Liberals To Table Motion Monday To Topple Government; Vote Could Be Thursday

The Liberals will table a non-confidence motion in the Commons today and they expect a vote on Thursday that is increasingly looking like it will fail to bring down the minority government.

“The leader is now working on the details for a non-confidence motion, which we expect will be tabled in the House of Commons . . . today to give the House of Commons sufficient notice and will be dealt with on Thursday,” Liberal David McGuinty said at the end of a party caucus meeting.

It will require support of all three opposition parties to defeat the government and force a fall election.

The Bloc has said it will support such a motion.

NDP Leader Jack Layton hasn’t yet committed himself after his party voted with the government earlier this month to avert an election call, but his deputy leader gave strong indication the New Democrats will continue to vote with the government.

Thomas Mulcair said today “the important thing is to try to keep Parliament working so that we can do things that are in the public interest.”

“On issues such as Employment Insurance, such as better protection for pensions – just to name a couple of them – there are things where we can work together before foisting on Canadians a fourth general election in five years,” Mulcair said.

“The party that will provoke the fourth general election in five years is going to have a lot of explaining to do with the public,” he said.

“So right now in the NDP we’d much rather see a billion dollars flowing to the pockets of 190,000 Canadian families that need the extra five months of Employment Insurance rather than taking $350 million out of those very pockets and spending it on an election that probably won’t change anything and that I know no one wants.”

McGuinty said the Liberals have no faith in the Tory government’s ability to shepherd the economy out of recession.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to release his government’s latest economic report card in Saint John, N.B., later today, but the Liberals say they expect it will give them more ammunition to aim at the Conservatives.

“We are anxious to see the report, because we are convinced it will give us even more evidence that the government is incompetent in terms of its way of dealing with the economy,” McGuinty said.

The government got its economic stimulus plan approved in the spring by promising a series of updates. Each of those report cards, however, can be a trigger for a non-confidence vote to defeat the Tory minority.

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