House Speaker denies Poilievre’s request for emergency debate on Canada’s economy

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s request for an emergency debate on the state of Canada’s economy was denied by the Speaker of the House Monday afternoon.

Poilievre rose in the House Monday afternoon to formally make that call.

“The prime minister couldn’t be bothered to say a single thing about this emergency since he learned of it on Friday morning,” Poilievre said.

“This is an emergency in the lives of people who have empty fridges, empty stomachs and empty bank accounts. And they expect the prime minister, who promised that he was a great economic genius, to get in here and explain how he managed to be the only leader in the G7 to cause a recession.”

Speaker of the House Francis Scarpaleggia denied the request.

“I’m not satisfied that this request meets the requirements of the standing orders at this time,” he said.

CTV News reached out to the Speaker’s Office for context on the decision but did not receive an immediate response.

On Tuesday morning, a spokesperson provided CTV News with a lengthy response explaining the context around how the Speaker makes decisions around emergency debates.

While the Speaker has “considerable discretion...certain criteria must be weighed.” The first provided noted the Speaker has to decide if the issue is a “genuine emergency and could not be brought before the House within a reasonable time by other means.”

Poilievre repeated similar criticisms about the prime minister’s absence at both a morning press conference and during Question Period.

Carney has not taken questions from the media or in the House since Friday’s report from Statistics Canada showed a slight contraction for two straight quarters, meeting the technical definition of a recession.

After Poilievre’s debate request Monday, Conservative MP Gerard Deltell stood in the House on a question of privilege to accuse a Liberal MP of “deliberately mislead[ing]” the House, when he said Canada is not in a recession.

During Question Period Friday, Liberal MP Carlos Leitão repeated that statement twice.

“Mr. Speaker, I will repeat once more that Canada is not in a recession. That is not what Statistics Canada has said… But our economy is under threat from the tariffs, we are the only G7 country next to the U.S., and we depend on trade with the U.S. That is the issue, but we have a plan,” Leitão said, according to the English translation of his French comments.

Reached by phone Monday night about the Deltell accusation, Leitão told CTV News he stands by his original comments.

Leitão, a former Quebec finance minister, added that among economists, many believe there is “no such thing” as a technical recession. He drew a medical comparison.

“You don’t technically have pneumonia. You have it or you don’t.”

The federal finance minister’s press secretary backed Leitão up. John Fragos told CTV News he doesn’t “think there was any mischaracterization.”

Fragos pointed to “scores of economists” who say you need to take into account more than just top-level GDP numbers before declaring a recession, as well as testimony from Bank of Canada’s senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers on Monday.

“I think we need to be careful not to put too much weight on any one indicator,” Rogers told a parliamentary committee.

“It meets one definition maybe, but that doesn’t tell the full story,” Fragos said, about whether Canada is in a recession.