The short answer to the question posed in this blog post title is: Yes.
And it's not just an academic question. When Parliament resumes on March 3, there are going to be several confidence votes right out of the gate. First, the Speech from the Throne will be delivered on March 3 and the budget will be delivered on March 4. Votes on the budget are automaticlly votes of confidence. I'm sure I need remind no readers of this blog that a government that loses a vote of confidence in the House of Commons must, in almost all circumstances, ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and call a general election. There will be several votes stemming from the throne speech that are, by tradition but not automatically, votes of confidence. And then there may be votes of confidence over motions the House has already passed requiring the government to produce documents connected to an investigation into the treatment of prisoners captured by Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
Until last fall, NDP MPs could be counted on to enthusiastically vote against the government on any confidence vote, eager for a general election.
But now, their leader, Jack Layton, has prostate cancer and is undergoing treatment for the disease. Neither he nor aides are disclosing details of the treatment but most cancer survivors will say that, whether its surgery or drug therapies, beating cancer can leave one feeling weak and in need of time for rest and recovery.
Today, in a scrum following a meeting Layton had with Prime Minister Stephen Harper about the budget, I asked Layton if the battle he's fighting will weaken his or his party's resolve to vote down the government, if necessary, in a confidence vote. His answer:
“No. It will make no difference to the enthusiasm with which our party carries forward our mission which is to change the old politics that we've seen for so many years and try and establish a new direction for the country.”
Hopefully both the NDP and Liberals will avoid falling into the trap of the Government's position that the only thing Parliament can do over the Detainee documents is a vote of non-confidence or a civil suit. Neither of these options will address the most important question of our time which is; Is Parliament a Real Check and Balance on an increasingly Imperial PMO ? Clearly elections in Canada are increasingly in the pocket of the professional PR class, and less and less actual public getting to know their representatives in the flesh. So the often arcane traditions are having to be found out again out of the bowels of English history. Hopefully the parties will not shy away from the difficult task of threatening censure and, if need be, following through with consequences. Anything less and we might as well allow the PM to appoint both houses and save all the money spent on elections. And it is time that we all learn again that Parliament combined is historically a Court, duly appointed, and empowered, with powers of enforcement, limited only by our constitution, bills of rights and traditions. I do not believe that when Our House of Commons concluded in recent years to forbid bills of pains and attainder that they threw away all the power of English Democracy that thousands died for so that we might be free.