Government House Leader Karina Gould said Tuesday she’s confident the NDP supply-and-confidence agreement that keeps the Liberal government in power will hold until its expected end date in June 2025.
That agreement, first signed in March 2022, allows the government to carry on without fear of falling on a confidence vote. If the two parties abide by the deal, there would be no federal election until next summer at the earliest.
Canada’s fixed-date election law dictates that a vote will happen in October of next year — but the prime minister could call one earlier than that if he wanted.
“I’m fairly confident that agreement is a good agreement, it’s a strong agreement and we’ll get to the end of June,” Gould told reporters at the cabinet retreat in Halifax, where ministers have gathered to craft their strategy for the year ahead.
“We signed the agreement until the end of June — that’s something that has been signed and agreed to, so I’m going to be working on that premise,” she said.
Peter Julian, the NDP House leader, was less definitive about the deal’s future.
“Leaving the agreement is always on the table for Jagmeet Singh and the NDP,” Julian said in a statement to CBC News.
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals continue to trail in the polls, members of his cabinet were asked if they draw any lessons from the U.S. presidential race and the change in the Democratic Party’s candidate. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says the cabinet has ‘tremendous confidence’ in Trudeau, and Immigration Minister Marc Miller says ‘the prime minister is doing a great job in making sure he’s reflecting what Canadians are saying.’
Gould’s confidence that the agreement will be in place until June comes even after Singh expressed his frustration with how the government handled the railway workers’ dispute last week.
After a day-long work stoppage, the Liberal government stepped in to force the Teamsters union and CN and CPKC to resolve their issues through binding arbitration with the help of a mediator.
Singh laments ‘anti-worker precedent’
The union — with NDP backing — wanted to work out its differences with those railways at the bargaining table, saying the government was infringing on their Charter-protected right to collective bargaining. The Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) sided with the Liberals.
Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said allowing a work stoppage at both of Canada’s railways to go on would cripple the economy. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said letting the railways go dark for longer would have been a “self-inflicted wound.”
But Singh said the government should have taken a hands-off approach.
“By setting that anti-worker precedent again and again, Justin Trudeau sent a clear message to CEOs: he’ll reward big corporations when they refuse to negotiate in good faith by serving up their workers on a silver platter,” Singh said.
“Canada has a government that caves to corporate greed. The result is labour disruptions, and workers struggling to get fair pay and safe working conditions. It’s backwards, and it hurts everyone but the billionaires at the top,” he said.
Before signing the supply-and-confidence agreement, the NDP extracted some policy commitments in exchange for supporting the Liberals.
The government has pushed ahead with an expansion of the social safety net through new pharmacare and dental programs.
It has also enacted “anti-scab” legislation that bans replacement workers.
“Every positive step taken under this agreement has been achieved through the NDP forcing the Liberals to do these measures for people. We will continue to push for supports for Canadians,” said Julian.
What’s left to do is table some sort of “safe long-term care act,” which the agreement stipulates must guarantee seniors “the care they deserve, no matter where they live.”
The NDP have also demanded the Liberals explore some electoral reforms, including an expansion of “election day” to three days of voting, allowing people to vote at any polling place in their riding and improve the mail-in ballot process, among other changes.
Gould said there are still “some things that are left to move forward on and of course we’re going to keep pushing in that direction.”