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Why the Tory filibuster matters

If Canada's members of Parliament seem a little groggy, it is because they have been up all night voting on the federal budget line by line while the Conservatives hold a filibuster.

The noise in the House of Commons was so loud, at times Finance Minister Bill Morneau could not be heard above the din.

The vote started at 5 p.m. Wednesday after the Liberals used their majority to defeat a Conservative motion calling on the Prime Minister to allow Jody Wilson-Raybould to testify again on the SNC Lavalin scandal.

At risk is the survival of the Trudeau government.

Essex NDP candidate Tracey Ramsey speaks to the media out front of the University of Windsors Centre For Engineering and Innovation, September 9, 2015. (Photo by Mike Vlasveld) Essex NDP candidate Tracey Ramsey speaks to the media out front of the University of Windsors Centre For Engineering and Innovation, September 9, 2015. (Photo by Mike Vlasveld)

"Because it's a budget bill, the government needs this to pass," explained Essex MP Tracey Ramsey, taking a break from the proceedings. "If it goes down, it's a confidence vote, and that means that the government would fall."

Wilson-Raybould told the parliamentary committee on justice and human rights she was pressured repeatedly over the course of months to drop criminal prosecution against SNC Lavalin by the Prime Minister's Office and others, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Quebec firm stands accused of paying bribes in return for contracts in Libya a decade ago.

Ramsey brought a motion to the committee to hear more testimony after Wilson-Raybould hinted there was more to tell, but instead of holding a vote on the motion, the committee shut down the investigation.

Former Treasury Board president Jane Philpott also said there was more to the story in an interview with Maclean's magazine.

"The CEO of SNC Lavalin says he never told the prime minister that jobs were under threat -- he never said that they would think about moving their headquarters out of Montreal," said Ramsey referring to reports Wednesday that contradicted previous testimony from the now former head of the Privy Council and the prime minister's principal secretary. "So, now we know the prime minister hasn't been truthful with Canadians."

Ideologically, the New Democrats are about as far as one could get from the Conservatives, but Ramsey told BlackburnNews.com on this issue her party stands with the Tories and is willing to go as long as it takes to either convince the Liberals to hold a public inquiry or fall.

"Certainly we don't agree with the Conservatives on principles and policies. This particular move we have agreed we need to hear the other half of Jody Wilson-Raybould's story," said Ramsey.

Budget votes are always a vote of confidence in the government, so unless the Liberals can keep their numbers in the House of Commons up during the vote, it risks losing the motion to pass its budget.

Unlike the ruling Liberal party, Ramsey said her party and the Conservatives are sitting in the House in shifts.

"We don't have the stress on us that the government does for each of these votes," she explained. "We have shifts of MPs that have been in there -- we're all taking turns going all through the night and all through the day."

The voting could theoretically last 36 hours, but the Conservatives only had to keep their filibuster going until 10 a.m. to scrub the rest of the day in parliament.

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