South Surrey-White Rock Liberal MP Gordie Hogg weighed in on Facebook during a marathon 21-hour round of voting in the House of Commons that ended Friday morning.
The all-night voting session began Thursday afternoon as the Conservatives – in a tactic following defeat of a motion to have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security advisor testify before a House committee on the Atwal incident – loaded the docket with confidence votes on the government’s interim spending estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31.
Posting that “Fridays are one of my favourite days…I normally am back in South Surrey-White Rock meeting with my constituents,” Hogg said it would be likely the voting would continue until Saturday morning, with few breaks, if all votes were taken.
“While this is not what I would want to be doing, I am always happy to serve my constituents in the House of Commons, even in difficult times,” Hogg wrote.
In a further post that included a live video stream he said he “would much rather be back home in South Surrey-White Rock, but unfortunately sometimes the opposition likes to play games.”
Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen and her caucus were insisting on line-by-line votes on the estimates, which forced Liberals to keep benches full to support all 260 spending items.
Some 100 votes remained at shortly after 7 a.m, Ottawa time, when Bergen announced that the motions would be dropped because of the “toll that around-the-clock voting has on our political and parliamentary staff.”
The Conservatives have tried several times to have national security adviser Daniel Jean appear at a House committee to answer questions relating to Trudeau’s February trip to India, tainted by the presence of attempted political murderer Jaspal Atwal at an event, at which he was photographed with Sophie Gregoire Trudeau.
The Opposition caucus is particularly interested in controversial statements made by Jean, at a background briefing to reporters, that factions in the Indian government may have tried to sabotage Trudeau’s trip.
During the marathon session, Conservative MPs took to social media to characterize the Liberals’ refusal to budge on estimate voting as a ‘cover up.’
Treasury Board president Scott Brison, in a tweet shared by Trudeau, retaliated that “the Conservatives are holding the House hostage.”