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RegisterTag: NDP
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
Justin Trudeau has been Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister since 2015. Contrary to popular belief that’s been widely propagated by Liberal supporters and spin doctors, he’s accomplished almost nothing in office.
Until Monday evening, that is. Trudeau earned an unusual political distinction that no other Canadian PM has ever achieved. He found a way to shift the most left-leaning government in our country’s history even further to the left.
How did he do this? By signing a three-year agreement with Jagmeet Singh and the NDP.
Delivering for Canadians Now, A Supply and Confidence Agreement details the working arrangement between the two parties that will run from March 22, 2022 until Parliament rises in June 2025. It’s not an official coalition, which means no New Democrat will have a seat at the cabinet table. Rather, the NDP “agrees to support the government on confidence and budgetary matters – notably on budgetary policy, budget implementation bills, estimates and supply” and the Liberals commit “to govern for the duration of the agreement.” Moreover, the NDP has agreed to “not move a vote of non-confidence, nor vote for a non-confidence motion during the term of the arrangement.”
As the agreement states in part, “The parties have identified key policy areas where there is a desire for a similar medium-term outcome. We have agreed to work together during the course of this Parliament to put the needs of Canadians first.”
Some of these key policy areas include: introducing a dental care plan for low-income Canadians, passing the Canada Pharmacare Act in late 2023, new affordable housing measures, initiating massive emissions reductions by 2030, introducing Just Transition legislation to help workers, unions and other communities, ensuring ten days of paid sick leave is in place this year, additional investments for Indigenous housing, a fairer tax system, and removing barriers to voting and participation.
Dental care and Pharmacare, which are part of the current NDP playbook, have been rooted in socialist thinking for decades. They’ve been previously rejected by most Canadian voters, and not just right-leaning ones, due to the enormous costs and inefficiencies these state-run plans will undoubtedly incur. With the Liberal-NDP agreement in place, a proper debate in Parliament won’t happen and these policies will easily pass in a minority Parliament operating like a majority government is in charge.
Canada will also witness massive increases to the size of government, rate of taxation and role of the nanny-state. Any hope for a return to small government, low taxes and more individual rights and freedoms by voting out the minority Liberals has fizzled out in one fell swoop. If you thought things were bad under Trudeau for nearly seven years – and it’s been bloody awful – you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Liberals and NDP are both declaring victory with the signing of this agreement. That’s predictable, but here’s the thing. Only one of them has the right to do so, and it’s not the junior partner in this arrangement.
Singh naively believes Canadians will give his party full credit for bringing in programs like public dental care and Pharmacare, if they’re successful. Not a chance. Most people barely remember what they had for breakfast a couple of days ago, let alone the specific party that proposed certain policies. If these social programs (and others) achieve what Trudeau hopes they’ll ultimately achieve, he’ll take all the credit – and the voters will reward his Liberals for introducing these policies.
Here’s a historical example to prove my point.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exists in Canada due to the efforts of Prime Minister R.B. Bennett and the Progressive Conservatives. They launched the state-owned Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, the CBC’s predecessor, in 1932. Without it, our public broadcaster may never have come to fruition – or could have ended up looking very different than it does today.
How many Canadians know this? Other than a smattering of historians and political junkies, the numbers are relatively small. Most Canadians would likely (and incorrectly) assume the Liberals and NDP had something to do with it, since they vigorously defend the CBC. Today’s Conservatives largely believe in either reducing funding for the public broadcaster, or defunding them altogether. So, their historical role has either been forgotten, ignored or usurped by parties that had nothing to do with the CBC’s creation.
That’s what will happen to Singh and the NDP.
Without any representation at the cabinet table, the NDP’s initiatives will be lost in the political wilderness. Singh’s memorable opposition to Trudeau’s three instances of blackface will become a tiny footnote in history. His party has seemingly accepted the fact that they’re irrelevant, can’t win federal elections on their own, and are more undeserving of representation in the House of Commons than ever before.
The NDP will be remembered for a couple of things. Protecting Trudeau, a weak, ineffective Prime Minister who has repeatedly embarrassed his country on the domestic and international stage. Propping up a Liberal Party that’s won the last two federal elections with minority governments and finished second in the popular vote both times, and giving them a safe political ride for the next three years.
Oh, and signing on to a misguided agreement that is, in the words of interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen, “little more than backdoor socialism.” Singh and Trudeau are probably both fine with this, truth be told.
Michael Taube, a long-time newspaper columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
Erin O’Toole may not be the best man at winning elections. But boy he sure can spread a rumour like no one else.
With the tenacity of a prying neighbour or a gossipy teenager, O’Toole spent much of early November spreading the bizarre, unsubstantiated story that the Liberals and NDP were planning on forming a coalition government. According to O’Toole, such an arrangement between the two parties is a “radical” concept that would require “billions of dollars of new spending to buy Jagmeet Singh’s silence” making it a “disaster” for the economy. This would make Canada a “a poor and less relevant nation” and “threaten” both “the livelihood of millions of Canadians” and “national unity” itself.
It’s quite the story and O’Toole is quite the storyteller.
But make no mistake about it: it’s all a work of fiction.
While NDP MP Charlie Angus did confirm that Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had “an initial conversation” about co-operation and shared legislative priorities, a Liberal source made clear that there was no “formal agreement” nor even any ‘talk to have a formal agreement.”
Singh himself reiterated this point at a recent news conference.
When asked point blank by a reporter about the coalition rumours, Singh could not have been more categorical in his response.
“There is no discussion at all of a coalition and that is a firm no for me,” he said. “There’s not going to be any coalition at all.”
As for O’Toole, well he’s the one guilty of spreading the rumours in the first place. Or, as Singh put it, “making stuff up.”
It’s hard to find much fault with Singh’s version of events.
Most formal coalitions require the sharing of cabinet positions. And last time I checked; Trudeau allocated no positions in his bloated cabinet for NDP MPs. If he had, we might have witnessed some truly inspired cabinet appointments, like Charlie Angus being assigned to Indigenous Affairs, Alexandre Boulerice to Labour, or Singh himself as Deputy Prime Minister.
But of course, that didn’t happen.
Instead, all of Trudeau’s cabinet appointments went to his cabal of loyal Liberal followers, leaving little possibility for a coalition agreement with other parties to be hashed out.
For Trudeau – a man not particularly renowned for sharing power or for reaching across the aisle and establishing constructive relations with opposition parties – this was certainly his preferred outcome. The same goes with Singh and the NDP.
For years, the spectre of the failed 2008 coalition attempt by Stephane Dione, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe has enveloped Ottawa and suffocated any enthusiasm or mindful considerations into the merits of a coalition government. Never mind that the chief reason for that coalition’s abysmal failure was more to do with the incompetence of its leaders and the inclusion of separatists as a governing faction than anything else. The Liberals and NDP still fear another voter rebellion against them, should they attempt anything even remotely similar.
It’s a shame, because despite all the fearmongering coming from O’Toole and other Conservatives, the formation of more coalition agreements would really be a benefit to Canada’s democracy. Not only are they perfectly legitimate, but they can help foster inter-party cooperation and dial back hyper-partisanship. Furthermore, when compared to the one-party rule of majority governments (most of which rarely secure over 50 percent of the popular vote) coalitions have the added advantage of ensuring that a greater percentage of voters are represented around the cabinet table.
The strengthening of democracy isn’t the only reason to consider the formation of more coalition governments.
In the current context, a coalition between the Liberals and the NDP would have helped facilitate and accelerate the implementation of more progressive policies in Ottawa. This would benefit everyday Canadians, yes, but also the political parties responsible for implementing said policies.
After two disappointing election cycles, the Liberals must realize by now that their lack of progressive achievements – the ones that actually bolster the socio-economic well-being of working-class Canadians – are wounding them. Its probably too late now, but the influence of the NDP in a formal coalition might have been exactly what Trudeau needed to cement a more admirable and robust legacy before his inevitable retirement.
As for the NDP, they’d have received more publicity for policy accomplishments, and would gain the credibility and experience of governing in Ottawa; something that they’ve long sought after. They’d just have to be wary of being swept up by the Liberal’s token progressivism – and being punished for it later at the ballot box.
Regardless of these and other potential pitfalls, the NDP, the Liberals and indeed, all of Canada’s political parties should really get over their fear and aversion to the idea of coalition governments. They’re anything but the “radical” notion O’Toole claims they are, and voters will recognize as much when the democratic rewards from them begin to accumulate.
