The Conservative and NDP caucuses are grappling with what to do about the upcoming federal budget and whether they want to be part of an effort to trigger an election by voting it down, multiple sources told CBC News.

Senior Conservative sources say the party’s leadership does not want an election right now, but they are also opposed to voting for the new Liberal government’s first budget given the potential reputational risk of backing Prime Minister Mark Carney and an agenda they simply don’t support.

A Conservative source says speculation about the Liberals potentially losing the budget vote is “not contrived” as, at this time, there are not enough votes for it to pass in the House after it is tabled on Tuesday.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    14·
    2 days ago

    One senior NDP source and two Conservative sources say the path believed to be most likely is that some of the NDP’s seven MPs could abstain from voting, allowing the budget to pass.

    That’s the meat of the article.

    The Conservatives aren’t in a great place in the polls (compared to last fall) - and they could suffer blowback by triggering an election.

    I’m guessing they’ll complain about the carbon tax (stupidly) and cost of living issues (rightly) and then orchestrate enough abstentions that the government doesn’t fall.