Front Burner - Will the Liberal-NDP marriage end in divorce?

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, an unstable world demands a stable Canadian Parliament. Trudeau pointed to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and financial and trade woes yesterday, before announcing a “confidence-and-supply” deal between the Liberals and NDP. Essentially, in exchange for moving forward on NDP policy priorities, the NDP will back the Trudeau government in votes that could defeat it until June of 2025. But the opposition Conservatives are already decrying the deal as a “power grab.” NDP leader Jagmeet Singh says the deal will end if the Liberals don’t hold up their end of the bargain. Questions remain about whether the agreement can create any kind of lasting stability, and whether it safeguards — or jeopardizes — the parties’ future influence. Today, a look at how this deal changes Canada’s political landscape with the reporter who broke the story, Power and Politics host Vassy Kapelos

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 Jamie Poisson. I've thought long and hard about this. It was not an easy decision. With so much instability around us, Canadians need stability. An unpredictable world needs a predictable parliament.

That was the argument from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday as he announced a confidence and supply agreement with the NDP. It's essentially this deal where the NDP will support the Liberals in votes that could trigger an election, as long as the Liberals act on some of the NDP's priorities. We're different political parties. We stand for different things. But where we have common goals, we cannot let our differences stand in the way of delivering what Canadians deserve.

If the deal lasts, it would keep the Liberals in power far beyond the average year and a half lifespan of minority governments, all the way to June 2025. But NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is already signaling those extra years aren't a guarantee. This is not a destination but a starting point, and we're going to continue to fight. We're not going to let the Liberals off the hook. And Conservatives are calling this deal a power grab and socialist coalition power pact. To sort through what this deal means for the parties or policies and the next three years of our government,

I'm joined by the reporter who actually broke this story on Monday, Power and Politics host Vashi Capellos. Oh, hey, Vashi. Hi, Jamie. Big news today in Ottawa, hey? Yeah, just another slow news day in the nation's capital. Okay, let's talk about this deal. Lay out the basics for me. What does it say the liberals are supposed to get and the NDP are supposed to get here?

Well, the big thing the liberals get is not a guarantee, but a pseudo guarantee that they can stay in power until 2025. What they get is the NDP's support, crucial support for them because they're in a minority position on matters of confidence. So think of budgets, for example, and not just this budget that's coming up in fairly short order, but the next four budgets. And on any matters, really, of what, you know, the kind of nerdy term for it is confidence. But what that means in a minority government is anything that the government can fall on. So the NDP will support it, which essentially keeps it in power. On the flip side, what the NDP gets is a whole bunch of policy priorities that they have tried to promote through their election platforms in the

past few election. And primarily, I'm talking about ones involving health care and more specifically, dental care and pharmacare. They've got some affordable housing things in their whole bunch of, you know, smaller policy items, not smaller, but but not quite as big as the dental care, which is really the big one. I guess I'm just wondering how different this is from what's already going on. It's a good thing to wonder because the answer is not much in as far as the pragmatic side of it is concerned. Essentially, the NDP has played this role already. They have negotiated through back channels with the liberals to bring in things like paid sick leave in exchange for their support on matters of confidence. They have negotiated through back channels with the liberals to bring in things like paid sick leave in exchange for their support on matters of confidence.

They have supported the government in the past when it comes to their budgets. Also matters of confidence. Right. What this does, though, is formalize the agreement. It's not just saying on a case by case basis. It's essentially saying we're going to do this for years to come, ensuring that the government or as close to ensuring as it as it can get that the government stays in power. So there's a formal aspect to it that's a lot different. And there's the period of time it How specific are the Liberals' commitments on the big policy promises here, like like pharmacare and denticare?

They are very specific, especially when it comes to dental care. So it would be a phased in approach. The first year would be for kids under 12. The second year would include those kids, people under 18, as Canadians under 18, as well as seniors and people with disabilities. And then by 2025, it would be fully phased in, and it would be for every Canadian making less than $90,000 a year. So that's pretty specific. On the pharmacare, it's not what the NDP's major proposal has been in the past, which is universal pharmacare. That comes with a huge price tag.

