Canada’s ruling Liberal Party — led by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — finalized a deal with Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) on Tuesday that will see the liberals remain in power through 2025 despite being in the minority, Reuters reported.
Trudeau’s Liberal Party currently rules Canada with a minority of seats in the national Parliament after failing to secure a majority government in September 2021 upon reelection.
Canada’s Liberal Party is an establishment left-wing party, while the nation’s NDP is considered more politically radical as a far-left party. Liberal Party leader Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh have been at odds in the past, though both have previously expressed solidarity with communist leadership, such as that of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The NDP’s decision to back the Liberal Party comes after Singh openly ridiculed Trudeau for his initial reaction to Canada’s peaceful, anti-vaccine mandate protest known as the “Freedom Convoy” this year.
On February 10, Singh condemned Trudeau’s apparent absence from public government duties during the first several days of the “Freedom Convoy” protest as “completely inexcusable.” Trudeau was reportedly absent from the public eye when the protest broke out in late January because he contracted the Chinese coronavirus. Singh again slammed Trudeau on February 17 for allegedly exhibiting a “failure of leadership” through his handling of the “Freedom Convoy.”
A truck with banners is seen parked in front of Parliament of Canada as demonstrators continue to protest the vaccine mandates implemented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 10, 2022, in Ottawa, Canada (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP via Getty Images).
“Governments with a minority of seats in parliament, like the one Trudeau now leads, tend to last an average of about two years, but this rare written agreement could permit it to go the entire four-year term after last year’s election,” Reuters noted on March 22 of the NDP and Liberal Party’s new pact.
The opposition NDP’s support of the Liberal Party through 2025 all but guarantees Trudeau’s minority party a chance to rule Canada “for the next three years without fearing defeat in Parliament and a snap election,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) noted Wednesday.
The arrangement between the Liberal Party and the NDP does not represent “a formal coalition, as members of the NDP won’t serve in Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet,” WSJ pointed out.
“Instead, the New Democrats have agreed to support the Liberal budgetary measures and to refrain from voting against the Liberals on crucial votes in the legislature until June 2025—or around the same time the next Canadian election is scheduled to take place,” according to the newspaper.
In exchange for the NDP’s support, the Liberal Party on Tuesday promised to back some of the NDP’s key political agendas, including national dental care and prescription drug coverage programs.
“The Liberals and New Democrats also said they would develop a plan to phase out financing for the fossil fuel sector, starting in 2022,” Reuters reported.
“In the House of Commons [of Canada], the deal will give the [ruling Liberal Party] government 184 total votes. A majority is 170 and the Liberals have 159 by themselves,” the news agency observed on Tuesday.
“While a so-called ‘supply-and-confidence agreement’ is not unheard of in Canadian politics, it is unprecedented to have such an agreement in writing at the federal level,” according to Reuters.
Trudeau confirmed his Liberal Party government had “agreed to work together” with the NDP on March 22 in statements to the press.
The left-wing leader — first elected Canadian Prime Minister in 2015 — has previously expressed a desire to remain in office “through and beyond the next election [in 2025].”
Some observers doubt Trudeau’s ability to remain in office for a full decade, as his popularity has collapsed this year. Trudeau’s drop in popularity is due, in part, to his decision to crack down on the peaceful participants of Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” in early 2022. The protest initially formed to oppose the Canadian government’s movement restrictions on truckers unvaccinated against the Chinese coronavirus. It later expanded to denounce all civil liberty violations by Canada’s federal government during the pandemic. Trudeau invoked a never-before-used Canadian law known as the Emergency Act on February 14 to grant his government extraordinary powers that it subsequently used to stamp out the movement.