Plus, it would just be nice if for once the Liberals and the NDP actually gave the Conservative leader something truthful to gossip about.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
Is Justin Trudeau Canada’s first New Democratic prime minister?
Former Jean Chretien advisor, and fellow Loonie Politics columnist, Warren Kinsella, seems to think so.
According to him, Justin Trudeau is not only our “first NDP prime minister.” He is also “our first social democrat prime minister.”
Kinsella doesn’t believe that Trudeau has always been a Dipper. But his “transformation” into one was made complete last week after Trudeau played musical chairs with his cabinet and appointed the “radical” climate activist Steven Guilbeault as his new environment minister.
Kinsella, like other business-oriented Liberals, are “apoplectic” over Guilbeault’s promotion and the demotion of cabinet centrists like Marc Garneau and Jim Carr. They think that Trudeau is guilty of “vandalizing the economy” and fear that, left unchecked, he and his team will “slay our energy sector.”
After spewing so much hysteria and hyperbole, Kinsella and the rest of his Blue Liberal pals really need to get a grip. The fears that they have are completely overblown and the comparisons that they’ve made, overstated.
To begin with, lets state the obvious: the Canadian government has not been taken over by radicals. The same group of men and women that sat in cabinet with Trudeau a few months ago are still, by and large, the same team they are today, and none of them are extremists, Guilbeault included. In fact, I think there is a strong case to be made that Guilbeault is far more clear-eyed than most when it comes to tackling climate change. Whether obstructionists in the Liberal Party agree with him or not is another story.
As for Justin Trudeau, let me categorically state that he is not Canada’s first New Democratic prime minister. How could he be when he’s not a social democrat? He never has been. Liberal blood flows through his veins, just as it flowed through the veins of both his father and his mother’s father, James Sinclair, an MP under the Liberal Mackenzie King, and a cabinet minister under another Liberal, Louis St. Laurent.
Of course, blood and familial ties are more anecdotal than anything.
Policy, and one’s vision for society, are what really determines one’s political and ideological identities.
And in this regard again, Trudeau is as Liberal as they come.
On his better days, he is an activist, deficit-spending, diversity-promoting Liberal, but a status-quo Liberal no less.
If anything, the closest Canada has ever come to a New Democrat prime minister is Justin’s dad. Pierre was at least a supporter of the New Democrats, prior to his entry into electoral politics as a Liberal Party candidate. But even he, with his anti-American foreign views and nationalist, economic policies, was still just a left-leaning Liberal. While transformational on constitutional change and language policy, Pierre failed to move the dial substantially on labour, income inequality and countless other socio-economic issues.
Justin, in comparison, is viewed by many on the right as a bold progressive. But he’s really just a more centrist version of the neoliberal Jean Chretien/Paul Martin Liberals that came before him. That’s why in this year’s federal election, establishment Democrats in the United States like Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama backed him, while social democrats Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib, endorsed Jagmeet Singh and the NDP.
For anyone that still questions Trudeau’s placement on the ideological spectrum, ask yourself the following questions:
a) Would a social democrat criticize the idea of increasing taxes on the very wealthiest in society, as Trudeau did at a campaign stop in La Prairie, Quebec?
b) Similarly, would a social democrat renege on their promise to expand the country’s social safety net and implement a national pharmacare system?
c) Would they have prioritized profits over peace by continuing the sale of arms to human rights abusing regimes in Saudi Arabia and Israel?
d) Would they continue to sign and ratify free trade agreements that cement investor rights while only paying lip service to their environmental and labor commitments?
The answer is of course not. These are the flawed, detrimental policies of Conservatives and establishment Liberals. Not equality-seeking, transformational-minded social democrats.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I don’t mean to say that Liberals – especially this current crop in Ottawa – are all bad.
The Trudeau government’s acceptance of tens of thousands Syrian refugees was admirable (though not quite as deserving as all the praise it received when compared to the refugee intake of states like Germany), as is the Prime Minister’s promotion of multiculturalism, the LGBTQ+ community, and women’s reproductive rights. Furthermore, Trudeau’s apparent resolve to address the climate crisis and implement a national childcare program, is similarly commendable.
