Canada’s main opposition party vowed on Tuesday to try to topple Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority government at the first opportunity, which could force a fourth election in the last five years and the second in just a year.
Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff’s announcement means the Conservative government could be toppled in a confidence vote if Canada’s two other opposition parties also vote to bring down the government.
“Mr Harper, your time is up. The Liberal party cannot support this government any further,” Ignatieff said. “We will hold Stephen Harper to account and we will oppose his government in parliament.”
Harper now needs support from at least one of three opposition parties to stay in power. The Bloc Quebecois and New Democrats would have to do an about-face to back Harper.
The Liberals will have their first opportunity to present a motion of non-confidence in the first week of next month. At an election-style pep rally, Ignatieff said the party would push for a vote at the first opportunity.
Ignatieff has been the party’s leader since December and doesn’t want to be seen as propping up the government, as former leader Stephane Dion did dozens of times before losing the election last October.
Harper’s Conservative Party was re-elected last fall with a strengthened minority government, but still must rely on the opposition to pass legislation and to stay in power.
The three opposition parties hold the majority of the seats in parliament with 162, while the Conservatives have 143 and there is one independent.
New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton met Harper last month and reiterated that it would be the least likely party to prop up the Conservatives.
But New Democratic deputy leader Thomas Mulcair immediately offered an olive branch to Harper on Tuesday.
“What I’m saying is: The last thing Canadians want is a fourth general election in five years, and we’d better have a bloody good reason for forcing a fourth general election in five years,” Mulcair said. “So if Mr Harper goes about being provocative as he has been in the past, going after key things that Canadians hold dearly — like women’s rights and the environment — then we’ll throw him out of office because he’ll have provoked it.”
“If, on the other hand, Stephen Harper comes into parliament with a willingness to work in the public interest, then we’re going to take it on a case-by-case basis. Our caucus will decide,” he said.
The Bloc hasn’t backed Harper’s government in recent years and was expected to comment yesterday.
Harper said now is not the time for another election.
“We had an election in this country less than a year ago. I haven’t met a single Canadian who is saying they want to see another election right now,” Harper said. “I think Canadians have been pretty clear.”
“They want parliament to focus on the economy. That is what the government will be doing in the fall session. It’s certainly our view ... that going through more political games, more political instability does not serve the country’s interest right now.”
Conservative Transport Minister John Baird accused Ignatieff of putting his own interests ahead of the public’s. Baird also cast doubt that the Conservatives could work with the New Democrats, a union-backed party with socialist roots.
Ignatieff criticized Harper for the nation’s high unemployment and rising budget deficit.
He said his goal was to make Canada “the smartest, healthiest, greenest, most open-minded country there is” by 2017 — the 150th anniversary of Confederation.
Ignatieff, 62, left a prestigious post in 2005 as director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard to enter Canadian politics.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS