First, let’s establish what this agreement between the Liberals and the NDP is not: it is not a merger, even informal, of the two parties. This is not a coalition, there will be no NDP ministers. And the Conservatives may rip their shirts off, but there is nothing in this agreement that is contrary to our parliamentary traditions.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
It is an agreement not to bring down the Liberal government in a vote of confidence in Parliament for the next four years. An agreement that can be terminated by one of the parties if it considers that the other is not keeping its end of the bargain.
In exchange, the NDP sees two of its priorities being adopted by the Liberals, namely a national dental care program and a drug insurance program. Two things that are not anathema to Liberals and so important to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh that he was willing to take a big risk.
And for the NDP, it’s a very risky bet. Historically, NDP rapprochements with the Liberals have almost always gone awry for the smaller of the two partners.
The most obvious example was an informal agreement, but which somewhat resembled the one just concluded in 1972 between the NDP of David Lewis and the Liberals of Trudeau Sr. for his government to remain in office after an election which had put him in the minority and where he had a priority of only two seats over the Conservatives. In short, he could have been knocked down almost any time.
The NDP withdrew its support for the Liberals after the 1974 budget speech. In the election that followed, the Liberals were re-elected with a majority and the NDP caucus was decimated, dropping from 31 seats to 16, leader David Lewis himself being defeated in his constituency.
It will take almost a decade for the NDP, with its new leader Ed Broadbent, to find a caucus of around 30 MPs.
The relationship between the two parties has always been a love-hate relationship. As the late Jack Layton liked to say, “on the campaign trail, Liberals flash to the left, but once in power, they turn to the right”.
Joe Clark, when he was Conservative leader, said: “During the election campaign, the NDP announces that the Liberals and the Conservatives both have the plague. Then the NDP moved in with the reds…”
That said, it is true that the two parties are in sync. Especially since it is obvious that, under Justin Trudeau, the Liberals have truly veered to the left. Thus, a national child care program, such as the one the government is building, could easily have ended up in the NDP’s program.
For now, the agreement between the two parties mainly gives them time. For the Liberals, time to put in place the ambitious promises of the last election campaign and for Mr. Trudeau to reflect on his future.
Although the Prime Minister warned his colleagues recently that he intended to be there for the next election, he would be the first to be re-elected for a fourth term since Sir Wilfrid Laurier at the beginning of the last century.
The agreement with the NDP gives him time either to plan a transition or to prepare for a possible final election campaign.
For the NDP, this gives time to see ahead. The party is never very rich and never as well organized as it would like, and a rushed election could be very problematic. The organization in Quebec is in tatters and there is nothing left of the orange wave of 2011. And in several provinces, things are not much better. The NDP is the party that has the most advantage in seeing the government’s current mandate go as far as possible.
For the Conservatives, this is pretty bad news. With a new leader who would have entered the Commons in September, the temptation would have been great to try to overthrow the government and go on the campaign trail with the advantage of novelty.
Instead, its leader will have to spend a lot of time wondering how to “win the day” during question period, the obligatory passage of parliamentary life that rarely turns out to the advantage of the leader of the opposition.
But the real danger of this deal is for the NDP and its longer-term future. Why would the traditional voters of this party still vote for a party that has practically no chance of taking power, when they can support the party that has the means to carry out its program?
This is a question that could quickly come to haunt Mr. Singh and his party.