Pierre pad says he wants to test the confidence of the house as soon as possible for a little legislative background if the government loses a vote of confidence we as Canadians likely get a snap election so how possible is it that the government would lose that vote if it happens let's bring back the front bench to talk about that s Salam Jamie alerton Carl bog and Ma Walsh MAA is coming to us from Deno where liberal MPS have been meeting for the last few days over in Montreal the NDP has been doing the same the Block in Udu uh ma how's this going over there what is your anticipation about what the Liberals intend to do this fall well I think I think the conservatives need to realize maybe that the Liberals are not they are a bit more unsettled that the NDP lost or pulled the plug on the on their deal but they're not concerned that they won't have a partner in the House of Commons the block has already made it incredibly clear that they are willing to play ball with the Liberals um on confidence matters if the block gets something in return for Quebec and that has heartened the Liberals that they will be able to make it through uh some say not just to the spring but even to next fall still so they absolutely don't want an election this fall that's clear that's been made clear to me but they also think that they will have negotiating Partners In The House of Commons still even with what Pier Paia was saying I think it makes sense say that they would they would land at that assumption the block has been pretty clear that they have lots of things that they can leverage in order to exchange for for their support and their support is more than enough yeah that's right and this is an opportunity for the block to get essentially what they want from the governing liberals by uh speaking to them about different policies that the Liberals can essentially help put forward that can benefit the province of Quebec but what's interesting about the conservative strategy right now and likely going into the spring and then eventually into the fall is that the call for a non-confidence vote is going to be consistent because IDE the conservative leader wants to start to get Canadian voters to start pressuring their MPS to ideally vote against the Liberals if a potential confidence vote was introduced so while it may seem that you know you would need not just the NDP to support a non-confidence vote but also the the the block uh the conservatives are trying to bank on the fact that there may be enough discontent amongst Canadian voters to start pressuring their local MPS to start saying that hey even though you are you may vote in favor of the liberals or you may vote against a non-confidence motion uh we need to go to an election and we know need to go to one very very soon Jamie do you think that even if that pressure was applied to the NDP there's any sort of political imperative for for them to do so or incentive well I think the what you see with the NDP right now is they are indistinguishable from Justin Trudeau's liberals and part of them pulling out of the supply and confidence agreement was to start to build some room between them in advance of the next election and so whether or not Pier POV and the conservatives get their way and asking for a carbon tax election and forcing a fall election this fall or this continues to go on it just continues to push the NDP and the Liberals together which broadly reinforces the frame that the only way to get real change in Canada for people who are going to bring affordability lower taxes Etc is to vote conservative and so whether it's voting this fall or voting next October it reinforces the political frame that I think Pierre and the conservatives have quite effectively set for for J me Singh every day he's out there banging the table saying he's different and this government's terrible and whether it's one confidence motion two confidence motion three confidence motions depending how many opposition days there are or how many how big the Omnibus budget bill for the uh fall economic statement implementation bill is no matter how many confidence votes there are if the NDP ultimately are sitting on their hands or voting in favor of the government it's just reinforcing the conservative frame that conservatives really driving with Canadians so I don't see real much downside for the cons atives and until the NDP actually comes up with an actual alternative credible Vision uh that's grounded in some semblance of economic literacy uh I don't think they're going to be able to change track I think their message so far is if I've listened carefully to Mr sing um to jug meet sing Carl is yeah the Liberals are bad but we actually think the conservatives would be worse I think that's how they're going to explain their votes and I think the other thing is it's not necessarily that they're going to get those votes that those opposition motions will be able to be turned into confidence votes immediately my understanding is the house Minister's office has the ability to push those vote I think there's five that they need to a lot they can push them this is really technical but they can push them later in the year they have to do it before the end of the year doesn't mean they have to do it right away and they actually don't even have to introduce a fall economic statement if they really didn't want to vote like that that that's right and and frankly uh all these things are tactics that will play out in the next few weeks and you you know we'll be back again to talk about them but the key thing for the conservatives is that if they're serious about Bringing Down the government uh they won't frame it the way Jamie just did about the carbon tax election right it will be a simple very uh very simple non-confidence motion that this house has lost confidence in the government period if you attach all kinds of policies and rhetoric around it you give an out to both the NP and the blocka now staying on tactics the beauty for the NDP is that the BL cuqua will always vote before them so they will always know if the government is surviving or not that gives them some freedom to to vote one way or the other depending on what's Happening just before them so it will be interesting to see that play out the block is in the driver's seat right now in terms of the balance of power what does that mean do you think well it's a big deal a separatist party is essentially holding the balance of power yeah they they hold the balance of power and they are not afraid to go in an election it means that if they are to make some gains for Quebec the government's not going to have to deliver some things like it's not going to be just pro forma uh the block is going to use this very carefully they not going to roll over because they don't mind going to the polls right now but if you can show quebeckers that they can make some gains on the problem that we have between kuc City and alwa right now they'll come out as a winner so so they're on top right now they're quite comfortable with their situation ma last word to you on that how do liberals feel about bargaining with the block I mean to be fair it's something Harper did to stay in power too so it's not unheard of but boy oh boy like you know Dan dancing with a partner who doesn't even want to be part of the country like I guess that's where we're at I think that's where we're at that's where all minority governments are at that's where this government was at between 20 19 and 2022 before they had this deal with the NDP I do have to push back against Jamie a little bit the conservatives want an election ASAP as soon as possible because they know things are very good for them in the pools they don't know what it will look like in the spring so they do want this they also have their own interest in wanting it and the NDP don't need to vote with the government if the block are so the NDP might have more flexibility um than the block are painting it whether the NDP can articulate that and make that point to Canadians I think is very interesting in the Winnipeg byelection right now those signs tying Trudeau to Singh are part of the conservative campaign on the ground