Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) has ended a two-and-a-half-year-old agreement with Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, which had helped sustain his minority administration.
In a social media video on Wednesday, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announced that he had informed the prime minister of his decision, criticizing the Liberals as “too weak, too selfish” to advocate effectively for Canadians.
The agreement, known as a “supply and confidence” deal, involved the NDP supporting the Liberals in confidence votes. While the end of this arrangement does not immediately mean a federal election is imminent, it could lead to an early election before the scheduled date of October 2025.
Mr. Singh stated that a non-confidence vote could be “on the table” with any confidence measure. Losing such a vote could trigger a general election.
“The NDP is ready for an election,” Mr. Singh declared.
The agreement, reached in March 2022, had the Liberals committing to support several key NDP priorities in exchange for the NDP’s backing in confidence votes. This deal was not a coalition, where parties share power, but rather an arrangement allowing the minority Liberals to govern with the assurance of NDP support.
In return, the NDP achieved progress on several priorities, including dental benefits for lower-income families and a national pharmacare program covering birth control and insulin. This was the first formal agreement of its kind at the federal level.
Until this spring, Mr. Singh and senior NDP members had remained publicly supportive of the deal.
But NDP’s leadership reportedly began to re-evaluate the agreement last month, after Mr Trudeau’s cabinet directed its industrial relations board to impose binding arbitration after Canada’s two largest railways began a work stoppage.
Announcing he was tearing up the deal, Mr. Singh said the Liberals had “let people down” and didn’t “deserve another chance from Canadians”.
Mr. Trudeau, speaking at an event in Newfoundland, told reporters he was confident he could make parliament work and would focus on “delivering for Canadians”.
“I’ll let others focus on politics,” he said, adding he hoped the next election would not happen “until next fall” so that his government has time to move forward on its agenda.
In recent years, Canadian voters have shown increasing frustration with issues like rising inflation and a housing affordability crisis.
That has been reflected in the polls, where the Liberals have been down for months, with national opinion surveys suggesting the party is lagging about 18 points behind the opposition Conservatives.
On Wednesday, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre criticized Mr. Singh for not committing to a non-confidence vote, dismissing the announcement as a “stunt”.
Last week, he penned an open letter urging Mr Singh to abandon his agreement with the Liberals.
“No one voted for you to keep Trudeau in power. You do not have a mandate to drag out his government another year,” Mr Poilievre wrote.
Mr Trudeau has been in power since 2015, with the Liberals winning re-election – albeit with a minority – in 2019 and 2021.
