Interim NDP Leader Don Davies says his party received no offers from the Liberals in exchange for two of its MPs abstaining from voting on the federal budget, allowing it to pass with a narrow margin to avoid an election.
“We pushed the Liberals to give us some concrete results, but nothing happened. So we decided to vote ‘no’, but in order to avoid an election, we did what we had to do,” Davies told reporters on Nov. 17 following the vote.
The minority Liberal government’s budget passed in the House of Commons with a vote of 170 to 168. Since budget bills are considered matters of confidence, failing the vote could have led to the government being defeated, prompting the dissolution of Parliament and a second federal election in 2025….