Ahead of the vote, the governing Liberal Party drew a line in the sand, saying the Conservative Party motion amounts to a vote of non-confidence in the minority government, which according to Canadian parliamentary procedure is grounds for calling an election.
The Conservative Party proposal to create an anti-corruption committee was defeated in a 180-146 vote.
The vote saw Bloc Quebecois side with the Conservatives, while the New Democrats, Greens and two independent parliamentarians – both former Liberals – sided with Trudeau’s Liberal government.
The threat of a snap election - the second in the span of a month - came amid Liberal Party filibusters in the finance and ethics committees, where opposition parliamentarians are seeking access to unredacted documents related to the doomed Canadian Student Service Grant. The Conservative Party has slammed the filibuster and the decision to suspend parliament and committees in August as an attempted cover up of wrongdoing on the part of Trudeau.
Trudeau has incurred intense backlash after multiple investigative journalism pieces revealed close ties between his family and government and the WE Charity, which was awarded a $670-million sole-source contract to administer a government-sponsored student volunteer program.
Trudeau is the subject of a conflict of interest probe by the Canada’s Ethics Commissioner into his relationship with the embattled charity. The ethics probe is the third for the Prime Minister during his five years in office.
