Every Wednesday, our parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa Marie Vastel analyzes a federal political issue to help you better understand it.
Rumors of a “formal deal” between Liberals and NDP to ensure the survival of Justin Trudeau’s minority government for some time ignited Parliament Hill as quickly as they were denied by key stakeholders. But those of a privileged desire for collaboration between the two formations remain valid. And if this scenario materializes, it is the Bloc Québécois – and to a certain extent Quebec – which could lose.
On both sides, the teams of Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh denied this week any preparation for an official alliance that would allow the Liberals to stay in power for two or three years and the New Democrats to obtain, in exchange for their support, that the minority government move forward on certain issues that are dear to them.
The two camps are simply discussing each other’s priorities in order to collaborate in parliament, they alternately insisted. Nothing more than the usual minority government talks, they argued.
“We are talking with all parties to make sure this Parliament works,” Government House Leader Mark Holland pleaded Monday.
“There is no question of coalition at all,” ruled the leader of the NDP on Tuesday. “But we are open to finding ways to force this government to honor its commitments to the people,” Jagmeet Singh has repeatedly proposed, by way of a thinly veiled outstretched hand to the Liberals. “The ball is in their court. “
And for good reason, these conversations seem to be held mainly between the Liberal Party and the NDP.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet confirmed last week that his team had no such exchanges with the Liberals. The Bloc Québécois says it is ready to support the Trudeau government’s piecemeal initiatives, as it has been doing for two years. However, this support will often have been circumstantial, the Bloc members having supported various government assistance measures during the pandemic.
” The door is open “
Justin Trudeau’s party appears to be betting more on aid from the NDP this time around, whose campaign promises and values are much closer to those of the Liberals. Behind the scenes, they also admit talking a little more with the New Democrats, who have been suggesting for a week that they are quite prepared to be this partner for the Liberals. “The door is open,” Jagmeet Singh bluntly announced at a press briefing Tuesday.
However, if the Liberal Party and the NDP came to an informal alliance, the leverage the Bloc Québécois had until now to defend the concerns of Quebec and the National Assembly in Ottawa would be reduced.
Mr. Blanchet argued last week that he could make gains for Quebec both by negotiating with the minority government on a daily basis and by exposing, if the latter ignores it, the misdeeds of federalism.
The fact remains that its negotiating power in the face of a Liberal government benefiting from the support of the NDP would suffer, predict observers in Quebec.
In Quebec, François Legault, who said he feared the centralizing aims of the PLC and the NDP during the last election campaign, would also have nothing to be reassured about.
Jagmeet Singh is as keen as Justin Trudeau to see the emergence of national health standards in Canada. He wants the Liberals to implement the pan-Canadian drug plan promised in 2019. And both parties have made important housing promises.
The Conservatives, for their part, are trying to get out of the game by demonizing now any possible agreement between their two federalist rivals. “A radical liberal-NDP coalition” would spend “thousands of dollars in new spending” with the sole objective of “buying the silence of Jagmeet Singh”, laughed Erin O’Toole, trying at the same time to briefly forget his difficulties to manage certain members of his caucus and their outings against vaccination.
It is no wonder that Justin Trudeau’s government is seeking an agreement with the NDP rather than the Conservative Party to govern. Mr. O’Toole himself has not been able to substantiate certain priorities that he would be prepared to advance in concert with the Liberals.
But for the Liberals and the New Democrats to ally in the short or medium term would not bode well for Quebec and even less for the Bloc Quebecois, which would nevertheless have many divisions between Quebec and the government of Justin Trudeau to expose. Divisions which are also likely to multiply, one year before the provincial elections.