The Conservatives pounced. “We just saw him go, and we were like, alright, giddy up,” Ms. Rempel recalls.

Conservative MP Mike Wallace stood up suddenly on a point of order, and proposed Bill S-15 be fast-tracked. By the time Mr. Plamondon had returned, the unanimous consent motion had been passed.

“Unanimous consent isn’t like a vote, there’s no notice given. If you can pull a fast one, and you’re prepared to be ruthless and pull a fast one, you do it. That’s what they did,” Ms. May said.

Ms. Rempel, though, was celebrating the manoeuvre. “It was just old fashioned parliamentary procedure, and it worked,” she said.

Ms. May said she opposed the bill because it creates an “outrageous precedent” for industrial activity inside a national park. ExxonMobil holds rights to a gas field that includes the park, and the bill gives the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board continued regulatory authority within the park, requiring nothing more than token consultation with Parks Canada. The bill also allows low-impact seismic surveying and directional drilling, raising the prospect of a company drilling under the island from offshore.