Posted on 05/30/2005 9:43:41 AM PDT by Squawk 8888
OTTAWA (CP) - The House of Commons is heading back to work after a week off, with the Conservatives holding what they say is a "loaded gun" to the head of the governing Liberals and threatening another non-confidence vote as soon as Tuesday.
Jay Hill, the Tory House leader, said Sunday his party hasn't settled yet on its final strategy. But he pointedly refused to rule out a new confidence test, despite the fact that Prime Minister Paul Martin survived one just 10 days ago.
"As long as we have this loaded gun sitting there, they're going to have to take it seriously," Hill said in an interview.
"The minute I say to you, or to anybody, 'We're definitely not going to even try a non-confidence motion,' then they're not going to take Parliament seriously at all."
Tuesday will be an opposition day in the Commons in which the Conservatives get to select the topic for debate.
They have two motions that they could choose from, including one sponsored by backbencher Gary Lunn that would demand a wider mandate for the Gomery inquiry into the federal sponsorship scandal.
While potentially embarrassing for the Liberals, that motion could not bring Martin's government down or force an election. In fact, it would not even be binding on the government if it passed.
The other alternative is a motion quietly placed on the Commons order paper by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper in mid-May, asking the House to declare that it has lost confidence in the government.
Since then the Liberals have won a confidence test over legislation aimed at implementing Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's budget - with the help of two Independent MPs who sided with the Grits and Speaker Peter Milliken, who cast an unprecedented tie-breaking vote on May 19.
Hill had told reporters in advance of the budget showdown that if the government survived that test, the Tories probably wouldn't try again to bring Martin down before the current session ends on June 23.
On Sunday, however, he insisted that neither he nor Harper had ever made any promises.
"The key word there is 'probably,' " said Hill.
"We have no intention of giving these guys a free ride until September. If we changed that 'probably' to 'definitely' then they're going to do whatever the hell they want between now and the House rising (for the summer)."
Hill said the Conservatives would hold a strategy session Monday to decide which motion to go with on their opposition day. But they may not make the choice public until Tuesday morning.
Even if the Liberals avoid an immediate confrontation, the Goodale budget is not home free.
The last vote on May 19 sent two key money bills to the Commons finance committee for further study. But with the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois holding a majority on the committee, there's no guarantee the bills will look the same when they come out as they did when they went in.
Nor is it certain they will be back to the full House for approval before the three-month summer break.
"These are complex pieces of legislation that are going to take some time," Tory MP Loyola Hearn said Sunday. "We're not going to rush them just so the government can look good."
Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe signalled that he's in no hurry either.
"We'll take all the time we need," Duceppe said in a television interview. "We want to debate all the points we'll bring forward."
The Bloc is scheduled to choose the topic for another opposition day later this week. But Duceppe said his party doesn't plan to use that debate as a vehicle to try to bring down the government.
Should the Conservatives also choose to back away from a confidence test, the House business on Tuesday will centre on the motion by Lunn which calls on the government to widen the powers of Justice John Gomery, the head of the sponsorship inquiry.
Lunn wants the judge to be able to "name names and assign responsibility" when he reports this fall.
The Liberals say Gomery already has all the power he needs, under the federal Inquiries Act, to make findings of mismanagement or misconduct and name those responsible.
He is barred, however, from recommending criminal charges or civil action against anyone - a standard provision for most such inquiries that was intended, in Gomery's case, to avoid conflict with ongoing police investigations.
Geoff Norquay, a spokesman for Harper, says the effect is to tie the judge's hands.
"The point of the motion (by Lunn) is to point out to the Canadian people that they may, after all of this nonsense, not get to the bottom of what the sponsorship scandal was all about," said Norquay.
There's also a political point to the motion - to try to drive a wedge between the Liberals and the NDP, who have been backing the government on the budget front.
"We think it's important that the NDP be held accountable for propping up what is increasingly seen as a corrupt government," said Norquay.
(((.)))
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I know. What I'm waiting to see is the vote on their motion about Gomery- the mandate as it stands now prohibits him from finding fault or naming perpetrators in his report (the reason the Libs don't mind going to the polls after the release), but today's motion would remove that restriction and allow Gomery to finger the cabinet members on the take. Look for the Libs to call a snap election if it goes through, because they don't want that information made public before the next election.
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