them,” said Carney.
May had previously said she would be voting against the budget as it was written, but that she was open to negotiating with the Liberal government to find a path forward. She said that an oral commitment to respect and achieve those targets was enough to vote “yes.”
“Without what I heard from the Prime Minister today, I would have voted ‘no,’” she said.
May said she also came to this decision after hearing overwhelmingly from her constituents that they do not want an election to happen by “accident.”
“Maybe I’m a fool. I’ll leave that for history to decide. But I did what I thought was right,” she said.
All eyes will be on the House of Commons around 6:45 p.m. for the third and final confidence vote on the main motion of the budget. If it passes, MPs will carry on their business undisturbed. If it is defeated, Canadians are headed to a Christmas election.
The minority Liberals have 170 seats, but they can only count on 169, as Liberal MP and House Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia will only be called to vote if there is a tie. The party’s whip, Mark Gerretsen, told CBC that all Liberals will be in the House in-person for the vote.
With May’s vote, that number will go back to 170.
The rest of the opposition MPs, on the other hand, have a total of 172 votes. The opposition parties could easily defeat the government’s budget and force Canadians into a second election this year if they vote against but not all MPs on the opposition benches are on the same page.
The Bloc Québécois has already said that their 22 MPs would be all voting against.
The NDP had still not come to a decision as of Monday morning. Their seven MPs held a caucus meeting in the morning to discuss their decision. There is a chance that some of them vote either in favour or against the budget, while others abstain from the vote.
NDP leadership candidate Heather McPherson would not say how she will be voting.
“You’ll see soon,” she simply said earlier in the day.
Interim NDP Leader Don Davies is expected to speak to the media only after the vote.
The Conservatives have also said they would be voting against, but it is unclear if all of their 143 MPs will be casting a vote. On Monday, Conservative MPs who stopped to speak with reporters would not say if all their colleagues would be voting or if a few would abstain.
“I don’t know. I know I’m voting against it,” said Saskatchewan MP Kevin Waugh.
“I only worry about Kevin,” he added.
National Post calevesque@postmedia.com
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