Ottawa — With the help of the NDP, Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government survived the end of three confidence votes on its huge budget.
The House of Commons approved the government’s general budget policy on Monday with a vote of 178-157.
The Liberal Party has joined the New Democrats in voting for the budget, following NDP leader Jugmate Singh’s pledge not to trigger elections in the midst of the deadly third wave of COVID-19.
Conservative Bloc Québécois and Green voted against the budget.
Voting for a budget is considered a matter of trust. Had all the opposition voted against it, the government would have collapsed and pushed the country into elections.
Last week, the government survived two other confidence votes on the budget on conservative and Bloc Québécois amendments to the budget movement.
The budget introduced last week promises over $ 100 billion in new spending to stimulate economic recovery, in addition to the unprecedented pandemic deficit of $ 354 billion in fiscal year 2020-21.
The government will eventually have to submit a budget enforcement bill, which will also be a matter of trust.
Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau argued that large budgets were not the starting point for elections. He does not intend to rule out this year’s elections, he said, leading a minority government, “it’s up to Congress to decide when the elections will be.”
It sounded like Trudeau wasn’t going to pull a plug into his own government, but it didn’t rule out the possibility that the Liberal Party would try to adjust their defeat in the hands of the opposition. Nor did Trudeau rule out the possibility that at some point a dysfunctional minority parliament could claim that he was demanding a majority mandate.
Some liberal insiders believe that Trudeau could unplug this summer as long as the pandemic is relatively suppressed and the vaccine is well deployed.