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Well, that’ll teach the Liberals to take a lax approach to Monday morning attendance.

Thanks to an unexpectedly abrupt end to the scheduled report stage debate, the opposition parties very nearly pipped the government’s proposed changes to the Air Canada Public Participation Act at the post by forcing a snap vote that left the Liberals scrambling to call in a sufficient number of members to stave off the challenge.

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The final tally: A 139-139 tie, at which point House Speaker Geoff Regan advised MPs that he would be following standard tie-breaking protocol by voting to continue to debate.

In this case, that meant siding with the yeas to move to third reading.

But had just one more opposition member made it to his or her seat in time for the roll call, the bill would have been defeated on the spot.

So, how, exactly, did this happen?

All credit – or, depending on your perspective, blame – goes to the New Democratic Party, it seems, who managed to take the Liberals by surprise with a cunning bit of procedural bait-and-switch.