A fight for and of Parliament

The Globe, Star, Canadian Press, Postmedia, CBC and Huffington Post preview this week’s budget bill battle and you can review all 871 amendments on the notice paper here.

The Liberals have called a news conference for 10am this morning to explain their strategy. We should find out around noon, with a ruling of the Speaker, how many votes C-38 will face.

I’ve seen it suggested that all of those votes, however many there are, will be considered confidence votes. As I tried to explain in the comment thread under this post, that’s not necessarily true. It is essentially up to the government to decide whether the loss of a vote means defeat. Were the opposition to successfully delete a clause or amend the budget, it would be for Stephen Harper to decide whether he wanted to ask the Governor General for an election as a result.