End of year interview | Jagmeet Singh, the eternal optimist

Don’t tell Jagmeet Singh that he supports the government, he will tell you that he rather forces it to implement programs that the Liberals would not have implemented otherwise. The fall was fruitful for the New Democratic leader and his team, but will their pact survive until 2025?

(Ottawa) “We followed the tradition of the New Democratic Party where each time, in the past, when we had an opportunity to have power, we used it to make gains for the people,” explains Jagmeet Singh in an interview, a week after the birth of her second daughter.

“That’s what Tommy Douglas did with health care,” he adds.

While premier of Saskatchewan, Tommy Douglas established the universal health insurance plan that would later be adopted nationally. He then entered the federal scene as leader of the New Democratic Party after its founding in 1961.

Mr. Singh, who became the eighth leader of the political party in 2017, cites some gains as examples. The anti-scab bill introduced in November, which aims to ban the use of replacement workers in industries regulated by the federal government, and the dental insurance program which will affect 9 million Canadians.

The announcement of this program took place at the start of the last week of parliamentary work before the holiday break. Two days later, Ministers Patty Hajdu and Sean Fraser, along with a handful of New Democratic MPs, announced the creation of a national center for and by Aboriginal people, responsible for distributing $4 billion for off-reserve housing projects. This was one of the 24 priorities of the agreement between the Liberals and the New Democrats.

The agreement holds, for now

Six months after the last federal election, the two parties announced that they had reached a confidence and support agreement to allow Justin Trudeau’s minority government to govern as if it held a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

We saw them hand in hand during joint announcements during the fall. Does Jagmeet Singh not fear that his orange party will become tinged with red?

Even though they were able to achieve several major points of their agreement with the Liberals, the New Democrats were unable to find common ground with the government on the implementation of a universal drug insurance plan. . Their agreement specifies that a bill was to be adopted “by the end of 2023”. It was never filed.

However, it is the second point on their list after the dental care program and the New Democratic activists are keen on it. At the last NDP convention in October, they sent a strong message to their leader. Either the government agrees to create universal, comprehensive and entirely public drug insurance, or they tear up the agreement with the Liberals.

The deadline for introducing a bill was recently extended to 1^er March, which leaves doubt about the sustainability of the agreement. If New Democrats are dissatisfied with what the Liberals are proposing, they can always withdraw their confidence in the government by voting against the next budget.

The program could be implemented in stages like that for dental care.

Health Minister Mark Holland has repeatedly said the government must respect its fiscal situation. The annual cost of such a program would amount to 13.4 billion after five years, and the savings it would generate would reach 2.2 billion, according to the parliamentary budget officer. The program would make it possible to obtain a better price for drugs.

The advisory council chaired by former Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins – Liberal – noted in its report in 2019 that prices in Canada are among “the highest in the world”. He then recommended the creation of a universal, single-payer public drug insurance plan.

Subsidies to stop and support to collect

“There are also other expenses that we must stop,” argues Mr. Singh. I have said in the past that we must stop spending billions of dollars on oil companies that are making record profits and continue to receive subsidies from the federal government. »

“The hundreds of millions of dollars for consultants is another element that we can stop. »

Despite its victories, the NDP enjoys the same level of support in polls across the country as they fluctuate for the Conservatives and Liberals.

“The results are there and we are going to present them to people and also present their options,” says the New Democratic leader. “They can continue to support the liberals who are out of touch or the conservatives who want to cut all the programs that people need. »

Jagmeet Singh is aware that he “chose a more difficult path” by becoming leader of the NDP, a party which has never formed a government on the federal scene, but he is also someone who tends to see the glass half full.