Front Burner - Why did the NDP dump the Liberals?

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Since 2022, Jagmeet Singh's New Democrats have backed Justin Trudeau's minority Liberal government with a confidence and supply agreement where the NDP would support the Liberals on confidence votes in exchange for the Liberals passing some of the NDP's policy priorities, like dental care and paid sick leave.That deal came to an end on Wednesday with an announcement from Singh, leaving the Liberals in a much more vulnerable position and opening up the possibility of an election as soon as this fall.Brian Platt, who covers Canadian politics for Bloomberg, explains the NDP's reasons for breaking up with the Liberals, why they've chosen to do it now, and why it could — but doesn't necessarily — mean an election well before September 2025.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Allie Janes, in for Jamie Poisson. For about two and a half years now, the Liberals have been able to count on the NDP to keep them in power. They've had this deal, a supply and confidence agreement, where the NDP would support the Liberals on key votes that could defeat their minority government.

And in exchange, the Liberals would pass some key NDP policies. Which they did. But that political lifeline was yanked out of the wall yesterday, when the NDP announced it was pulling out of the deal. Today, I notified the Prime Minister that I have ripped up the Supply and Confidence Agreement. Canadians are fighting a battle. A battle for the future of the middle class. Justin Trudeau has proven again and again he will always cave to corporate greed.

The Liberals have let people down. They don't deserve another chance. It's another major blow to Trudeau's struggling party. Brian Platt is with me now. He's a political reporter for Bloomberg in Ottawa. Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. So the NDP are ending this supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals

after a little more than two years. And so why are they doing this now? I think the frame that you have to look at this in is that last summer, the liberal polling numbers collapsed, the bottom fell out. And there was, you know, probably a pile up of factors that contributed to that. And the liberals saw a big collapse in their polling numbers, they went from polling in the 30s to polling in the low 20s. And a huge gap opened up with the conservatives. But when liberal numbers go down, you would usually see the NDP get some benefit from that. And yet the NDP stayed completely flat, maybe even a slight decline in the NDP numbers. So the liberals went down in the

polls, the NDP stayed flat, and the conservatives got a big boost. And so I think in the lead up to an election, if you're the NDP, you're thinking to yourself, we have got to create some separation from the liberals to show that we're different from them and to try to take advantage of their slide in the polls. And I think that's what you saw the start of today. The fact is the liberals are too weak, too selfish, and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people. They cannot be the change. They cannot restore the hope. They cannot stop the conservatives. But we can. This, of course, leaves the liberals vulnerable to a confidence vote, right, which could mean

that like it would trigger an election. So are the NDP, like, are they in a position, though, where they would actually want an election right now? It's a good question. And it's going to be the subject of a lot of debate over the coming days and weeks and months. Anybody right now who predicts when the election is going to happen, you know, everybody can have an opinion on this. Nobody really knows.

And it's complicated because it's not just the NDP, right? The liberals have 154 seats in parliament. To pass something in parliament, you need 170 votes. So all they need is the support or even just the tacit support of one of the parties, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, or the conservatives. I don't think the conservatives are ever going to support them. But you just need either the NDP in that scenario, you need either the NDP or the block to support you or at least not vote against you. And so it is totally possible we don't have an election right away that that, you know, on a case by case basis, whatever confidence measures before the house, that one of the parties chooses to not force an election call, and we don't get an election till next spring, or even a full year from now. But what the news today means is that an election,

an early election is much more likely now. And it is totally possible that it happens this fall. You know, on the NDP note, like this, this wouldn't be a good time for them anyway, right? Like the last I saw, they were polling at like 19%. Like they're, they're not doing great either right now. Yeah, my own opinion, and I could be wrong about this. But my own opinion is that if you're the NDP, and you make this move, you want to give it some time to work, right? You want some time to separate yourself from the liberals to improve your standing in the polls, and ideally, bring in a lot more fundraising. Hopefully, the announcement today might have excited NDP supporters. If you're, you know, Jagmeet Singh, you're hoping that this may excite your supporters and bring in fundraising dollars. In the next federal election, Canadians will choose between

Pierre Polyev's callous cuts or hope, hope that when we stand united, we win. That Canada's middle class will once again thrive together. In Canada, we take care of our neighbors. That's who we are. My own opinion is that the NDP probably are not looking for an imminent election. But again, I think at this moment, it's going to be very unpredictable what happens over the next year, which I guess is exciting if you're the kind of person who likes political drama.

You just mentioned, Brian, obviously this isn't just about the NDP. There are other parties that the liberals could go to for support, but given that they can no longer count on the NDP support, what kind of position does this leave the liberals in going into the sitting of parliament? Well, I think this is pretty bad news for Justin Trudeau. And it's not just that, you know, it creates some bad headlines, and he's lost his, you know, he's lost his power sharing deal, which guaranteed support on key measures. But if you're the liberal, I know from talking to liberals that they were really optimistic about the fact that they had some runway before the election.

