“Canadian Politics”

The NDP is not ruling out the possibility that some or all of its seven MPs could abstain when the minority Liberal government’s budget is put to a vote in the House of Commons.

The government has warned of the possibility of a snap election unless at least one other party steps forward to allow approval of the budget, which will be tabled Tuesday.

NDP Interim Leader Don Davies said it’s possible that some NDP MPs will opt to vote neither for nor against the budget.

As the federal government prepares to release a budget expected to see major new investments and spending along with a higher deficit, Canadians say they’re most concerned about measures to reduce their cost of living, according to a new poll.

The Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found 42 per cent of respondents want the budget, set to be tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, to prioritize helping with the increasing cost of everyday expenses.

We can reliably count on the latter not the former.

With just days to go until the Liberal government introduces its much-anticipated federal budget, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre won’t say whether his party will strike down the legislation — instead insisting he needs to read the document before deciding.

“I don’t have telepathic powers to tell you what’s in it,” Poilievre said in an interview on Rosemary Barton Live airing Sunday morning. “If it were to bring down the cost of living — an affordable budget for an affordable living is something that I support.”

According to Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer, the Conservatives believe the Liberals are preparing to table a budget that will almost certainly be voted down. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is set to unveil the Liberals’ first official budget next week, and early rumours — particularly through Liberal-friendly media outlets like CBC — suggest that it will feature targeted investments for Canadian workers impacted by ongoing US–Canada trade disputes. An area where Carney has been “elbows down,” demonstrating immense difficulty securing trade terms favourable to Canada. The budget is also alleged to focus on housing and the military.

If Canadians have to swallow some unpleasant budget medicine next week, most Canadians would rather see Mark Carney, not Pierre Poilievre, holding the spoon, new polling from Abacus Data is showing.

But the same polling also shows that both leaders should be careful about tipping the country into an election with that budget. The Liberal prime minister is still more popular than the Conservative leader, but their parties are tied in the polls and there’s no guarantee that Donald Trump would move votes as he did in the spring election.

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the sacrifices made by the current generation have not been seen since the Second World War, in a speech on Thursday evening, made in rebuttal to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s upcoming budget.

Poilievre addressed a room of young conservatives and other supporters gathered in Toronto. The event was organized in response to Carney’s speech last week where he cautioned Canadians that they should prepare for “sacrifices” as his government put the finishing touches on a budget that attempts to both respond to the ongoing Canada-U.S. trade war and rein in government spending.

The Conservative and NDP caucuses are grappling with what to do about the upcoming federal budget and whether they want to be part of an effort to trigger an election by voting it down, multiple sources told CBC News.

Senior Conservative sources say the party’s leadership does not want an election right now, but they are also opposed to voting for the new Liberal government’s first budget given the potential reputational risk of backing Prime Minister Mark Carney and an agenda they simply don’t support.

Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer said Wednesday that his party thinks the government is trying to force another election by preparing a budget that the Opposition won’t support.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is due to table this government’s first budget next week and it’s expected to include major investments in the military, housing and support for workers and businesses affected by the U.S. trade war, but also some sizable cuts to other spending.

OTTAWA — Liberal members of Parliament lined up Wednesday to say Canadians are in no mood to go to the polls for a second time this year, as the government warns it lacks the votes needed to pass

The spectre of a possible Christmas-time election has been raised as Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon accuses opposition parties of presenting demands that he says are unserious and signalling that the minority Liberals should not count on their support.

Whether or not the Liberals are bluffing when expressing doubts that next week’s federal budget will pass, no opposition party can risk trying to bring down the government, according to pollsters. But to maintain power, the Grits need to convince voters they’ve done everything to ensure the budget succeeds.

“If the Liberals are confident that walking away from the table will get them a better deal on the other end, and more power [in Parliament], then they’re going to do that,” said Abacus Data CEO David Coletto, adding that the party itself stands to gain the most from an election.

OTTAWA — With one week to go before Mark Carney’s government tables its first budget with no clear partner in sight, the Liberals and opposition parties are pointing fingers at each other in an attempt to shift the blame in case of a snap election.

The minority Liberals have 169 seats — just three seats shy of a majority — which means that they need to find at least three MPs from the opposition benches to either support their budget or abstain to ensure that they survive the confidence vote on the budget.