The Bloc Québécois is warning that the Liberal government is “seriously in danger to fall” as it begins talks with other opposition parties eyeing a topple after its demands were not met by deadline.
The Bloc Québécois had given the Liberals a Tuesday deadline to greenlight two key bills to avoid an attempt to trigger an election “before Christmas.”
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday, Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet said the Liberals have not met their demands of raising the old age security payments for seniors and safeguarding supply management in trade negotiations that were made five weeks ago.
“They had until Oct. 29, which is today, to deliver that, which they did not do,” he said in English.
Blanchet did not rule out looking into any future action taken by the Liberal government pertaining to their demands.
“We want precisely what is in Bill C-319 and in Bill C-282 to bring that to us and we’ll discuss it, but in the meantime, they are seriously in danger to fall.”
Meanwhile, the Liberal government is not planning to act imminently on the Bloc Québécois’s demands, one cabinet minister suggests.
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Liberals have said the party remains open to negotiations but one minister on Tuesday suggested little movement for the deadline itself.
“We have a minority situation, so we’re going to talk with all parties about all things,” Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault told reporters before a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“But the Bloc deadline, there’s nothing precipitous that I can see happening today.”
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said that the Liberal government has a “good relationship” with the Bloc Québécois and the “lines of communication are open.”
“There are a lot of things that we agree on, and we think that it’s important to continue to have an open door and continue to have an opportunity to talk,” Freeland told reporters during her weekly economic update on Tuesday.
Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the government doesn’t want to be limited by “an artificial deadline.”
“We don’t see why we should stop working together for Quebecers and other Canadians just because we have passed that artificial deadline,” he said at that same news conference.
Following Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Labour Minister Steve MacKinnon said the Bloc picked the Oct. 29 deadline at “their sole discretion” and it did not seem to line with up with the government’s timelines.
However, he added that the “Bloc will always be a party that we will dialogue with.”
One of the Bloc bills aimed at safeguarding supply management in trade negotiations has the support of the government and is being studied by the Senate.
The other, which would raise old age security payments for seniors under 75, is one the Liberals say they do not support.
The Bloc demands came weeks after NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced his party had ended the supply-and-confidence deal that gave the government support for more than two years.
Blanchet said going forward the party will consider each confidence vote against the Liberal government on a case-by-case basis.
“The most simple way to do it is a motion that says that the Chamber of the Parliament removes its support, its confidence in this government and that’s the end to it,” he said.
So far during this fall sitting of Parliament, the Liberals have survived two non-confidence votes put forward by the Conservatives, with the Bloc and NDP voting against toppling the government.
“I will say that the Conservatives have been useless for nine years and that the Liberals might become useless soon,” Blanchet said.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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