P.E.I. Legislature to continue sitting Friday after dust-up between Opposition, premier

Despite hope that the spring sitting of the P.E.I. legislature would close Thursday, an exchange between Premier Rob Lantz and Official Opposition Leader Hal Perry during question period made it clear that MLAs would be back for another day on Friday. 

For the spring sitting to close, all MLAs in the legislative assembly would have needed to provide unanimous consent to push through the remaining pieces of legislation. Without that unanimous consent, those laws would not be able to pass third reading until Friday. 

Following questions from Perry, the interim Liberal leader, about the Progressive Conservative government's spending on its multimillion-dollar tourism deal with the National Hockey League, Lantz fired back with his own questions about the P.E.I. Liberal Party's spending. 

"I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the office of the Opposition — a three-member caucus — is allotted a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars and they could not stay within the budget," Lantz said. 

"They overspent their own office budget by almost 50 per cent, Mr. Speaker. If this government spent like that office does, we'd have a deficit of $1.5 billion, so I won't be lectured about fiscal responsibility by a leader of the Opposition who can't stay within the budget of his tiny Opposition office." 

In his response, Perry said Lantz's statement was not true. 

"We will be back here tomorrow, and there will be an apology made by the premier," he said.

Perry then called a point of order, which allows any member to stop what's happening in the house and alert the Speaker that they believe a rule has been broken. 

"I, as a member, find it deeply offensive that the premier would make statements about our budget accounting that are inaccurate, and if further clarification is needed, please contact the clerk of the legislative assembly," Perry said. 

"I'd like to ask the premier at this time to retract his statement and apologize." 

Speaker Sidney MacEwen said he would take the point of order under advisement.

Inaccuracy in annual report

Joey Jeffrey, the clerk of the legislative assembly, said in an email to CBC News that an annual report appears to show the Official Opposition overspent its budget by nearly $100,000. The report shows the Liberals had a budget of $250,000 and spent $346,131.

Jeffrey said that was a mistake. 

To sum up, they were within their budget.— Joey Jeffrey, clerk of the legislative assembly

The figures in the annual report do not reflect a funding increase that was given to the Opposition after the budget had already gone through, he said. 

"The number in the annual report doesn't reflect that because those numbers are taken directly from the accounting system as it can't be updated after [the] fact. The Standing Committee on Legislative Assembly Management has the authority to change the caucus amounts but not to override the accounting system," Jeffrey said. 

"To sum up, they were within their budget." 

What's next for the legislature?

While Perry made it clear that he would not be willing to provide unanimous consent to push the remaining pieces of legislation through until Lantz apologizes, the P.E.I. Green Party was the firstto reject the call. 

For weeks, Green MLAs have been asking the PCs to table documents related to spending on Health P.E.I.'s executive leadership contracts. 

The PCs originally said they would table some of those documents, but have not done so. 

The provincial government does not need permission or unanimous consent to call the remaining pieces of legislation forward for a third reading on Friday.

The legislative assembly adjourned Thursday at 7:17 p.m. and will return Friday morning at 10 a.m.