Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) on Wednesday announced it was withdrawing from the coalition keeping Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in power, a blow that could seriously threaten the already-embattled Trudeau’s grip on power.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announced the breakup in a campaign-style video released by his party.
“Today, I have notified the prime minister that I have ripped up the supply-and-confidence agreement. Big corporations and wealthy CEOs have had their government. It’s the people’s time,” Singh said in the video.
A supply-and-confidence agreement is essentially a promise by a minority party to unconditionally support a larger party, without demanding the powers of a coalition government. In exchange for a few policy concessions, NDP has been keeping Trudeau’s Liberals in power since March 2022 by pledging to support them in no-confidence votes that might otherwise bring the government down.
“The NDP is ready for an election,” Singh declared, presenting his own party as a better choice to carry the left-wing standard because Trudeau is “too weak” and “too selfish” to oppose the Conservatives’ plans to cut government spending.
NDP officials later admitted the video was recorded weeks ago, and the decision to break with Trudeau’s Liberal Party was made months ago. Trudeau’s alleged concessions to “corporate greed” were cited by these officials as the reason for the crack-up.
The BBC spoke to other NDP officials who pointed to Canada’s railroad crisis as a major reason for giving up on Trudeau. The Trudeau administration eventually caved to enormous pressure to order binding arbitration between the railroad companies and labor unions, which NDP saw as a betrayal of the unions.
A more cynical interpretation could be NDP leaping over the rails as Trudeau’s ship sinks. Battered by public disapproval over high inflation and an assortment of policy disasters and scandals, the Liberals are currently running about 18 points behind the Conservatives in the polls. NDP might not be able to do any better, but Singh had very little to lose by boldly insisting that he could.
A badly rattled Trudeau robotically told reporters covering a school lunch event on Wednesday that he hoped NDP “stays focused on how we can deliver for Canadians, as we have over the past years, rather than focusing on politics.”
“An election will come in the coming year, hopefully not until next fall, because in the meantime, we’re going to deliver for Canadians,” he intoned.
The point of all this drama is that the next election might be coming a lot sooner than Trudeau wants. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre immediately called for an early election to break up the moribund Liberal-NDP coalition and give Canadians a chance to recover from left-wing policies. Canadians could find themselves choosing a new prime minister at right around the same time their American neighbors are voting for president.
Poilievre also called out Singh’s public breakup with the Liberals as a “stunt” and challenged “Sellout Singh” to join the Conservatives in a no-confidence vote to prove he is serious by ousting Trudeau.
“Will he vote for a carbon tax election at the earliest opportunity or will he vote again to keep the costly coalition with Trudeau in power?” Poilievre asked of Singh.
The Conservative leader’s barbs were especially pointed because at the same time he was furiously ripping up his pledge of support for Trudeau, Singh was dashing off a letter to the prime minister offering conditional support if the Liberals offer more policy concessions.
“We will approach every vote on its own merit. We will push for additional measures to help Canadians; we will fight Pierre Poilievre’s agenda; and we will not shy away from vigorously holding this government to account,” Singh said in his letter to Trudeau.
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