There's been a zillion. I think we've even talked about it on the pod. There's been like 70 million studies done on it. Still, the liberals have resisted ever putting it, for example, in its full form in the budget because it does cost a lot of money. they commit to introducing a national pharmacare act that would lay the foundation for that kind of thing and also more bulk buying as well as covering some essential medicines. You know, there's some specific meat on the bone there, but it's certainly not like the big stake that the NDP has been pitching. OK, it was funny. I was reading that the last liberal prime minister to keep a minority government afloat through a deal with the NDP was actually Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau.

Whether Mr. Trudeau will win on October the 30th is by no means certain. His party has a 10% lead over its nearest rivals in the latest opinion polls, but this is not as strong a position as it sounds. So I guess it's not like this kind of deal is unprecedented, right? It's certainly not unprecedented. And there's even a more recent example in B.C. For years, we're not looking to have an election anytime soon. We're looking to show the British Columbians that minority governments can work. Where there was a supply and confidence agreement with between the Greens and the NDP that put the NDP in power.

And then the NDP pulled out of in order to run on an election and get a bigger mandate. So we certainly have examples. We have precedents for it in this country. But what we don't have is kind of a regularity to it. It's not common, let's say, in our governments, the way that coalitions or agreements of this sort are more common in Europe. Like a European would not look at this and say, oh, my God, this is the 24 hour news cycle for three days. It's different here. It's not unheard of, certainly, as you point out. But I wouldn't say it's commonplace either. OK, speaking of the 24 hour news cycle, a little bit of insider gossip maybe we could do now. I know you actually broke the story. So tell me the details. How did it go down? Well, it's just really unique. I think it's kind

of instructive in a way because this was so closely guarded by such a small group of people. Oftentimes, you know, you'll see the government or opposition parties leave things directly. Like that was not the case here. In fact, I found out about this at about two in the afternoon and it took me eight hours to confirm the story. And it was, yeah, it was incredibly difficult to get anyone to pick up the phone, especially kind of the people you think would be in the know about this. And my colleagues here were helping. We were all calling incessantly, like through my show, I was saying to the team this morning, I'm like, I don't even know what I asked people last night, because I was so concentrated on like trying as hard as I could to get more sources to confirm the information that I had received. So I think and I've later learned that the negotiations really took place in earnest

over the last 10 days, like that, even though these discussions had informally been happening over the last 10 days is when the talks that led to this deal were taking place. And then I was also told like Ukraine was some of the impetus for it, this idea that it's such an insecure, unstable world. Like what can we do to counter that? The idea being that we want to provide more stability here in Canada? Exactly. Basically that there doesn't seem to be an appetite for an election. If there's ever been a time for more certainty, more stability. And again, I'm, you know, take it with a grain of salt. This is coming from people who were negotiating this.

Yeah, they have an interest in selling it. But now is the time for that. Again, the concept arose right after the election, but in earnest over the last 10 days. Okay, so let's continue down that. You know, Trudeau spoke about this on Tuesday morning. Jagmeet Singh has now spoken about this. And how are they both selling this as a good thing for Canadians? I think exactly as that. As I listened very closely to each of them, I think what came out to me was that their pitch is this will make

Canadians better off and it will make for a more productive parliament. What we're able to do with this one is offer the stability that will allow us to continue to work hard on fighting climate change, on building more housing, on delivering on the many things that Canadians expect. I'm not saying that that argument is factual. I'm not saying that it's right. But I'm saying that what I kind of deduce from what they're saying, they did this because they feel like they have areas of commonality in which the end result, you will see Parliament function. And by that, I mean, Parliament do things versus just, you know, political back and forth or obstructionism on either side, that in the end results in less for Canadians. And I obviously there are people who disagree with that big time. First, Bloc Quebec qualiter, François Blanchet, does not like this deal. He said that the NDP is

