Justin Trudeau’s latest catastrophe puts an enormous weight on the shoulders of New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh. It also represents a character-testing challenge and an opportunity — or perhaps we should call it a duty — to perform the sort of service to the country he was elected to provide.
It’s very simple. The NDP leader needs to indicate that the next time a vote of confidence in the government is called, his party will join the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois in withholding its support. That would bring a merciful end to the painful mix of farce and ineptitude that has been on display in Ottawa at a time Canada desperately needs a serious-minded administration to face challenges that are advancing on all sides. While Singh called on Monday for Trudeau to resign, it’s not enough. He has the ability to all but force him out, and should use it.
Singh’s party has been the only leg of a shakey table that’s been propping up the Liberals since they eked out another minority in 2021. The NDP leader has used the grip he holds to squeeze money out of the government for such favoured projects as pharmacare and dental care, both of which provide limited benefits to specific recipient groups at serious cost to a treasury that is already deeply in debt.
Well, good for him, you might say. What else is the NDP for but to get money for social benefits for those who can’t otherwise obtain them?
Fair enough. But Canada’s finances are now so fraught the prime minister has seen his finance minister tender her resignation while publicly castigating him for pursuing “costly political gimmicks which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”
She didn’t have to spell out which gimmicks she meant. Canadians had already figured that out for themselves, making clear that they recognized Trudeau’s last-minute, desperation-driven unveiling of a Christmas tax break and a $250 handout as a political stunt intended to buy votes.
Freeland’s departure leaves Trudeau isolated at the top of a regime in which even his most senior cabinet member no longer has confidence. In addition to her role as finance minister, Freeland served as deputy prime minister, a post bestowed on her by Trudeau at a time he recognized her as his most able lieutenant and a possible successor. Yet so corroded has her trust in him become that she chose to walk away just hours before she was due to deliver an economic update intended to set out the country’s course at a time of immense uncertainty.
Her departure, she said, came after Trudeau chose the Friday before her speech to inform her he no longer wanted her in the job. That inexplicable example of horrific timing came after reports he’d been once-again wooing former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney as her replacement, even though he lacks a seat in the Commons.
No one knows what Carney thinks of this mess, as he wisely evaded invitations to share his thoughts. Could anyone with his background possibly throw themselves willingly into a tire fire like the one spewing toxic fumes across Canada’s benighted capital?
Freeland’s rebuke is easily the most damning to strike a flailing prime minister, but adds to a growing body of humiliating rebuffs. His cabinet has been steadily leaking members as ministers depart in search of more secure employment than a government consistently 15-20 points back in the polls, led by a man the majority of Canadians say they wish would resign. A Radio-Canada count in October identified 24 MPs, including half a dozen ministers, who didn’t plan to seek re-election. Freeland’s resignation came the same day Housing Minister Sean Fraser said he wouldn’t run again, and weeks after an attempted caucus uprising against Trudeau.
So battered is his standing that the incoming president of the United States has taken to openly mocking him, referring to Trudeau as “Governor … of the Great State of Canada.” Billionaire Elon Musk derided him as “an insufferable tool.” Canada’s premiers lectured him over critical remarks on Trump’s victory that Ontario Premier Doug Ford denounced as “not helpful at all.” As it happens, those remarks centred on Americans’ failure to choose a female president, an obvious irony now that the only woman ever to serve as Canada’s finance minister says she can no longer work with him.
The quandary for Singh is whether he should act in the best interests of the country even if it involves risks for his party. Though Liberals claim support from barely a fifth of the electorate, the NDP is slightly lower. An election that sees the decimation of Trudeau’s remaining forces won’t necessarily result in gains for New Democrats.
Then again, it’s hard to predict. Trudeau has moved the government sharply to the left; between them, the Liberals and NDP share about 40 per cent of voter support. It’s possible a significant number of “progressives” who can’t bring themselves to back Trudeau again could opt for New Democrats instead, potentially returning the party to the Official Opposition status it held before 2015.
The last time the Liberals were ejected from office it took almost a decade to regroup and retool themselves, and in that instance they suffered far less of a pasting than they currently appear headed for. A decade or more as official opposition could do much to establish New Democrats as something other than perennial third-place also-rans.
There’s also the fact that Canadian voters very clearly want a chance to pass judgement on this government. They don’t want to wait 10 more months until Trudeau has no choice but to call a vote. They certainly don’t want to be forced to endure another winter, spring and summer of disarray as the prime minister desperately clings to office with the help of a small, cynical coterie of unelected advisors.
Canada needs a government that isn’t in the process of chewing off its own leg. Jagmeet Singh has the ability to offer that opportunity. A failure to act is the sort of thing restless voters might remember.
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