NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced on Sept. 4, 2024 that he is pulling his party out of its supply and confidence agreement with the minority Liberal government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh are pictured in Ottawa on June 1, 2022.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is pulling his party out of its supply-and-confidence agreement with the minority Liberal government, withdrawing automatic support on confidence votes and creating uncertainty for the Liberals less than two weeks before Parliament is set to resume.
The announcement does not mean a federal election is imminent, but it does raise questions as to whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government can survive until the next scheduled election in the fall of 2025. The government could fall at any time in the event that it loses a vote on a confidence matter such as a budget or an opposition motion specifically expressing that the House of Commons has lost confidence in the government.
Some New Democrats have been openly speculating of late about ending the deal, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wrote a letter to Mr. Singh last week asking him to walk away from the pact with the Liberals.
Mr. Singh’s announcement, made via a campaign-style video posted online Wednesday, caught the Liberal government by surprise. He did not hold a news conference but is scheduled to take questions from journalists Thursday in Toronto.
“Today I notified the Prime Minister that I have ripped up the supply-and-confidence agreement,” Mr. Singh said in the video.
The NDP did not point to any specific reason for ending the agreement now.
Mr. Singh said Canadians are fighting a battle for the future of the middle class and the Liberals have let people down. “There is another, even bigger battle ahead. The threat of Pierre Poilievre and Conservative cuts,” he said.
“The fact is, the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people. They cannot be change, they cannot restore the hope, they cannot stop the Conservatives. But we can.”
In a news release, the NDP said the end of the deal does not automatically send voters to the polls. The party said “the NDP is ready for an election, and voting non-confidence will be on the table with each and every confidence measure.”
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Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh announced the deal in March, 2022, after the Liberals won another minority mandate in September, 2021.
The parliamentary co-operation agreement did not create a formal coalition government, as it did not involve NDP MPs sitting in cabinet.
Instead, the deal involved NDP MPs pledging to keep the Liberals in power through support on confidence votes in exchange for policy action on various NDP priorities.
The policy elements of the deal included launching a new dental-care program for low-income Canadians, various housing measures, legislation to ban the use of replacement workers during a lockout or strike and support for national pharmacare legislation.
That legislation, Bill C-64, which has been approved by the House of Commons and is currently before the Senate, would authorize the federal government to cover a limited pharmacare program focused on contraception and diabetes medications under certain conditions.
Until the spring, Mr. Singh and his senior team were publicly adamant that they would stay in the deal to secure the promised policy wins.
However, the legislative portion of those planks, such as pharmacare and the anti-scab legislation, have all passed the House. In the meantime, the pressure to stop propping up the Liberals has increased.
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A senior NDP official told The Globe and Mail that internal discussions had recently turned to a timeline for cancelling the deal rather than getting the most out of it.
The official cited the fact that the legislation has largely been completed as the main reason for the shift. That was echoed by a second senior New Democrat who said the party’s last caucus meeting in June marked the beginning of the end of the deal. That’s where they said it was determined there was nothing more to achieve through the agreement.
They said there was a growing dissatisfaction with the arrangement and what the upside of it was for the NDP. They also defended the party’s ability to still support the Liberals in the House after ending the deal, but acknowledged the decision increases the chances of an election before next fall.
The Globe is not identifying the sources because they were not permitted to disclose the internal deliberations.
Over the summer, the Conservatives launched an ad campaign attacking Mr. Singh as a “sellout” and accused him of propping up the government solely to ensure he reaches his pension qualification next year. Mr. Poilievre held a news conference last week urging the NDP to cancel their deal with the Liberals and trigger a fall election campaign.
Beyond supporting the government on key legislation such as budgets, the NDP also played a critical role in providing support for procedural motions from the Liberals to end Conservative filibusters and generally keep bills moving through committees. The NDP would sometimes side with the Liberals to block contentious committee hearings or investigations, but also worked with the other opposition parties to advance studies over the objections of Liberal MPs.
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A senior official said the government was only notified by the NDP that they were ending the deal as the news broke. The official accused the New Democrats of showing weakness by walking away from a progressive agreement when items such as the pharmacare policy are far from complete.
The Globe is not identifying the official because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Just last week, Liberal House Leader Karina Gould told reporters she believed the NDP would stay in the deal until its agreed-upon end date next June.
“I’m fairly confident that that agreement is a good agreement, it’s a strong agreement, and we’ll get to the end of June,” Ms. Gould said at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Halifax on Aug. 27.
Mr. Singh’s video announcement was posted just minutes before Mr. Trudeau was scheduled to hold a news conference in Rocky Harbour, N.L., where he was making a funding announcement related to a national school food program.
Mr. Trudeau said he remains optimistic that Parliament will continue to deliver.
“Every politician gets to choose whether they want to play politics or whether they want to serve Canadians,” he said in response to questions from reporters. “And I certainly hope that the NDP will stay true to its fundamental values, which is making sure that Canadians get the support they need, and keeping away the austerity, the cuts and the damage that will be done by Conservatives if they get the chance.”
Mr. Trudeau attempted to play down the impact of the decision on his government’s longevity. However, his party’s re-election strategy in part revolves around staying in government long enough for the economic mood of the country to shift before voters head to the polls.
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Asked repeatedly by reporters how he would contend with the new political reality, Mr. Trudeau insisted he’s not focused on politics and added the election is “hopefully not until next fall.”
Mr. Poilievre dismissed Mr. Singh’s announcement as a media stunt and said the NDP should go further and vote with the Conservatives in Parliament this fall to bring down the government and trigger what he said would be a carbon-tax election.
“It will depend on whether sellout Singh is serious, or a stuntman,” he told reporters at a news conference in Nanaimo, B.C. “Will he vote for a carbon-tax election at the earliest opportunity, or will he vote again to keep the costly coalition of Trudeau in power?”
Two by-elections will be held on Sept. 16 – one in the Montreal-area riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, the result of the departure of Liberal MP David Lametti, and another in the Manitoba riding of Elmwood-Transcona, previously held by the NDP’s Daniel Blaikie.
Two other ridings are now vacant, and by-elections will need to be scheduled. Liberal MP John Aldag announced this year that he is stepping down from his B.C. seat of Cloverdale-Langley City to run provincially for the NDP.
On Tuesday, Andy Fillmore announced he has resigned as the Liberal MP for Halifax in order to run for mayor.