admitting its own uselessness. He thinks that it won't last. He said it was like putting together two beds to make a double bed. There's some very good lines coming out of this. The conservatives are facing the prospect of being stuck in opposition for nearly a decade here. And interim leader Candace Bergen tweeted last night, God help us all. So tell me more about how the Conservative Party is responding here. For sure. I think you're right to say that the other two opposition parties are not thrilled at the prospect of seeing at least how they would frame it, the minority government they were used to working within the construct of transformed into a majority, in effect, a majority government in certain instances. It takes away, I would say, especially for the bloc, some of their leverage,

right? In some cases, they have been the one to supply the support that the government needs. If the NDP guarantees that support, the bloc loses a lot of its ability to make those negotiations fruitful for themselves, at least at the face of it. I think for the Conservatives, look, I think back to Aaron O'Toole in the last leadership and in the last federal election in which he often talked about an alliance between the NDP and the Liberals. This coalition will mean billions of dollars of new spending to buy just Jagmeet Singh's silence. And the leaders of those parties and people from those parties on the political campaign trail would dismiss that accusation, right? Saying that it was not based in fact. I wonder what he's thinking today. You see the lines emerging from all the leadership candidates as well. They are calling it a coalition. It's not a coalition in that the NDP doesn't have any seat at the

government table. They're not in cabinet. But they are certainly tapping into the idea, I think, among conservatives in this country that there were already these kind of really strong connections and parallels between the NDP and the liberals. And in particular, the liberals, which used to be a very centrist party, have migrated to the left, which is something that conservatives have criticized them for. And I think, you know, that criticism will be amplified, it seems already, by this deal. Yeah. Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Polyev called it a socialist coalition power pact. He also said he he's going to push back on this. We can mobilize the Canadian people to apply pressure on backbench liberals and NDPers.

I think part of this story, which is really interesting, is that it's happening as this leadership race just kind of gets underway. And the ways in which the various candidates are responding to this is, I think, kind of a sneak peek into what the next few months and maybe longer will look like. Polyev is positioning himself as the best fighter within the House, right? Because basically what this boils down to, if in fact the agreement does go as planned and the government stays in power until 2025, you're not running to become prime minister in the near future. If you're running for the conservative leadership, you're running to become the leader of the opposition for the next three years. So Polyev has a seat already. He's positioning himself as the best to fight it within the House. Charest and Patrick Brown, Jean Charest and Patrick Brown, are also responding to it, not necessarily in exactly the same fashion, but certainly saying, hey, this is all the

more reason that our race is really important that we pick the right leader. So I do think that this, even though this is involving the NDP and the liberals, it's going to have some political impact on the race for the Conservative leadership too. 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. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

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I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. You know, we talked about how the liberals are selling this as a path towards more stability, a way to find common ground, to get stuff done. Talk to me more about why a deal like this makes strategic sense for the Liberal Party right now. Well, look, I think there are reasons that the Liberals think it does make strategic sense. I think there are possibilities that the strategy backfires as well. I think from their perspective, Canadians might look at this and say, hey, they're doing some stuff the NDP wants. But in return, they're getting a pretty good, good end of the deal, right? They're getting to stay in power until 2025. I think it also

leads to speculation, though the prime minister dismissed it in his press conference, that perhaps this sets the stage for him to exit as leader of the party, for there to be a liberal leadership race, and then for the person who replaces him to have some time in parliament as leader of the party or as prime minister before having to run in a general election. So I think there's a lot of strategy at play there. But again, it's difficult to determine how Canadians will perceive this. If, in fact, dental care comes through, is that enough to satisfy a lot of voters, let's say, who voted liberal in the federal election, but who live in the 905 and also vote for Doug Ford in the provincial election, maybe consider themselves more centrist? This is not exactly the party they thought that they were voting for or the kind of government maybe that they thought they were voting for. So the liberals will have to convince people who voted for them of that. I don't think it's a given that the strategy ends up working. For the