They wanted time for the economy to get better. They wanted time for interest rates to come down. They want separation from that big inflation shock that happened after the pandemic that caused a lot of affordability pressures on all kinds of items, right? From housing to food to gas to, you know, home heating, all that stuff. The liberals thought that this was good to have a year of runway up to, you know, hopefully a year. I mean, and Trudeau himself said today, he does, you know, he doesn't want an election until next fall. And I think he really means it. And if it's up to the liberals, they would not go to the polls until next fall. An election will come in the coming year, hopefully not till next fall, because in the meantime, we're going to deliver for Canadians.

Contrast with a conservative leader that wants to cut dental care, cut the school food program, cut the programs that Canadians are relying on to help them through this difficult time. Well, that'll be a political decision that Canadians get to take in an election. But that plan to capitalize on an improving economy or at least lower borrowing costs and, you know, to let inflation recede into the background, hopefully for most Canadians. I think that looks much less, the Liberals cannot rely on that anymore, right? An early election is probably bad news for Trudeau. I mean, if you went to the polls this fall, at this moment, you know, I don't want to get too ahead of myself because things can change. But at this moment, you would think if there was an election this fall, it would be very bad news for liberal fortunes. Oh, very bad news. I mean, most of the polls are showing at least a 15 to 20 point lead by the conservatives. So

I think that seems like a fair assessment. Let's do a little, you know, postmortem on this deal. So can you just remind us what the NDP said was the intention of that agreement at the time? Like, why did they get into bed with the liberals in the first place? You know, the main selling point from the NDP was that they could get some of their priorities passed, right? They could get some of their priorities passed, right? When you're a smaller party in parliament, when you're not the government, you don't generally get to have your priorities go into the budget. We absolutely are hopeful about this real significant and substantial victory for people. This is going to be help that people need.

I also know that there's more that we need to do, and we're going to continue to fight for more. And we're going to have to hold the government to account to achieve this. I do think that there are some items in this agreement that the liberals, it's not to say the liberals don't support them, but it probably, I suspect the liberals would not have acted on it as quickly if it weren't for this deal. So there was a dental care program that was pretty expensive. It cost $ 13 billion over the first five years. The Liberals literally voted against our dental care plan. The exact dental care plan that is in this agreement right now was voted against by both the Liberals and Conservatives. There's a pharmacare program. We put forward our pharmacare plan, our pharmacare act two years ago, and that was voted against by the Liberals and the Conservatives.

care plan, a pharma care act, two years ago, and that was voted against by the liberals and the conservatives. You know, the liberals had to keep relatively restrained in order, because the cost was going to be too high, but it covers contraception and diabetes medication, and there's an anti-scab legislation that, in federally regulated workplaces, it bans employers from bringing in replacement workers during a strike. Today's a great day for workers, a bad day for big bosses that want to exploit those workers. We're really proud that we were able to push forward with this legislation. We had a government bill that we forced the Liberals to introduce, was passed now in second reading. And I want to be very clear about something. The Liberals would have never done this but for New Democrats forcing them to bring it in.

The Liberals have voted again. You know, the Liberals might have said we supported these things all along. liberals would have never done this, but for New Democrats forcing them to bring it in. The liberals have voted again. You know, the liberals might have said we supported these things all along. I don't think you probably would have seen these things happen if it hadn't been for this NDP deal. So I think the NDP, you know, can probably rightfully tell their supporters, look, we got some of our priorities into the federal government budget, despite being one of the smallest parties in parliament. But, you know, of course, the problem is, it also yoked them to the liberals, it made them seem like they were part of the, you know, the government. And that is surely why they have not benefited from the slide in liberal polling. in liberal polling. Right. I mean, I was just going to say, like, you know, the polling seems to suggest, like, again, the NDP has been pretty stagnant, mostly hovering kind of around 19% for quite some time. Like, is it fair to say that polling suggests that, you know, voters, Canadians are not necessarily giving the NDP credit for those policy wins? Yeah. And I think if you're the NDP now,

you've got to try to go out and sell that, right? To say, look what we got done, you know? A line was crossed for us, or however Jagmeet's going to phrase it, but, you know, where we couldn't support this government anymore. But look at the benefit we got from being as part of a deal, right?

Jagmeet has to go out and try to sell that now. But even more so, like the play that Jagmeet Singh is trying to make here is to say, I'm the alternative to Pierre Polyev, not Justin Trudeau. Trudeau is, he's not on your side. He's been in power too long. He's too damaged. He's in too weak a position to be the real alternative to Pierre Polyev. Vote NDP. You know, we should be the alternative to the Conservative Party. Like, that is the move that Jagmeet Singh is trying to make here. And, you know, he's got his work cut out for him because the NDP for all of this are still behind the Liberals in most polls. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

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economically crippling for the country to have happen. The Liberals let that go on for a day before stepping in and effectively, through executive order, ending the strike and forcing the workers back onto the job. Just 16 hours after the lockout began, the federal government stepped in. The Labour Minister changing course, turning the dispute over to the Canada Industrial Relations Board. We're asking the board to direct a resumption of activities and a return to work at the railways.

