No election for now, the budget passes...

It really would have been a Christmas election.

When I saw Elizabeth May stand up and ask Mark Carney what looks like a completely planted question, I assumed the budget would pass and I was correct. Planted questions normally come from government MPs and are a soft way for the government to push their agenda.

This time, it wasn’t a Liberal MP, well at least not a Liberal MP in name and fact. Instead it was Green leader, or deputy leader, or let’s be honest the lonely lady in the corner who is the only Green MP asking the question.

That statement put the Liberals one vote closer to passing their budget and of course May later confirmed ahead of the vote that she would back the budget. This was after saying couldn’t back the budget, might back the budget, would probably back the budget, definitely wouldn’t back the budget and finally would back the budget.

How anyone can take Elizabeth May seriously is beyond me.

How the other votes went…

Ahead of the vote there were lots of questions about how things would go. Would all MPs show up or be able to vote online? Would people abstain? Would MPs vote for the budget without crossing the floor?

In the end, the budget passed 170 to 168 with two NDPers abstaining. That leaves five votes not accounted for and we will figure out.

Here is how the vote went.

Now, some members who were not in their seats did vote electronically. I didn’t see Matt Jeneroux vote electronically and I’m told that he is in British Columbia with is family. Also not voting, Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs.

Conservatives Andrew Scheer and Scott Reid both voted no but only in the time that is allowed for MPs voted electronically to claim tech problems. They were both in the House, so why were didn’t they vote in person?

Regardless, the NDP rushed out to say they voted against the budget but also made sure that it passed with their two abstensions.

As for all this talk of a Christmas election, had the government lost this vote and the PM gone to see the Governor General tomorrow, the earliest election date would have been December 25.

A Christmas election.

Where does Pierre Poilievre go from here…

On Friday I had a chance to sit down with Ian Brodie to talk about what Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre should do next. Brodie should know, he was Stephen Harper’s Chief of Staff from the opposition days through the first few years of governing.

Ian is one of those rare academics, one of the few political scientists who has practical experience in actual politics.

He believes that Pierre Poilievre can still turn things around and become a winner, if he does the right things.

There is a story from RDI saying that there are a number of MPs upset with Poilievre. Like I reported last week, and RDI also reports, it’s not like it’s just dissatisfaction from one faction or another, as in not just Red Tories, it’s that they didn’t win and they want to find a way to win again.

“They need to find a way to win men over 55 and they could even win women over 55,” said one long time campaigner.

Will they be able to do that?

They need to be able to pull over enough of those voters if they want to win power. If they can’t, or they can’t turn out younger voters in huge numbers, they won’t win.

That is unless things change once again.

Voters are fickle.

Polls can change.

Campaigns matter.

Let’s stop with city hall flag raisings…

This isn’t a call for a ban, just for sanity. We should stop with the raising of foreign flags at city halls across the country.

When this idea started, it was likely viewed as a lovely way to embrace diversity. It’s not that anymore and I don’t think it will be anytime soon.

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas has put forward a proposal to stop the practice of raising the flag of foreign countries. It’s a good idea in my view given the way that these battles have gone.

As I state in my Toronto Sun column, this isn’t just about recognizing a Palestinian State or the war in the Middle East, there are other issues. Do you realize that we are raising the flags of horrible regimes that are serial human rights abusers?

This past May 23, Calgary raised the flag of Eritrea, a country accused of widespread human rights abuses including extrajudicial killings and sexual violations, specifically in the Tigray region which is disputed with Ethiopia. Toronto raised Ethiopia’s flag on Sept. 11, despite their government facing many of the same accusations.

Both countries criminalize same-sex relations and yet here are two Canadian cities — likely more — celebrating and honouring these countries. Raising the flag that represents the regime in place does not honour the people, the diaspora living here, it is an honour to the repressive regime in place.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

There are worse regimes being honoured and the way that most city policies are written, my understanding is that if someone asked for North Korea or the Islamic Republic of Iran flag to be flown, most countries would say yes because Canada recognizes both of them as countries.

Once that happens, there is no way in most city flag policies to say no, that country is repressive or a human rights abuser.