OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — Liberal House leader Steven MacKinnon admitted that a Christmas election is possible in Canada as Liberals lack sufficient votes to pass their budget.
In an October 26 interview with CBC’s Rosemary Barton, MacKinnon revealed that Liberals will need the support of at least one other party to pass Prime Minister Mark Carney’s upcoming budget. If the budget is not passed, it will trigger an early election.
“As we speak right now, we don’t have the votes,” MacKinnon declared. “The opposition parties will have to determine whether the differences between us are sufficiently large to cause Canadians to go to the polls,” he continued. “We would be reluctant to go to the polls. We, in fact, think Canadians would rather the government get on with things.”
In the April election, the Liberals won 169 seats in the House of Commons, just three shy of a majority government. As a result, the party requires support from other parties in order to pass their proposed legislation.
Carney has announced that his government will unveil its budget on November 4, after which party members will debate and vote on its passage. The bill is being considered a confidence vote, meaning that if it is not passed, it will topple the Liberal government. If this were the case, Canadians could return to the polls as early as Christmas.
Carney recently warned Canadians that they should prepare to make “sacrifices” and will face “challenges” as Liberals finalize the details of the new budget. This sparked outrage across social media as Canadians questioned Carney’s priorities, especially with record numbers of visits to Canadian food banks under the Liberal government.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has indicated that his party will support the budget under certain conditions, including reducing the deficit below $42 billion and implementing tax cuts on food, energy, and fuel.
“Our No. 1 priority is people’s take-home pay has to grow, and that comes through more affordable food and homes,” Poilievre told the media last week. “The current Liberal policy is driving up the cost of living. If they sharply reverse that, then they can bring down the cost of living.”
It remains unknown if the Liberal budget will include its plan to strip pro-life charities and places of worship of their charitable status that was proposed last December under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The legislation would amend the Income Tax Act and Income Tax. Section 429 of the proposed legislation recommends the government “no longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.”
The bill, according to the finance department, would require “registered charities that provide services, advice, or information in respect of the prevention, preservation, or termination of pregnancy (i.e., destroying the unborn)” to disclose that they “do not provide specific services, including abortions or birth control.”
Similarly, Recommendation 430 aims to “amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose.”
Many Canadians, including Catholic bishops and Conservative MPs, have warned that the proposed legislation would wipe out thousands of Christian churches and charities across Canada.