We are asking them to begin the process of binding arbitration and to extend collective agreements. For the NDP, who are heavily supported by unions and organized labor, the NDP can never be seen to be supporting something like that. The NDP do not vote for back to work legislation, right? And, you know, this is the kind of move that I think made it very difficult for the NDP to be part of, to be in a power sharing agreement with the liberal government is when the liberals are going to move to order workers back to work after only one day of a work stoppage. I think that makes it a very difficult government for the NDP to be seen so

closely tied to. So, I mean, you know, NDP sources have told media that, you know, they had already been planning to pull out of this deal for months, that this was in the work for some time. But also, you know, I want to talk to you about some optics here, because last week, Conservative leader Pierre Palliev held this press conference where he very explicitly called on Singh to end the deal. My message to sellout Singh is this, put the people ahead of your pension. Break the costly coalition with Trudeau to trigger a carbon tax election where Canadians can choose. It's not the first time he's made those calls. So, you know, what do you think the optics are for the NDP of having made this decision so close to the conservative leader's demands. You know,

if you're Pierre Polly, if you want an election as soon as possible, right? And you, you look like you're in a position right now to win a majority government. And so you get to oppose everything the government's doing because you just want an election the sooner, the better. And this fall,

I think Polly was going to make the NDP and Jagmeet Singh's life very, very difficult. He was going to hammer them over and over again to was wrong, that the coalition was a bad, costly idea, but he refuses to commit to voting for a carbon tax election. You know, even if Polyev had not come out last week and said what he said, I think the NDP were in for a very, very difficult fall. And, you know, the NDP, I do think for their own reasons, they always knew that they were going to have to create some separation from the liberals at some point. And the question was the timing around that. You know, do you wait until after Christmas? Do you wait until closer to the spring budget? And they decided to go now, which tells me they want to give themselves quite

a bit of runway to create that separation and try to make themselves a credible alternative to Polyev. But I suspect that in the back of their mind, they knew that it was going to be very difficult to get through this fall with Polyev hammering them as hard as he was clearly going to do. Polyov and the conservatives have clearly been trying to cut into the NDP's identity as the party of the working class. A country is built by the people who rise when it is still dark. The servers and soldiers, the farmers and factory hands, the nurses and night shift workers, often called ordinary people, but they are extraordinary.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, we've got the liberals who, as we were talking about, have largely gotten the credit for a lot of what could probably be seen as the NDP's policy wins over the last couple of years. So where does that leave the NDP? What do you think they have to do to kind of make some gains here and get their own identity back. Well, I think we're in for a really interesting NDP conservative battle in the next election, because the conservatives are absolutely targeting sort of what they would consider blue collar working class people. So not necessarily people leading unions, union management, I don't think is ever going to be a fan of Pierre Poliev. But the people who belong to unions and who work at factories and, you know, consider themselves blue collar, Pierre Poliev absolutely is targeting those voters. And the NDP, you know, in some of

their more rural ridings, but also in cities that are pretty dominated by factory work. So you might think of like Windsor, Ontario as an example of that. The NDP, there's going to be a real orange-blue battle in these areas. And the NDP are worried absolutely about Pierre Poliev coming after their voters. And I think, you know, that battle was going to happen anyway. But again, the NDP had to be careful not to get too associated in, you know, as an election was called with the liberals. The liberals at this point are essentially a party of the big cities. If you look at the, you know, Atlantic Canada at the moment is the exception, the big exception, I think you would say here, but the liberal power base is absolutely in cities. And the NDP hold a

lot of ridings outside cities that the conservatives are targeting. And the NDP have to defend those ridings. And so I think you have a very, it is very much something to watch as this, when we eventually do get an election, is whether the NDP can hold off the conservative attempt to win these orange ridings. It's really interesting. So let's talk about Jagmeet Singh specifically. I mean, he has been the leader of the NDP since 2017. So coming up on seven years. And, you know, there's much to kind of move the needle for the party electorally during that time. And so, you know, how much longer do you think the party is going to be willing to stick with him as leader? I view this realistically as Jagmeet Singh's last stand. You know, like this has got to work for him. You know, even if he's not prime minister after the

next election, which is a pretty uphill climb right now, to say the least. But you know, if he can make really if he can credibly make himself the alternative to Pauliev, and become the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons, you know, replace the liberals as the as the main alternative. If he can even do that, you could see him holding on for a while. But if the NDP keep treading water the way they have, essentially, ever since he took over, you've got to think he's not going to survive this after this election, because it's not working, right? I mean, the NDP have so far failed to make significant inroads into the liberal seat count, even as the liberals have steadily grown more unpopular under Trudeau. So I think this is, you know, I'm not going to, who knows where the NDP

goes after this, and we'll have to see what actually happens in the election. But I think if you're Jagmeet Singh, this has got to work, or this is probably your last election as leader. All right, Brian, we will be watching all of this. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you very much. All right, that is all for today. I'm Allie Janes, in for Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.