'Not a happy time': MPs to leave muggy Ottawa for summer break after rocky spring session (2024)

OTTAWA — Members of Parliament will be hitting the barbecue circuit two days early, as the House of Commons is set to rise for the summer on Wednesday for the next three months.

After a session marked by a capital gains tax hike and speculation about foreign interference, MPs are headed to their respective ridings until Sept. 16 with the Conservatives still enjoying a solid double-digit lead in the polls ahead of the Liberals.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first summery challenge will be to secure a convincing win in the Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection — a Liberal stronghold since 1993 — next Monday.

While Liberals remain confident they will keep that seat, the importance of their lead over the Conservatives could give an indication of the difficulties facing the governing party before the next election — and if there should be a new leader at its helm.

Liberals are still consistently 12 to 20 points behind the Conservatives nationally, despite a pre-budget tour focused on housing and affordability to win over younger voters and more co-ordinated efforts to attempt to bring down Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

As the session was winding down in the middle of a heat wave in Ottawa, Liberals were downplaying the national polls, instead trying to showcase their legislative accomplishments in the past session.

Government House leader Steven MacKinnon told reporters that the government managed to pass 15 bills in the House of Commons this session, including bills to implement national pharmacare, to ban replacement workers and to counter foreign interference.

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“We succeeded here despite continual partisan obstruction by the Conservatives,” he said.

Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan described the last session as “fairly productive” since some of his department’s major initiatives were passed, while Health Minister Mark Holland said he is focused on delivering services to Canadians, such as dental care.

MP Adam van Koeverden said he spent a lot of time listening to Canadians who are relieved that interest rates are coming down and sense that the economy has been improving. “Summer’s here, so things are becoming a bit better,” he said.

Other Liberals did not paint such a rosy picture of the past few months, with MP Sean Casey describing the tone in the House as “not a happy time.”

He cited the hyper-partisanship, lack of decorum and overall “lack of respect for everything” from the Conservatives as reasons why the House has become so toxic, while saying that the situation will likely be worse next session because of Poilievre.

“The electorate are not punishing him for bad behaviour, so he is emboldened as is his caucus. It’s a bad look,” he said.

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On Wednesday, Poilievre used the last question period of the session to ask Trudeau to call for an early election.

“What this session of Parliament taught us is that, after nine years of this prime minister, everything is broken,” said Poilievre, citing the cost-of-living challenges, growing demand at food banks and higher housing costs that leave many Canadians homeless.

“Will he put us through another year and a half of this costly hell, or will he call a carbon tax election today so we can elect a common sense government?”

Trudeau shot back by saying Poilievre should instead support his government’s policies such as the national school food program or expanding child care spaces.

“He doesn’t care about Canadians. He cares only about himself,” said Trudeau.

Holland criticized the Conservatives for solely focusing on elections and said that, when the rubber meets the road, Canadians will be asking the opposition for real solutions as opposed to simply sharing a list of all the problems the country is confronted to.

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“Look, a 10-year old kid can go on Google and tell you what’s wrong in the world. What are you doing to fix it? What are your solutions? They’re not offering any,” he said.

Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet used an end-of-session press conference to take repeated shots at Poilievre, who is launching a multiple-day tour of Quebec starting with a rally in Montreal on Wednesday evening.

“Polling numbers suggest that the Conservatives’ attempt to seduce Quebec is a total failure. The numbers suggest that, for the time being, we are resolutely ahead in Quebec and particularly amongst francophones,” Blanchet said.

“Anyway, the biggest number of seats we could win isn’t against the Conservatives, but against the Liberals,” he added, giving a hint as to where he would be spending some of his summer months on tour.

Casey said he was not sure what the Liberals could do to reverse their fortunes during the summer months.

“We’re doing good things; it seems as though the electorate has tuned out. I don’t know what we can do except to continue to do good things,” he said. “It’s frustrating when you’re swimming into the tide, but that’s a function of politics. That’s life.”

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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