Record two-month Canada parliament deadlock paused

OTTAWA: The speaker of Canada´s House of Commons intervened on Tuesday to pause an unprecedented two-month deadlock that saw conservatives filibuster to try to force Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to release documents they hope would embroil him in a conflict-of-interest scandal.

Almost no business has been conducted during the fall session, and little more was expected, with parliament set to break for the holidays in just two weeks.

However, in a rare move, House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus suspended the stalemate for a few days starting Thursday in order to allow lawmakers to vote on a key spending measure.

Such a whopping impasse had been previously unheard of in Canada, with observers saying it risked leading to snap elections that polls indicate Trudeau would likely lose.

Prior to the suspension, it was not certain whether lawmakers would pass any bills before their departure or spend any of the billions of dollars they are slated to disburse.

The held-up funding includes money for social services, disaster relief and support for Ukraine.

“This is new ground,” Wayne Wouters, a former cabinet secretary, said of the deadlock. “I´ve never seen anything like this: filibustering going on for pretty well the whole fall session.”

Wouters noted that previously, an opposition MP would “get up and speak for two days to try and delay things, and then the government got on with normal business.”