Every Wednesday, our parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa Marie Vastel analyzes a federal political issue to help you better understand it.
The balancing act that the New Democratic Party (NDP) imposed on itself by signing its agreement with the government of Justin Trudeau has been exposed in broad daylight in recent weeks. Because in just two months, this same government has made a series of decisions in complete contradiction to the environmental convictions of the NDP. This is just a glimpse of the tensions that could multiply — and lead some New Democrats to find the time to force to support a government they criticize in vain while keeping it in office.
The historic pact concluded between the two parties was unveiled on March 22. The NDP would support the Liberal government until 2025, if the latter respects a series of objectives (more or less specific) in terms of health, reconciliation with the Aboriginal peoples and the fight against climate change, among others. However, on this last point, the government supported the Bay du Nord oil extraction project two weeks later. Then, on May 11, he revealed that he had granted a $10 billion loan guarantee to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
None of this violates the agreement between the NDP and the Liberals. Its text specified a few deadlines – few for 2022 – but remained quite vague for the rest. Thus, it is expected, in terms of the environment, that the government must “progress in taking measures aimed at considerably reducing emissions [de GES] and “develop a plan to phase out public funding of the fossil fuel sector” by taking “swift action in 2022.”
New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh and his MPs lament that the approval of a new oil project and the creation of a carbon capture and storage investment tax credit (in the budget) inconsistent with the stated objectives. But the latter not being further defined, the government has good reason to maintain that it is still working as hard on an energy transition and on achieving a carbon-neutral Canada by 2050.
The risks of New Democrat disappointments may not end there. The agreement promises a pan-Canadian dental care program, funded in Budget 2022, that would cover care for children under 12 starting this year.
But already, the majority of the provinces and territories surveyed by The duty oppose it. Six repeated that before discussing any new program, they would demand the increase in federal health transfers that had been demanded for years: Quebec, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Nunavut. Only New Brunswick, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories were open to discussing without recalling the request for transfers.
If the NDP believes that the federal program could simply bypass the provinces, the model favored by the government has not yet been decided.
The future of a Canadian drug insurance plan, which is also included in the agreement, is not assured either. Seven provinces opposed it, for the same reasons, after Justin Trudeau made the promise in 2019.
The low number of specific targets gives the New Democrats leeway to continue supporting the government, if they are disappointed but do not want to overthrow it and go to an election right away. However, the NDP also has its hands tied, having to content itself with deploring the gestures that it does not like when they are not included in the agreement.
An expected but real risk
The New Democrats repeat that they always knew that they would have to juggle between supporting the government and criticizing it, but that the agreement delivers the results hoped for now. “It’s a balancing act that isn’t necessarily obvious. And we are very aware of it, ”consents the deputy leader of the party, Alexandre Boulerice.
“I didn’t expect the Liberals to become New Democrats overnight,” said NDP National Director Anne McGrath, who helped negotiate the deal. “I expected that we would also have to continue to push them on other issues. »
That is indeed what the New Democrats are doing in the Commons. They took advantage of their opposition day, Tuesday, to demand once again the end of subsidies to the oil and gas industries by the end of the year. Nearly a third of their speeches during question period have also dealt with the environment (111 out of 357 since the election).
On Twitter, Jagmeet Singh and Alexandre Boulérice themselves denounced the recent controversial decisions of the Trudeau government. But the reproaches stop there: in front of the few viewers of the work in the Commons or the Twitter followers of the NPD.
Alexandre Boulerice agrees that activists, even some elected officials, could get tired of seeing their party support a government with which they deeply disagree on a fundamental issue such as the environment. This risk had been mentioned to the caucus before it supported the agreement.
“When you are the third opposition party and you have only 25 deputies, either you are relevant or you are not”, raises however Mr. Boulerice. “There, we proved that we were relevant. And the risk incurred was positive in this sense. »
However, it is not zero, nuance the former NDP strategist Karl Bélanger. “The NDP must decide the size of the snake it is ready to swallow,” he illustrates. There is a real danger of paying a political price for keeping in office a government with which the population and the base of one’s own party do not agree “because one sacrifices these kinds of things on the altar of the agreement”. And a risk of internal discontent.
The next year and a half will show whether the NDP remains satisfied or tired. Mr. Boulerice recalls that a minority government only survives an average of 20 months. “No one is going to cry foul if in two years, two and a half years, we say that is enough. You’ll have to have a good reason, though. »
Even if, officially, the authorities of the NDP persist in saying that their agreement will offer concrete gains to citizens, some could already be contemplating the idea of shortening the time they will have to spend chomping at the bit.