New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh speaks with reporters in the Foyer of the House of Commons before Question Period, on Feb. 5.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Pity Jagmeet Singh’s communications staff, constantly tasked with finding new language for the same empty threat the NDP Leader has been making for years. Mr. Singh has to sound serious but not be serious; he needs to project resoluteness even though he’s the political equivalent of an accordion, bending in every direction and emitting sounds that appeal only to a very niche subset of people.
Earlier this week, Mr. Singh warned that he will rip up his party’s supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals if the government doesn’t meet its deadline to introduce a pharmacare plan.
To be more precise: if the government doesn’t introduce pharmacare legislation to the House of Commons by March 1, a deadline that had already been pushed out from the end of 2023. And to be even more precise: if it doesn’t introduce the legislation by March 1, when the original deal set out that the end of 2023 was when pharmacare was to be fully passed.
This is hardly the only empty threat that the NDP has issued, over one issue or another. The NDP Leader seems to dangle the threat of trashing the deal, which would maintain the minority Liberal government until 2025, roughly as often as Canadians change their tires: once a season, depending on the weather and direction of the wind.
In December, 2022, when hospitals – particularly children’s hospitals – across the country were in an acute state of crisis (which is now the norm, but that’s a separate discussion), Mr. Singh suggested he would pull the agreement if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn’t take some unspecified action.
“If we don’t see action on health care, we absolutely reserve the right to withdraw our support,” Mr. Singh said. “This is at the level of seriousness that we could make that serious consideration. We need to see action.”
But there wasn’t transformative action. The Prime Minister simply signed a new deal with Canada’s premiers to pump even more money into the country’s broken health care systems. But that seemed to satisfy Mr. Singh, and, with great seriousness, the supply-and-confidence agreement survived.
Then, in January, 2023, Mr. Singh again warned that he would withdraw his support for the Liberals if they didn’t pass pharmacare legislation by the end of the year. Of course, we know how that turned out.
Last July, Mr. Singh was asked if he was willing to go to the polls on housing. “Absolutely,” he replied. “We think one of the major issues impacting our country right now is finding a place to call home, finding a place you can afford to rent, to find a place that you can call your own.” A party official later emerged to do clean-up, telling Global News on background that Mr. Singh was not implying that he would tear up the supply-and-confidence agreement over housing.
And in October, NDP members at the party’s convention passed a motion backing Mr. Singh’s January threat, resolving that the “continued confidence-and-supply is contingent on government legislation that commits to a universal, comprehensive and entirely public pharmacare program.” Mr. Singh referenced his earlier ultimatum in his keynote address, saying, “We are going to force this government to finally bring in legislation to lay the groundwork for pharmacare.”
Which brings us to today, with a new ultimatum and a new deadline. And if the Liberals don’t make good on this one, then, well, who knows: maybe Mr. Singh will just have to threaten to withdraw his support again.
Despite Mr. Singh’s bluster, the Liberals have yet to find a line they can cross that would actually cost them the NDP’s support. The government has missed deadlines on both pharmacare and comprehensive dental care, suffered various ethical violations, and stonewalled committees on myriad important matters. And yet the NDP’s support has been unwavering. That is, unless you believe Mr. Singh’s routine bluffs. If so, I’d like to invite you to an evening of high-stakes poker at my place.
What was initially a bad deal for the NDP politically – the Liberals have and will continue to take credit for dental and pharmacare, regardless of the NDP’s influence – has become an enduring embarrassment. Mr. Singh’s repeated hollow warnings have succeeded in achieving little more than publicly parading his party’s impotence.
Mr. Singh might argue that the NDP’s success lies in how it has exerted necessary pressure on the government, which is fine if the NDP’s aspirations go no further than acting as a Parliamentary thorn. If it wants to be seen by Canadians as a serious party capable of forming government, Mr. Singh first needs to be seen as capable of following through on a threat.