Idlout silent as Singh pulls plug on deal with Liberals

Nunavut New Democrat Lori Idlout declined to comment Wednesday after her party’s leader ended a deal that has kept Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in power for more than two years.

“Today, I notified the Prime Minister I have ripped up the supply-and-confidence agreement,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in a campaign-style social media post Wednesday.

The announcement puts an end to the more than two-year partnership between the Liberals and NDP that supported Trudeau’s minority government that was elected in September 2021.

The supply-and-confidence agreement, enacted in March 2022, was the NDP’s commitment not to oppose the Liberals on key votes that could have toppled the government, in return for a promise by the Liberals to include NDP priority programs in their legislative agenda.

In the video posted to social media, Singh disparaged the Liberals’ record, calling them “too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests.”

He also attacked the federal Conservatives, stating the threat of party leader Pierre Poilievre becoming prime minister and Conservative spending cuts will harm average Canadians while “giving more to big corporations and wealthy CEOs.”

With the end of the supply-and-confidence agreement, the possibility of an election being called earlier than the legally mandated date of Oct. 20, 2025 has suddenly become much more likely.

Less than an hour after Singh’s announcement, Trudeau answered reporters’ questions during a news conference originally organized to announce the rollout of a new school lunch program in western Newfoundland and Labrador.

Trudeau was asked whether the next Parliament session, which starts Sept. 16, will be a regular legislative session or if he would consider calling an early election.

“I’m not focused on politics, I’ll let other parties focus on politics. I’m focused on actually delivering the things that Canadians told me this summer they need,” he said.

School lunches, the environment and affordable housing programs are the types of issues the Liberals are focused on, he said.

He said he hopes the NDP will focus on the programs it has worked on with the Liberals, including the expansion of pharmacare, dental care, school food programs, and $10-a-day daycare.

Citing news earlier in the day in which the Bank of Canada announced a further reduction in the prime interest rate, Trudeau said: “We have the strongest fiscal position of any country in the G7 right now.

“These are things that Canadians care about and need, these are the things this government continues to focus on.”

Poilievre was at a rally in Nanaimo, B.C, on Wednesday to promote his Axe-the-Tax agenda. Reporters repeatedly asked Poilievre when he would push for a non-confidence vote, possibly forcing an election.

Rather than answering directly, he avoided the question and instead put the onus on the NDP.

“[Singh] refuses to commit to a carbon tax election,” Poilievre said, calling on Singh to commit to forcing an immediate early election.

Contacted for comment by Nunatsiaq News on Wednesday, a representative for Nunavut NDP MP Idlout said she was not available but would speak on Thursday.

Neither Bob Zimmer, the British Columbia MP who serves as the Conservatives’ Northern Affairs critic, nor Nunavik’s federal representative, Bloc Québecois MP Sylvia Bérubé of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, responded Wednesday to requests for comment.