NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh speaks to reporters in the foyer prior to question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 3.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The NDP says its deal to prop up the Liberals in the minority Parliament is not at risk, even as the party’s attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the foreign-interference controversy grow all the more fierce.
New Democrats have accused the Prime Minister of turning a blind eye to stay in power and describe the government as tired and sloppy. But rather than pulling the plug on its supply and confidence deal, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh confirmed this week that his party will continue to prop up the Liberals.
Under the deal announced last year, the Liberals agreed to a series of policy concessions, and better collaboration with the NDP in exchange for New Democratic co-operation to pass key pieces of legislation and its backing in confidence votes.
According to Mr. Singh, several of his MPs and prominent New Democrats, the calculation from the fourth-place party is that while election interference cuts to the heart of Canada’s democracy, it’s not a deal-breaker. And it doesn’t trump the affordability crisis made all the sharper by the latest Bank of Canada interest-rate hike.
The NDP says that through its deal, the party has forced the Liberals to embrace policies such as free dental care for low-income Canadians and a promise to set up the foundations for pharmacare.
“Each one of those things are things that the government opposed, voted against, or did not want to make happen that we are making happen,” Mr. Singh told reporters this week.
The interviews for this piece were done before David Johnston, special rapporteur on election interference, resigned late Friday. However, in a brief comment after the news broke, NDP national director Anne McGrath said his exit changes nothing for the NDP except to bolster its argument for a full public inquiry.
The party’s hope is that focusing on policy now will lead to a political payoff at the polls. But that is rife with risk, say political analysts, because whether New Democrats made the right gamble will only be clear at the next election.
In the meantime, the deal opens up the NDP to Conservative attacks that it is giving cover to an embattled Prime Minister, makes it easier for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to differentiate himself from the other parties and gives the Conservatives latitude to push for an election without having to worry about actually triggering one.
“He can play a game of chicken knowing that the chicken is never getting thrown into the pot,” Conservative commentator Tim Powers, with Summa Strategies, said about the Tory Leader.
In the House this week, Conservatives decried the supply and confidence deal with a volley of attacks against “the Liberals and their speNDP-backers.”
“The government is supporting us in fact,” Mr. Singh maintained in response to questions about why he was propping up the Liberals while accusing the Prime Minister of sweeping foreign election meddling “under the rug” in a bid to hold onto power.
His MPs who agreed to speak to The Globe this week all staunchly backed the deal with the Liberals.
B.C. NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who is one of only three MPs (all on the opposition benches) who have been publicly identified as a target of Beijing’s interference, said going to an election amid foreign-interference concerns doesn’t make sense.
“If we’re going to go to an election, I am a sitting duck,” she said. “Others are as well.”
Moreover, she said, foreign interference isn’t the only issue voters expect Parliament to address. There are seniors in her riding who are left to eat blended food because they can’t afford to pay for a dentist, she said. Giving up on the deal would also mean letting the Liberals off the hook on the promises in it, Ms. Kwan said.
In the House of Commons since 2004 and in his fifth minority Parliament, Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus said this is the first where he has a chance to directly shape government policy. As one of the NDP critics for natural resources, he has regular meetings with Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson and says those talks have forced the government to shift its sustainable-jobs policies aimed at helping workers transition to a net-zero economy.
Mr. Angus said the Liberals have worked with him in good faith and as a result of his advocacy have strengthened labour standards and the role of unions.
“The dance partner we have is a government that is tired, that is sloppy, that makes a lot of mistakes,” said Mr. Angus. “But my focus in opposition right now is to make them deliver on the promises that we made to Canadians.”
“If I came back to Northern Ontario and said, ‘hey, people, we forced a summer election over allegations that we still need to investigate.’ They’d kick my ass all over Northern Ontario.”
In terms of the priorities of Canadians, Nanos Research founder Nik Nanos said the polling shows that on the policy front, the NDP calculation is correct: The foreign-interference issue is of interest but not more so than the economy, health care and the environment.
Mr. Nanos described the NDP as “policy mercenaries” who are squeezing the government on the issues that matter most to them but stopping short of being full governing partners. However, he said there’s a risk for the NDP that they end up appearing too closely linked to the Liberals by the time the next election comes around.
Former NDP strategist Karl Bélanger, with Traxxion Stratégies, said because the NDP has to walk two tracks in this minority Parliament, it can at times “appear inconsistent or even incoherent” in its communications. To make the deal work in its favour, he said the party needs to ensure it ekes out clear wins and then get out of the deal before voters turn on the Liberals.
Despite the potential pitfalls, Ms. McGrath said pulling the plug on the deal now would also be out of step with what the party’s supporters want. She said the party is not looking at thwarting the agreement or trying to renegotiate the terms because there is still a lot in the current deal to get done.
The NDP approach leaves the Liberals feeling comfortable. Ministers Pablo Rodriguez and Dominic LeBlanc are both part of the deal’s oversight committee that sees monthly meetings between the Liberals and NDP to hash out any issues that come up.
“I think we’re in a good spot,” Mr. Rodriguez said about the agreement this week, noting that the parties have built goodwill and trust through their joint committee.
Mr. LeBlanc said they’re focused on the “to-do list” agreed to by Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh.
“I don’t think that it’s tenuous at all,” he said.