But that alone does not earn him the title or the praise (unintended as it may be from folks like Kinsella) of being named Canada’s first social democratic Prime Minister.
Only once Canadians have an administration that makes the necessary, structural changes to Canada’s economic, social and tax systems to strengthen society and eliminate inequality, will we be able to finally say that social democracy has arrived in Ottawa.
In the meantime, Kinsella and all the other blue, business-friendly Liberals should really stop with their fallacious fearmongering.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
As we reach voting day, we are going to hear a lot of talk about whether the Liberals will “deserve” a majority parliament, or the oft-told hope that they can be kept in a hung parliament so that the NDP can exert influence and hold their feet to the fire. We’ve also heard some NDP proxies assert that it shouldn’t be too big of a deal if the Conservatives happen to form government in a hung parliament, because then the NDP can hold them to account. This is untrue, and history has shown us time and again that this dynamic never actually plays out.
Something that NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has been wildly proclaiming since the beginning of the pandemic was that many of the benefits that kept Canadians going throughout the various states of lockdown/mockdown were thanks to them and them alone. Singh frequently cites things like the level of wage subsidy as an NDP “victory,” when he had absolutely no influence on the decision at all – Bill Morneau’s office was consulting with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the Canadian Labour Congress, and they both quickly convinced him that the ten-percent subsidy would be insufficient, and he changed course to 75 percent by the time that weekend was over. The NDP like to take credit for this when they were not inside the tent being listened to. Nevertheless, Singh repeatedly taking credit for it is frequently cited by NDP partisans and it has become part of their mythology.
Likewise, with the extension of certain benefits, Singh likes to say that it was thanks to his negotiation that they were prolonged in exchange for a confidence vote, when there was no way the Liberals would have let those benefits expire while people still needed them. He pushed on an open door, and then declared victory – something that happened time and time again over the course of the last parliament. Meanwhile, the budget implementation bill for the fall fiscal update, which contained a number of new COVID-related supports, took six months to get passed thanks to the five months of procedural warfare that the NDP were gleeful participants in alongside the Conservatives and Bloc, but they don’t like to say that part out loud.
Regardless of recent history, the notion that any incoming government with in a hung parliament will be kept in check is hokum. We saw this during the Stephen Harper years, and in several provinces where there have been minority legislature situations over the past few years. In spite of the tough talk that so-called kingmakers, like the NDP aspire to be in the federal situation, they will almost never flex their muscles because of one simple fact – nobody wants to go to an election right after they’ve had one – and if they did, and there was another viable government that could be formed in the current legislative context, the Governor General or Lieutenant Governor would say no, and let the other viable group test the confidence of the chamber. It’s not only the constitutional architecture that that would prevent them from bringing down a new government right away – it’s also because all parties are generally exhausted and financially depleted after an election, and the NDP are most especially so, usually in many millions of dollars of debt that they need to pay off before they can even contemplate another election.
This is what tends to give new governments, even those in a hung parliament, a freer hand to make moves. This is something that Harper tested very successfully during his two hung parliaments – most especially in 2008, right after the election, when his announced plan to end the per-vote subsidy, which would severely hobble his rival parties, and led to the prorogation crisis. Even though the other parties threatened to bring his government down, and had cobbled together what they claimed to be a viable governing coalition – with a supply and confidence agreement from the Bloc to prop them up – Harper was able to stare them down over the prorogation break, and that would-be coalition crumbled before they could threaten to bring Harper down a second time. In no way was he kept in check by the NDP during those years, nor would they under a hypothetical O’Toole government.
Sure, the NDP in such a hypothetical situation would huff and puff and threaten to blow the government down, but they wouldn’t. It’s also just as likely that in such a scenario, the Bloc would be the party exercising the balance of power and would be willing to prop up a Conservative government because the Conservatives have spent the past two years trying to out-Bloc the Bloc and have promised to fully implement the entire Bloc agenda (minus separatism) as a means of debasing themselves in order to win Quebec premier François Legault’s favour, and lo, they got it – sort of. Legault did say that he would prefer a Conservative government in a minority parliament (as though people can somehow mark that on their ballots), as the Conservatives have promised to roll over to him at every opportunity, and the Bloc would see it in their interests to prop up that kind of government – especially as they can claim that they are setting the agenda and getting results in Ottawa.
