Canada's New Democrats Will Not Give Trudeau Election 'He's Looking For' - Party Leader

TORONTO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd October, 2020) Canada's New Democrat Party will do what is necessary to avoid an election call amid speculation Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is trying to force the opposition into one, party leader Jagmeet Singh told reporters on Wednesday.

Singh's comments come amid a standoff between Canada's preeminent political parties - the Liberals and Conservatives - over a Tory proposal to create a new anti-corruption committee to investigate the WE Charity scandal. The Liberals have drawn a line in the sand, saying that the Conservative motion amounts to a vote of non-confidence in the minority government possibly triggering an election.

"New Democrats will not give Prime Minister Trudeau the election he's looking for," Singh said. "The Liberal Party has made it very clear they're not looking to work together on this...� which led me to believe that Prime Minister Trudeau and the Liberal government are looking for a way to find an excuse to go to an election."

Singh adding that his party is "looking at options" to follow through on this promise. The NDP leader justified his position, saying that Canada, mired in the second wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic, is not ready for a Federal election.

Singh said that his party is not seeking to probe members of the prime minister's family, a possibility the Conservatives have not ruled out, but added that there are additional conflict of interest probes involving the governing Liberal Party that could be undertaken.

Canada's House of Commons will vote on the Conservative Party's motion to create the anti-corruption committee later in the afternoon. The Bloc Quebecois have pledged to support the motion.

The looming threat of a snap election - the second in the span of a month - comes amid Liberal Party filibusters in the finance and ethics committees, where opposition parliamentarians are seeking access to unredacted documents related to the doomed Canadian Student Service Grant. The Conservative Party has slammed the filibuster and the decision to suspend parliament and committees in August as an attempted "cover up" of wrongdoing on the part of Trudeau.

Trudeau has incurred intense backlash after multiple investigative pieces revealed close ties between his family and government and the WE Charity, which was awarded a $670-million sole-source contract to administer a government-sponsored student volunteer program.

Trudeau is the subject of a conflict of interest probe by the Canada's Ethics Commissioner into his relationship with the embattled charity. The ethics probe is the third for the Prime Minister during his five years in office.