“It’s just hypocrisy,” Sudbury Conservative Party of Canada candidate Ian Symington said of a recent column by Liberal MP Viviane Lapointe critical of the party’s top-down leadership.
“Partisan politics is alive and well, and for good and bad,” he said. “I think there’s a need for unity, I think the parties have to be cohesive to progress and make progress, and the leaders are right to make sure the members are behaving in a way that’s respectful to party values.”
In her column, which was published by Sudbury.com on Friday, Lapointe accuses the Conservatives party of forcing its members to vote along party lines instead of their conscience.
She drew attention to a CBC story in which Conservative insiders expressed concerns relating to MPs being tightly controlled by Leader Pierre Poilievre’s messaging.
“Sudbury’s CPC candidate would be forced to blindly follow the leader,” she wrote, adding that Conservative MPs “are forced to vote against the best interests of their communities.”
In conversation with Sudbury.com, Symington pointed to a Globe and Mail story from early 2020 which found MPs of all stripes vote with their party 99.6 per cent of the time.
Sudbury.com dug through the last several months of votes to break down the latest statistics.
To mid-day Monday, there had been 291 votes in the House of Commons since the start of 2024. All members voted in blocks alongside party lines in the vast majority of these votes.
By Sudbury.com’s count using publicly available information, 14 of these votes saw at least one Liberal vote against their block. Five votes saw at least one Conservative vote against their block.
So far this year, all Liberals voted the same way 95.19 per cent of the time and all Conservatives voted the same way 98.28 per cent of the time.
The latest vote in which a Liberal MP voted against their block was on Nov. 28, when Labrador MP Yvonne Jones was the lone Liberal to vote “Yes” on a Bloc motion which would have required the prime minister and minister of finance to appear before the standing committee on finance prior to Dec. 13 to talk about Bill C-78, which addresses affordability.
The latest vote in which a Conservative MP voted against their block was on April 11, when Huron—Bruce Conservative MP Ben Lobb was the lone Tory to vote “Yes” on Bill C-50, “An Act respecting accountability, transparency and engagement to support the creation of sustainable jobs for workers and economic growth in a net-zero economy.”
In the majority of these cases, between one and five members voted against the party block, with a couple of exceptions.
On Sept. 25, 28 Liberals voted in favour of Bill C-223, “An Act to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income,” which would have taken steps toward implementing a livable basic income throughout Canada for anyone over the age of 17, including temporary workers, permanent residents and refugee claimants.
The other vote to find multiple members divided within party lines took place on April 10, when members voted on Bill C-347, which would have made oaths of allegiance to the monarch optional. While Liberals and Conservatives were split, albeit with a greater portion of Conservatives voting “No,” all NDP, Bloc and Green members voted “Yes.”
Lapointe and Nickel Belt Liberal MP Marc Serré have both been on the majority Liberal side of almost every vote so far this year.
The only exception was on the proposed oath of office change on April 10, which Serré voted “Yes” to and Lapointe voted “No.” The “Yes” side had 38 Liberal votes and the “No” side had 104 votes.
“I’m not critical of the party voting with the party,” Lapointe told Sudbury.com when asked about the parties’ respective voting records in response to her column.
“That’s typical across all parties, because as members we tend to believe in what we table. … I am critical of any party in which the leader comes first and everyone is being watched. That’s not responsible party governance, that’s a party of one.”
At least 17 Conservatives withdrew funding requests from a housing program Poilievre has pledged to cut, Lapointe said, and Tories voted against measures to provide support to Ukraine because it’s a confidence motion.
“That means no matter how good or how needed the legislation is, the Conservative leader and his partisan stance takes priority over what is in the best interests of Canada,” Lapointe said.
It’s also perplexing that Poilievre would call for a summer tax holiday on federal fuel charges in May, and then whip MPs into opposing a Liberal GST holiday in November, Lapointe added.
Regardless of the topic at hand, Conservatives play partisan politics by parroting talking points and slogans, Lapointe told Sudbury.com, which she said is “to the detriment of what is in the best interests of their constituents and Canadians.”
The Conservatives’ summer tax holiday would have applied to such things as the revenue-neutral carbon tax, which Symington noted is different from a Liberal GST holiday being funded from debt. The Conservatives’ fuel tax holiday would have also applied to GST and federal excise tax, which in Ontario amount to 18 cents per litre.
(On this front, Symington also argued that Liberals’ whipped vote to support the carbon tax is “in conflict with the needs of the people of Sudbury,” but clarified that he recognizes there’s a debate as to the carbon tax’s merits.)
With this upcoming election cycle to be Symington’s second attempt at turning the Sudbury seat blue, he said that his experience doesn’t corroborate with Lapointe’s assertion of an “insidious” political system in which Poilievre is to be “blindly” followed.
“We’re not muzzled in any way,” Symington said.
“I don’t think (Poilievre’s) policies are going to conflict with our needs, but if it comes down to conflict between my community and my constituents in the party, I’m going to be representing Sudbury, and they know that. I’m sure they know that about all their members. If it really comes down to it, that's what you’d have to do.”
When it comes to MPs being muzzled, Symington said there’s no clearer example than when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expelled Jody Wilson Raybould and Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus in 2019 because they “stood up for the law” during the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
On whether she has ever voted against party lines since she was first elected in 2021, Lapointe said that her concerns have always been addressed prior to votes.
“That allowed me to then move forward with confidence that I was voting for the best interests of Sudbury, and I can say that I’ve voted with my conscience to help the people of Sudbury every single time.”
Lapointe said that she has voted on private members’ bills tabled by other parties. The example she shared was a bill tabled by Conservative MP Marilyn Gladue which dealt with insolvency, and which she supported because of what she saw took place at Laurentian University.
The vote for third reading and adoption of Bill C-228, An Act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and the Pension Benefits Standards Act, took place on Nov. 23, 2022, and received unanimous support from all 318 members of the House of Commons who voted.
In addition to Symington, Sudbury.com reached out to the Conservative Party of Canada last week for their response. They issued a written statement attributable to Parry Sound-Muskoka Conservative MP Scott Aitchison on Monday afternoon.
Rather than address Lapointe’s criticism of Poilievre’s alleged autocracy, Aitchison’s written response took aim at the Sudbury Liberal MP’s “wacko” Trudeau policies, which he blames for unleashing “an addictions crisis” and bringing “crime, chaos, drugs, and disorder to Sudbury.”
His statement also alleges that Lapointe “has spent the last nine years voting for Trudeau’s carbon tax and inflationary policies,” even though she was first elected to Ottawa in 2021.
Aitchison’s written statement concluded with a few oft-repeated slogans from the “common-sense Conservative team,” pledging to “axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime for all Canadians.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.