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Posted on 05/06/2005 9:52:57 AM PDT by GMMAC
Conservatives win May 18 showdown
Liberals defiant
NATIONAL POST
Friday, May 06, 2005
Anne Dawson
CanWest News Service
OTTAWA - Parliament could be thrown into a constitutional crisis after the Conservatives yesterday won the right to hold a non-confidence vote on May 18, which the Liberals have vowed to ignore if they lose it.
The Speaker of the House of Commons ruled in favour of the Tories yesterday, clearing the way for a vote on a motion that calls on the government to resign -- something the Liberals had vigorously argued against -- which in turn could force a late-June election.
Although the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois appear to have enough votes between them to win a showdown, such an outcome is far from clear, with recent moves by the Liberals to win the support of Independent and Opposition MPs through offers of plum appointments and money for pet projects.
Despite the Speaker's ruling, Government House leader Tony Valeri said the government will not resign if the opposition wins the vote because it does not consider the non-confidence motion legitimate.
He said it is merely a "procedural motion" that provides instructions to the finance committee, not the House of Commons.
"This is not a confidence motion at all," Mr. Valeri said. "What you have is the House instructing the committee to do something. The committee then needs to do it and then that needs to come back into the House ... to be debated and then voted on. By that time, we could probably be in June," he said. "That's the way we're interpreting it."
However, the Liberals may trigger their own vote before May 18 on the budget. Mr. Valeri announced yesterday he intends to return the budget bill to the Commons for debate next Tuesday. He would not say when he expects the budget vote to take place, but all signs point to a date before any vote of non-confidence can occur.
The Liberals have made clear they would prefer to be defeated on their budget -- if they have to be defeated at all -- than on a motion of non-confidence.
The atmosphere in the Commons grows uglier by the day and business in the House has almost ground to a halt with the government and the opposition at each other's throats.
Opposition House leader Jay Hill said he was not surprised by Mr. Valeri's refusal to accept the terms of their motion, but says the ultimate decision would be up to Prime Minister Paul Martin.
"Ultimately, confidence is a matter with the Prime Minister but ... we believe that confidence will be decided by the House of Commons, and if a motion passes with the majority of the members in the House of Commons ... that clearly says the government should resign. How can they debate that that's not confidence?" Mr. Hill said.
Bloc House leader Michel Gauthier was outraged by the Valeri pronouncement calling it "shameful."
"They are playing with the rules. They are clinging to power. They have no pride any more," he said.
"They are trying to modifying the meaning of the motion. I have never seen such a thing. It's pathetic. This is a government that is crawling on its knees in the gravel. This has to stop."
The opposition, however, would not rule out the possibility that it would ask Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson to intervene.
© National Post 2005
They will be in many areas...
Yes she does. The Queen can even force her to do so.
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