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rfmcdonaldCanada may yet have an election after all.
The Canadian government's uncertain hold on power looked less secure on Wednesday when opposition legislators said they were leaning toward slapping it with a formal contempt ruling.
That could pave the way for a nonconfidence motion next week, when the minority Conservative government is already looking at three separate parliamentary votes that could bring it down.
[. . .]
Last week, House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken issued a rare rebuke to Ottawa for refusing to say how much it would spend on new prison cells as part of a tough-on-crime agenda.
A parliamentary committee grilled two cabinet ministers about the case on Wednesday and opposition legislators, declaring the answers to be unsatisfactory, said they were closer to ruling the government was in formal contempt.
"They're deliberately not telling us what we need to know about the whole cost of their crime agenda ... we're incrementally, hour by hour, getting closer to a finding of contempt," said Pat Martin of the left-leaning New Democrats.
[. . .]
The first vote on the budget is likely to come next Friday, the same day that the House is due to vote on separate government spending plans. The Liberals, the biggest opposition party, could also present a nonconfidence motion on Wednesday.
If the government loses any of the votes it will fall and a five-week election campaign would start. The Conservatives won election with a minority government in early 2006 and retained power in the October 2008 election, with another minority.
[. . .]
On Friday, the committee will discuss a separate rebuke that Milliken delivered to International Aid Minister Bev Oda for misleading legislators.
This week police were called in to investigate allegations of political interference by a former aide to one cabinet minister. Last month, four senior Conservative officials were charged with violating financing rules during the 2006 election campaign that brought the party to power.
