Carney’s budget needs 2 votes. Will this funding targeting opposition ridings get him there?

Prime Minister Mark Carney insists the federal budget was crafted to contain a number of measures championed by MPs from other parties, and that those olive branches will become apparent in the coming days.

With one MP already crossing the floor to join the Liberals, Carney now needs only two more votes, or abstentions, to pass his budget.

The unanswered question is whether any of those measures will convince enough opposition MPs that letting the budget pass is in their interests.

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Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont resigns from Conservative caucus to join the Liberals

Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont resigned from the Conservative caucus Tuesday — and he’s joining the Liberals.

In a statement disseminated by the Liberal Party, d’Entremont said he decided to leave the Conservatives after “serious consideration and thoughtful conversations with constituents.”

“I came to a clear conclusion: there is a better path forward for our country — and a better path forward for Acadie-Annapolis,” he said.

h/t angry_old_man_2

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Poilievre Says Tories Willing to Work With Liberals on ‘Affordable’ Budget as Deadline Nears

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said days before the release of the federal budget that he’s willing to work with the Liberals to draft an “affordable” budget that his party could support.

“I’m willing to work all through the night—tonight and tomorrow—to come up with an affordable budget that will make an affordable life for Canadians. But we will not vote to raise grocery prices and increase housing costs as the Liberals have done over the last decade,” Poilievre told reporters during a Nov. 2 press conference in Ottawa.

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Ford says he has ‘different recollection’ of talk with Carney about anti-tariff ad

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he has a different recollection of his conversation with Prime Minister Mark Carney, who said he advised the Premier not to run an anti-tariff advertisement that angered U.S. President Donald Trump.

Mr. Ford also said the Prime Minister called him from his recent trip to Asia asking him to pull the ad, which featured a pro-free trade address from former president Ronald Reagan, but the Premier did not do so until days later.

The Premier added he would “never apologize” to Mr. Trump, as Mr. Carney did during his recent trip to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea.

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NDP says abstention is an option on budget vote

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.

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Ahead of budget, Canadians want cost of living help, not deficits: poll

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.

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Pierre Poilievre won’t say if his Conservatives will strike down upcoming federal budget

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.”

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HORTON: Possible Christmas election — Will a Liberal ‘austerity’ budget trigger a snap election?

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.

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Canadians would rather get budget bad news from Mark Carney than Pierre Poilievre, poll suggests

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.

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‘They deserve a bright future,’ Poilievre says of young Canadians in rebuttal to Carney’s pre-budget speech

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.

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Conservative, NDP caucuses weighing a budget vote that could trigger an election: sources

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.

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Conservatives say Liberal government wants to trigger an election with its budget

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.

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‘God no’: Liberal MPs say Canadians don’t want an election as parties point fingers over budget vote

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.

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Opposition parties can’t afford to call Liberals’ bluff on budget vote, say pollsters

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.

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