National Post (National Edition)
`You cannot fold every single time'
NDP must take more aggressive stance: analysts
OTTAWA • Political strategists say the NDP under Jagmeet Singh risks falling into the role of permanent Liberal prop-up after the party on Wednesday again voted alongside the government to avoid triggering an election.
Singh and 23 other NDP members voted against a Conservative motion on Wednesday that would form a committee to investigate the Liberal government's involvement in the WE Charity scandal, which has embroiled the government and could lead to a third ethics violation by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The motion, which was voted down 180-146 in the House of Commons, became a confidence matter after the Liberal government refused to accept the scope and breadth of the committee's proposed study.
The NDP's decision to vote down the motion was likely met with relief by many Canadians, who according to public opinion polls would have preferred to avoid an election. But for party insiders it also raised broader questions around whether the NDP will remain content to support an increasingly bellicose Liberal government, particularly as it seeks to absorb more left-leaning voters.
“You cannot fold every single time,” said Karl Bélanger, president of consultancy group Traxxion Strategies and former press secretary to Jack Layton. “Today a lot of people would say that the NDP folded. So they cannot let this become a trend.”
The NDP have sided with the Liberals on several key votes during the COVID-19 pandemic, typically in exchange for concessions like added funding for students and unemployed people. But the NDP vote on Wednesday, which did not involve any concessions by the Liberals, will likely make for a tougher sell for Singh and his party, Bélanger said.
“On a day like today, where you are basically cornered into supporting the government to prevent an election that everybody says they don't want, it's more difficult to make the case that you got a win for people.”
The NDP leader sought to frame the Liberals' confidence vote as an “arbitrarily and absurdly” aggressive position that threatened to send the country to the polls amid a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The New Democrats will not give Prime Minister Trudeau the election he's looking for, we're not going to be used as an excuse or a cover,” Singh told reporters ahead of the vote on Wednesday.
The NDP have long played the role of third-party negotiator in Canadian politics. They partnered with Pierre Trudeau's government in the early 1970s, and drew concessions from the Paul Martin government over their 2005 budget.
But those sorts of negotiations can be difficult to translate into material gains come election time, says Kathy Brock, professor at Queen's University.
It's a problem facing Singh after his party lost 15 seats in the last federal election, reducing it to the lowest number of MPs since Jack Layton's first election in 2005.
“Up until now people have seen the NDP as just propping up the government,” Brock said.
She said the Wednesday vote could also be framed by the NDP as a cynical bid to push for a pandemic election by the Liberals, who left little doubt that they would be willing to head to the polls. The party will have to more explicitly distinguish itself from the ruling government as future spending proposals are tabled in the House of Commons.
“The NDP is really going to have to be much more conscientious in Parliament going forward,” Brock said. “And that means putting motions on the table that investigate things that the government is doing and spending, putting forward measures that the government might have to vote down.”
So far the party has instead seemed satisfied with supporting the Liberals in exchange for heftier spending commitments.
The NDP in September struck an agreement with the Liberals to support the government's throne speech in exchange for an expanded paid sick program and a higher monthly benefit for laid-off workers. The agreement reversed plans by the Trudeau government to cut back its main COVID-19 benefit, set to be trimmed from $500 per week down to $400 as a way to incentivize more employees to return to work.
Months earlier, in April, the NDP cut a separate deal to introduce a $1,250 per month benefit to students struggling to find work over the summer months. In exchange, the NDP agreed to a reduced schedule for Parliament that critics said could undermine parliamentary oversight when federal spending was reaching alltime highs.
Some observers said Singh might have been partly driven by the desires of party supporters.
An Abacus survey, released on Wednesday, found that 55 per cent of NDP supporters preferred to avoid an election while 45 per cent would have supported going to the polls.
By comparison only 24 per cent of Conservatives and 36 per cent of Bloc supporters would have preferred avoiding an election.