Parliament on road to unprecedented confidence crisis

LAURA OSMAN

OTTAWA — If no political party is willing to say uncle, the drawn-out stalemate in the House of Commons is heading for an unprecedented situation that could amount to a tacit lack of confidence in the government, without anyone in Parliament casting a vote.

The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois have already announced plans to try to bring down the government and trigger an election with a non-confidence motion at the next opportunity. But there’s no telling when that opportunity will come, because the House has been gridlocked in a filibuster for more than a month.

That may seem like good news for the embattled Liberal minority government, despite the total lack of progress on legislation, but the standoff is inching Parliament ever closer to a procedural cliff that would prevent the Liberals from raising the funds they need to run the government.

“That would be unprecedented. I don’t know what exactly would happen,” said constitutional lawyer Lyle Skinner, who works as director of parliamentary affairs for Sen. Jim Quinn.

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