Justin Trudeau election

Justin Trudeau: “WE don’t want an election right now.”

The Liberals are so confident in their popularity that they’re resisting a corruption inquiry by threatening to trigger an election.

In a press conference this morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to a question about the chess game happening between the Liberals and the Conservatives right now, one that might result in a federal election.

The Liberals have made efforts to keep Canadians focused on battling the COVID-19 pandemic (and the government’s generous financial aid), and off the WE Charity scandal — by proroguing Parliament, most notably — while the Conservatives have pushed for an anti-corruption inquiry to examine the proposed contract that would’ve gone to an organization that paid Trudeau family members significant amounts of money for speaking engagements. The WE Charity scandal continues to be relatively unpopular with Canadians — a recent poll suggests that the Liberals would still win a federal election fairly easily, which is likely why the Trudeau government announced today that the motion to create an anti-corruption inquiry is a sign of non-confidence in the government, meaning its implementation would effectively trigger an election.

“We don’t want an election right now,” Trudeau said. “Yesterday there were 2,400 new cases of COVID-19. Our government is going to remain focused on helping Canadians fight this pandemic and fight this economic crisis as we’ve done from the beginning. We’re going to do everything we can to help Canadians through this. We’ve proposed a special committee, an extraordinary measure, so that all parliamentarians can dig into all the spending this government has put forward in exceptional circumstances to help Canadians through this COVID crisis. The Conservatives put forward a motion but clearly outlines their lack of confidence in the government. The opposition is going to have to decide whether they want to make this minority Parliament work, or whether they have lost confidence in the government.”


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