NDP, I think the strategy is continuing to show voters that they are acting in the interest of them. But even Jagmeet Singh admitted, if this were just an electoral consideration, it probably would have been easier not to do it. So if we're talking about making things easier on the NDP in the next election, even he thinks that this might not be the winning political strategy in as far as that goes, which I think leaves a big kind of open-ended question about the strategy being employed here and to what end it serves the party. The party itself will say, well, the end it serves is helping Canadians. But obviously, there's still politics at play here. Do you think the NDP got enough here? I don't know. I don't know if I'm the one to render the decision on that. I think that's what's going to be really interesting to see. First of all, you know, do the liberals hold up their end of the bargain to the degree the NDP in these negotiations. And I said, like, what was this like at caucus? Right. Because the NDP caucus is not of one mindset. Right. They are like any other caucus,

a variety of viewpoints there. They're not all big supporters of the liberal government. In fact, in many committees that you watch or in question period, they are voraciously holding the government to account. And I said, like, what was it like? Did you put it to a vote? They said, oh, we don't do a vote. We have a big discussion. And they kind of divided the reaction to three camps. One camp of NDP MPs who said this is going to change lives for our constituents. Amazing. The other that was skeptical of whether the liberals would actually do what they say they would. And the third group of NDP MPs who said, I think we should have asked for more. I think we should have got more from the liberals before we signed this. And I think those last two categories are the ones to really watch. And they

are probably reflected in Canadians as well, right? Like, you know, the success of this or whatever the NDP is determined to have, quote unquote, got from this depends on to what degree the Liberals hold up their end of the bargain. And if they don't hold up their end, at what point is the NDP prepared to cut and run? Fashi, what do you think the odds are considering that this is like a pseudo guarantee and that either party could pull their support at any time? What do you think the odds are that we make it to 2025 here? I kind of think I have the tendency to think, and I'm not a pessimist, but the odds are kind of low. That's a really long time. And there's a whole bunch of things that the liberals and the NDP are going to have to agree on in order to perpetuate this agreement, to keep it going.

And I think there were so many questions to Jagmeet Singh today about at what point do you pull the plug if they do A, B, or C? If they increase defense spending if they cut a kind of spending that you like like what what's the marker at which you're going to be like nope i'm out of this and he didn't really have a very specific answer but he did have an analogy that i thought was really instructive he he said it's like a marriage right he's like i'm i'm going into it optimistic but i know know, and I'm paraphrasing, but I know that it might not always work out and I have to be prepared for that. But he's not kind of looking for, he says, like reasons to get out. He's looking towards it as something that

could and hoping for it to work out. I would just point out to continue the analogy, like, isn't it like half of all marriages end in divorce, right? What are the odds now? And they're not in the House of Commons. Marriages are just in a house. So that's why that's kind of informing my level of pessimism there. You know, the other thing I was thinking about and that I wanted to get your thoughts on before we go today, I wonder what you think this will do to divisions in the country. There are a lot of people who don't feel like the Trudeau government represents them. We've seen a lot of that anger on display, especially over the last year or so. And now this deal, which doesn't consult them, I imagine is being seen as something made way above their heads by power brokers in Ottawa, which could remove their chance to vote against Trudeau until 2025. And I got to imagine it'll inflame that anger

all the more. My instinct says that that anger is already really dug in. And yes, that this has the chance, the possibility that this agreement inflames it or amplifies it. But it exists kind of no matter what. I would say on the flip side, the chances of an agreement like this, if it works the way that the leaders are selling it. And by that, I mean, if more low income Canadians have access to dental care or are able to get drugs cheaper, like does the question is, does that then help deflate any of that anger? Again, my instinct is kind of no. I feel like it's really dug in at this point. Whether it exacerbates it, though, I would just be unsure at this point.

Okay. Vashi, thank you so much for this. This is great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jamie. All right, so before we go today, an update on a story we've talked about on this show before. On Tuesday, Canada's Justice Minister announced that former fashion mogul Peter Nygaard would be extradited to the United States after the charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement he's facing here are resolved. Nygaard's been in custody since December 2020 when he was arrested in Winnipeg under the Extradition Act after sex trafficking and racketeering charges were laid in the U.S. For more on the dozens of allegations against Nygaard, listen to the CBC podcast, Evil by Design. All right, that is all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. I'm on vacation for the next week. My colleague, JP Tasker and Jason D'Souza will be hosting some shows. So JP, we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.