A traditionally tough week for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal authorities ended with a renewed push from Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre to topple this authorities – this time within the kind a letter to the Governor Normal.
In a Friday afternoon press convention, Poilievre informed reporters he was writing to Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, “asking her to reconvene Parliament and require a non-confidence vote.”
The letter itself doesn’t state that precisely – quite, it implores her to “use your authority to tell the prime minister that he should” recall the Home of Commons so a non-confidence vote might be held. It asks her to “discuss with” the prime minister, “to make sure that he understands his constitutional obligation.”
However can the Governor Normal do what the Conservative chief is asking?
“In a word – no,” Eric Adams, a constitutional knowledgeable and legislation professor on the College of Alberta, informed Ontario Chronicle.
“She has one prime minister; we wouldn’t want it otherwise,” he mentioned. “She doesn’t take advice from the opposition leader. You can send her letters, but she doesn’t take her direction from him.”
Poilievre made the case on Friday that while you add up the Conservative, Bloc and NDP MPs who are actually indicating they’ve misplaced confidence within the prime minister, plus the greater than a dozen Liberal MPs pushing for a brand new chief, it quantities to 70 per cent of parliamentarians.
However Adams says Trudeau remains to be the prime minister, and whereas it might be “almost inevitable” that he loses a confidence vote, it doesn’t matter.
“Until you lose that vote, it doesn’t matter how many people announce they’re about to vote non-confidence,” Adams mentioned. “You have confidence.”
The Official Opposition has taken the place that Simon has the proper and accountability to advise the prime minister to hunt a take a look at of confidence, primarily based on what has unfolded because the final such vote.
However Adams factors to historical past, particularly in 2008, when former prime minister Stephen Harper prorogued authorities, as the precise motive why the Governor Normal isn’t able to take motion on suggestions from the opposition chief.
“Why did he want to prorogue parliament? Well, because he was about to lose a vote of non-confidence. And the howls of opposition at that time were that, no, he had to face Parliament,” Adams mentioned, including that what unfolded Friday nothing however “drama on Parliament Hill.”
“Politicians act politically, they do that across the political spectrum,” he mentioned. “It’s going to play out according to the to the rules of the game.”
Adams says Simon is unlikely to have interaction with Poilievre, and {that a} good Governor Normal is conscious of what’s occurring politically, however can be clear on the place the traces of authority are.
“There are none that sketch their way to the leader of the opposition, or to Mr. Singh or to the leader of the Bloc. She has a prime minister. His name is Justin Trudeau. She will not be taking advice from other people.”
With recordsdata from CTV’s Rachel Aiello and Spencer Van Dyk
