Toronto Star Referrer

How long will Liberal-NDP pact hold?

Co-operation between federal Liberals and New Democrats has given Canadians some ground-breaking progressive policies over the years, but such parliamentary arrangements have never ended well for the junior partner.

With the House of Commons returning Monday, a key first ministers conference on health care the following week and a subsequent budget by the governing Liberals, we will get an early signal of whether 2023 is an election year in Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his confidence-and-supply agreement with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is working well and no one wants to be “plunged” into an election. But in shrugging off Premier Doug Ford’s expansion of private clinics to ease the backlog for some surgical procedures, he appeared to create an opening for Singh to be something more than the PM’s wing man. The NDP leader is styling himself as the saviour of Canada’s publicly funded health care system.

Canadians are not looking at the politics at play on health care. They are looking for an enduring accord between Ottawa and the provinces which would include a substantive cash infusion to address systemic problems, plus bilateral deals to deal with specific provincial needs, whether it be funding for mental health treatment, seniors care, a lack of family physicians or surgical wait times.

Ottawa will also demand funding be tied to national data collection and sharing so reforms can be tracked to see what is working — and what is not.

To be sure, there is still a gap in the provinces’ demand for $28 billion more per year in health transfers and Ottawa’s contention that the provinces have not fully counted the federal contribution. The Liberals also face spending constraints in a slowing economy.

Trudeau said there will be no deal being signed at the Feb. 7 meeting, but the fact that the meeting is being held, along with conciliatory statements from Ford, Quebec Premier François Legault and other key players, indicates a deal is at hand. For Canadians this will be good news.

But it could leave Singh flailing again. He accused Trudeau and his cabinet of “standing in support of Conservative premiers American-style, for-profit health care schemes.” Singh has already threatened to withdraw from the agreement if Trudeau did not make a substantive investment in health care and this week said any health deal would be a failure if it did not result in the addition of “thousands and thousands” of more doctors and nurses.

The Trudeau-Singh accord has already yielded a national dental care program for low-income Canadians with children under 12 and the next guidepost is a Liberal move on pharmacare in 2023. But when Canadians next go to the polls, the Liberals will be courting support for their dental care program and possibly their pharmacare program.

History has shown if Canadians like a progressive program, they vote for the party which delivered it — not the party that did the prodding.

NDP support of Liberal Lester Pearson minorities in the 1960s led to medicare and the Canada Pension Plan, but no electoral progress for NDP leader Tommy Douglas. Jack Layton won more seats, but his popular vote stagnated after he brought down the Paul Martin minority government in 2005, derailing Martin’s plans for a national daycare program and bringing Stephen Harper to power.

The most egregious example of voters punishing the junior partner came in 1974 after NDP leader David Lewis propped up Pierre Trudeau’s minority government for 19 months, leading to indexed pensions and the creation of Petro Canada. Voters thanked Lewis by giving the elder Trudeau another majority, slicing15 seats from Lewis’s caucus and defeating him in his riding, ending his political career.

If history holds, Singh is in a box. Polls show no growth for the NDP. Only Pierre Poilievre would relish an election this year, trying to hang a recession and inflation on a Liberal leader who has been in power for seven years, even if Trudeau does seem energized for a fight with the Conservative leader.

Singh can’t keep issuing threats to pull his support of the Liberals. The elder Trudeau effectively mocked Lewis for his continued threats and New Democrats know that historically they have paid a price for prolonged support of governing Liberals.

Few would be cheering for a 2023 election. But in the coming weeks, we may find we’re heading in that direction.

INSIGHT

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2023-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://thestarepaper.pressreader.com/article/282432763290783

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