It will all come down to the arithmetic of seats once the votes are all cast and the counted, but the NDP’s quest to play kingmaker could come with dire consequences for the very things that they say they are in favour of – universal childcare, national pharmacare, continued action on climate change that will actually meet targets, and completing the work of lifting the boil-water advisories on the remaining First Nations reserves around the country. If they think they could convince a potential prime minster Erin O’Toole to carry on with these programs under the threat that they’ll bring his government down if he doesn’t, they’re sadly mistaken. It’ll be 2006 all over again, with national childcare and the Kelowna Accords, because of the romance with minority parliaments that never pans out in reality.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
Here we are halfway through the first week of this campaign and I’ve got a funny feeling.
I think NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is going to come out with a win. I don’t mean he’ll be the next prime minister, that seems like too much of a long shot, but I think he’s going to make some considerable inroads this election.
There has been something flat about Liberal Leader/Prime Minister Justin Trudeau these first few days. He doesn’t seem to have figured out why he is running other than it looked like the right time to increase his seat count. He hasn’t fared any better than I did trying to talk himself into making this election about getting a mandate to do big things over the next years coming out of a catastrophe like COVID.
Of course it’s early. It’s not like Trudeau hasn’t won elections before, it’s actually something he’s pretty good at. But he’s going to need something a bit bigger than announcing the government will train 1,000 firefighters.
For an election Trudeau has called the most important since 1945, it sure seems to be lacking that tangy zip of meaningful campaigning. And I think the big beneficiary of that is going to be Singh.
People largely seem in the mood to keep government in their lives. The ghosts of Stephen Harpers past are still lurking, and people don’t really care for that kind of grim parsimony.
Besides, Singh has Trudeau pegged.
Watching his opening election ad and you can really see where Singh’s advantage lies. “For six years we’ve heard Justin Trudeau say the right thing with no intention of doing it,” summing up the Liberals’ latest turn in government in a one neat and tidy package.
It’s the kind of thing that works well because it’s just so on point. Conservative attacks that Trudeau is some kind of horribly corrupt bungler just don’t land with the same force.
This is by no means a government that has performed perfectly, but it hasn’t performed horribly, either. It’s walked the line of good-enough governance in a country that doesn’t expect anything much better. So the Tory attacks tend feel hyperbolic and overblown.
But to call this a government that’s all talk and no action? That’s something that lands.
There is nothing they love more than talking about how great they are, and in making a show using the right words. But, again and again, they fail to deliver to the same level as their rhetoric. It makes the Liberal road to a majority victory harder, because this government is a known quantity. The public will be less willing to buy what they’re selling, having been burned so often in the past.
An easy example here is Trudeau’s promise that 2015 would be the last election using the first-past-the-post system. We are now into our second FPTP election since he made and broke that promise.
I could go through a list of things that the Liberals promised and failed to deliver on, but by then I’d have written a whole policy book.
This is why I think the NDP has a good a shot as any this time around.
For all the good the pandemic supports were able to do for regular people, they were still weighted heavily toward corporations, who took in tens of millions of dollars, still turned huge profits, then paid out dividends and executive bonuses like it was any other year. People understand the fundamental unfairness of that.
This is where the NDP promise to claw back benefits to corporations who took public money only to line their own pockets is a good one. It’s also more straightforward that a bunch of new ethics laws, like the Tories are promising.
It’s part of the party’s broader message that government can and should be the vehicle to make people’s lives better. It’s one of the great failings of the current government that they often opt to make people’s lives slightly better, but not too much better.
Plus, Singh is just so personable. His solid debate performances last time around bode well for his second kick at the can. If he’s able to repeat that performance and prove it wasn’t just a one-time fluke, he’ll make a solid case to the public he’s got what it takes to move up in the world.
Campaigns are long, and weird, and what seems obvious at the start can be totally off base by the end. But Singh is starting off with a solid message at a time when Liberal support seems soft and tentative.
It’s a real opportunity for the NDP to make some serious gains. The true test of Singh as a leader is whether he’s able to capitalize on the opportunity. He has everything at his disposal to get this one right, he just needs to make it though the next month without any stumbles.
But deep down, I’ve got the feeling he has it in him. That this is his time, and his party’s time.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
