Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has torn up the supply and confidence agreement he signed with Justin Trudeau in 2022.
The agreement was made to keep the minority Liberals in power, in exchange for several key NDP priorities being passed through Parliament.
Why, then, has Singh abandoned a deal that was supposed to last until June 2025?
One possible answer is that the two main NDP priorities — a new national pharmacare plan, and likewise a new national dental plan — are far behind schedule.
The pharmacare plan is still tied up in the Senate, while the dental plan’s reimbursement schedule has been widely condemned by dentists as inadequate and confused.
A more likely reason is that the federal Liberals have fallen far behind the Conservatives in public support.
The polling company 338Canada reports that if an election were held today, the Tories would gain around 100 new seats for a total of 219, the Liberals would drop 94 for a total of 68, while the NDP would lose 11 seats for a total of just 14.
With odds like that, it’s understandable that Singh wants to distance himself from the Liberals.
He said Thursday he will not support a vote of no confidence that the Conservatives have promised to table next week. However, he said he will make a decision on future motions on a vote-by-vote basis.
That suggests he might be willing to see if a little more can still be squeezed before an election is called.
Interestingly the Bloc Québécois, projected to win 40 seats, has said it would be willing to prop up the Liberals if Singh joins the Tories in trying to overturn the government.
A list of demands has been published, demands that stand no chance of being met. No federal government could ever contemplate getting in bed with a collection of separatists, or survive if it did.
However, whether Singh decides to hold his hand, or force an election, a larger dilemma confronts him.
Over the past few years, the Liberal party has distanced itself from blue collar voters, leaning more toward identity politics and minority interests.
The ground vacated in this manner has been seized by the Conservatives, in hope of becoming the party of the working family.
This is, in effect, a reversal of the long-standing positions of the two leading parties. But it leaves Singh with a limited range of options.
Since 2019, the Liberals have increased spending by a staggering 63 per cent.
Singh can’t realistically call for major new expenditures without alarming voters already troubled by the size of the federal deficit.
Then again, Ottawa is limited in the new social programs it can offer without running afoul of the Constitution. That too narrows Singh’s options.
And what new taxes could he propose that wouldn’t turn away voters already struggling with the cost of living?
But a deeper question looms. Small parties that prop up larger parties frequently lose out in the long run.
We saw that in the B.C. 2020 provincial election, when the Green Party that had held three seats — its largest number ever — lost a seat and suffered a significant drop in votes.
The Greens, of course, had bailed out the NDP in the previous election. On that occasion the B.C. Liberal party (as it was then called) won two more seats than the NDP, but with the three Green seats added, the NDP were able to form a minority government.
Will the same fate await the federal NDP when the next election is called?
If so, it might have been better for Singh to withhold his support for the Liberals, and instead occupy the far more viable position of an Opposition critic.
Instead, he’s been confined to the near invisible role of bed-mate to an unpopular administration, not a happy choice.
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