OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is offering to give up time on an opposition day in the House of Commons to allow Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to present the government’s fall fiscal update.
Poilievre says he will allow Freeland two hours to present the fall economic statement on Monday — a day allocated for Conservatives to present their own motions in Parliament.
The Conservative leader says he’ll give up that time so the government can tell Canadians whether it kept a promise to cap the federal deficit at $40 billion.
The parliamentary budget officer is projecting the government will exceed its own fiscal guardrail with a deficit of $46.8 billion for the previous fiscal year.
“Not only will we co-operate to let her introduce that fall update, we will actually give her a Christmas gift: We’ll give her two hours out of our Conservative opposition motion day on Monday for her to stand on her feet and tell us how much she’s lost control of the nation’s finances,” Poilievre told reporters Wednesday morning.
A senior government official says delivering a fall economic statement less than 48 hours before a Bank of Canada interest rate announcement would be “irresponsible and not a serious suggestion.”
Freeland has not yet announced a date for the fiscal update, telling reporters on Tuesday that the filibuster in Parliament is standing in the way of the government’s work.
The Liberal government has not said whether it will meet its own pledge on the deficit.
The House of Commons has been in gridlock for weeks as opposition parties demand the government hand over unredacted documents related to misspending at a green technology fund to the RCMP.
Government House leader Karina Gould reacted to Poilievre’s offer by calling on the Conservatives to end the filibuster.
“We should end the filibuster,” Gould said. “It’s enough, right? There’s important work that we need to get done.”
The filibuster will be placed on pause Thursday after Speaker Greg Fergus cleared the way for the four remaining opposition days to take place over the next two weeks.
Three of those opposition days are allocated to the Conservatives, and one to the NDP. The Conservatives were assigned Dec. 5, Dec. 9 and Dec. 10 and the NDP were assigned Dec. 6.
The Conservatives are expected to use their first of their three to introduce another non-confidence motion quoting NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s own explanation in why he pulled his party out of its agreement with the Liberals to prop up the minority government.
