Conservative MP Gary Vidal isn't impressed with the NDP's support. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

Federal Politics

Vidal reacts to NDP support of Liberal throne speech

Oct 7, 2020 | 5:00 PM

Conservative MP Gary Vidal is critical of the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) support of the Liberal government’s throne speech this week, which allowed the party to avoid a confidence vote in the House of Commons.

The speech from the throne passed through the House with a 177 to 152 vote as the NDP successfully convinced the Liberals to make some key changes to legislation. That includes the introduction of 10 days of paid sick leave for Canadians who need to stay off work due to COVID-19, as well as extending benefits to those left jobless or underemployed because of the pandemic.

“It doesn’t surprise us after what’s gone on during the last few months,” Vidal said. “The NDP had originally supported the Liberals in shutting down Parliament in the first place and now they are supporting them again in the thrown speech to keep them in power.”

It was also recently announced the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) will be coming to an end in favour of several new or amended emergency benefit programs. In all, more than 8.5 million Canadians have applied for CERB and it will end Oct. 3 or after an applicant has received 28 weeks of benefits.

When it comes to changes to CERB, Vidal explained they will to some degree have more safeguards in place to prevent abuses to the program.

Riderville

Now for the Hard Part

Dec 10, 2025

Grey Cup!!!

Everything you wanted and more

Nov 21, 2025

Ferland earns Grey Cup ring

'A wonderful human being': High school coach thrilled Logan Ferland is a Grey Cup champion

Nov 17, 2025

“One of the concerns I consistently heard from people is that, although CERB was necessary to help a lot of people in their time of need, it went way beyond that to where it was allowed to be abuse in ways where we just keep hearing story after story about how that happened,” he said.

Vidal also wasn’t impressed with the NDP siding with the Liberals to shut down further investigation of the WE Charity scandal. Liberal and NDP MPs on the Procedure and House Affairs Committee voted to end further study.

“If you kind of followed through when they prorogued Parliament was the day before about 5,000 pages of documents were supposed to be released to some of the committees doing an investigation,” Vidal said. “The whole prorogation of Parliament was really not about resetting the agenda, it was about stopping the work the committees were doing into the Prime Minister’s scandal.”

In regards to an approaching government-imposed March 2021 deadline to end long-term drinking water advisories on First Nations, Vidal isn’t confident the Liberals will reach that goal. There was no mention of it in the throne speech and Vidal doesn’t understand why the NDP didn’t ensure it was through the influence they had over the Liberals.

“The New Democrats tend to stand up and speak very loudly on behalf of Indigenous Peoples in our country and they do that consistently, but when it came time to negotiate an agreement with the Liberals to keep Parliament functioning, there’s nothing in the media or public that I’m aware of where they actually backed up some of their talk and support for Indigenous Peoples,” he said.

–

derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno