After a one-day pause in regular parliamentary programming in the wake of the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., MPs are set to return to the House of Commons today to consider a Conservative-initiated call for the government to “fix their auto strategy by scrapping the subsidies for foreign-made electric vehicles entering Canada that forces Canadian workers to subsidize $50,000 new cars” and “removing the GST on Canadian-made vehicles,” as well as “using their existing authority to reduce the amount of tax withheld on severance payments issued to workers at the GM CAMI facility in Ingersoll.”

The non-binding motion, which stands in the name of the party’s industry critic, Raquel Dancho, will go to a vote when the chamber reopens for business after the upcoming one-week hiatus.

Later this afternoon, they’ll hold three votes that were originally scheduled to take place yesterday afternoon, including one on the Conservative call to “end the practice of leniency to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes to avoid deportation,” as well as Liberal MP Braedon Clark’s proposal to establish a “national strategy on housing for young Canadians” and a Senate-initiated bid to establish Ukrainian Heritage Month.

According to his office, Prime Minister Mark Carney — who, as iPolitics reported yesterday, “cancelled a planned announcement in Halifax on Wednesday and a trip to Europe to attend the Munich Security Conference” in the wake of the tragedy — has no public events today.

He also dispatched two key cabinet members, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree and Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson, to British Columbia to “offer any assistance needed from the federal government in the aftermath of the devastating shooting in Tumbler Ridge,” as Anandasangaree noted in a social media post that went up after the two ministers joined B.C. Premier David Eby and other officials at an evening vigil in the rural community last night.

Back in the precinct, a full contingent of front benchers are booked to appear before committees tasked with going through the fine print of their assigned section of Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s omnibus bid to roll out measures introduced in his inaugural budget, including Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin at ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald at AGRICULTURE AND AGRI-FOOD and Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali at GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS AND ESTIMATES this morning (11 a.m.) and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson at NATURAL RESOURCES this afternoon. (3:30 p.m.)

Two additional committees have blocked off time to take a closer look at the budget: HUMAN RESOURCES, SKILLS AND DEVELOPMENT, which has scheduled back-to-back presentations from the Canadian Dental Hygienists Association, National Association of Career Colleges, BioTalent Canada, Riipen Networks and the Canadian Chiropractic Association (8:15 a.m.) and PUBLIC SAFETY AND NATIONAL SECURITY, which will hear from National Police Federation president Brian Sauvé. (4:30 p.m.)

Meanwhile, Canada Infrastructure Bank Ehren Cory, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak and Manitoba Métis Federation president David Chartrand will share their thoughts — and concerns — on the budget with FINANCE members, who will also survey representatives of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario, Fintechs Canada and others. (8:15 a.m.)  

Elsewhere on the committee circuit, Canadian Identity Minister Marc Miller will field questions on the latest supplementary estimates at CANADIAN HERITAGE. (8:15 a.m.)

Also on the radar: Interim Parliamentary Budget Office Jason Jacques will brief HEALTH committee members on his newly-released assessment of the projected cost of the Interim Federal Health Program, which was prepared at the request of the committee as part of its ongoing examination of the “impact of immigration policy on health care,” and will be published online this morning. (3:30 p.m.)

The office is also slated to release a report on the estimated cost of “enhancing” the current Scientific Research and Experimental Development tax incentives, which include both deductions and credits. (9 a.m.)

ON AND AROUND THE HILL

Representatives of the Campaign Life Coalition, as well as My Canada, CitizenGo and Campaign Québec-Vie, hit the West Block press theatre to “raise concerns” about what they contends is the “threat to religious freedom” posed by what the advisory describes as  the “so-called ‘Combatting Hate Act,’” including, as per the notice, “a recent amendment that removes long-standing religious exemptions.” (9:30 a.m.)

Justice Minister Sean Fraser has previously indicated that the minority Liberal government is “open to changes that would refine the language” around the amendment in question, which was put forward by the Bloc Québécois and would remove the current religious exemptions for hate speech, as reported by iPolitics earlier this week.

“We would entertain amendments to that effect,” Fraser told reporters before heading into a cabinet meeting.

“But it seems in our dealings with the Conservatives that they’re saying there is no accommodation that can be made on the concerns that we’re raising, and are going to choose instead to obstruct.”

As iPolitics notes, the Conservatives “have warned the Bloc amendment risked criminalizing religious teachings, and have resorted to filibustering meetings of the committee to derail study of the legislation,” which has been stalled at clause-by-clause review since December.

OUTSIDE THE PRECINCT

As the National Indigenous-Federal-Provincial-Territorial Roundtable on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ heads into its second — and final — round of closed-door discussions in Ottawa, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples will kick off a separate “shadow summit” after being “shut out” of the annual meeting by the federal government — which, according to the advisory, “is refusing to give CAP a seat at the multilateral roundtable (and) sidelining the huge numbers of Indigenous people who live off-reserve, do not have status, unaffiliated Metis and NunatuKavut Inuit from critical discussions about ways to stem the violence.”

FRESH FROM iPOLITICS

HOT OFF THE WIRES