[Trudeau] Today I'm announcing that the Liberal Party has reached an agreement with the New Democratic Party.
[Ibbitson] The biggest thing about the deal
is that it confers predictability on government.
If it holds, and we're not certain that it will hold,
but if it holds it means there won't be an election until 2025.
It means that in essence this Liberal government is now a majority Liberal government.
Of course it's all about what this means for the Liberals but it's also about what it means for the NDP.
Liberals tend to promise things for about 20 years before they deliver them.
I think the first Liberal childcare program was in the 1993 platform.
In some ways they never really delivered on that promise until the childcare
program that they announced last year.
They've also been talking about Pharmacare. Rooting the possibilities of you know, pilot programs for Pharmacare.
They've been talking a bit about dental care,
though it's not really been a huge priority.
What matters now is that driven by the NDP they're going to have to deliver
on these promises and deliver on them now. Something they're prepared to do.
It's also interesting though in what it means for the NDP.
On the one hand that Jagmeet Singh is going to be able to claim
that he has been able to compel the Liberal government to deliver on major NDP priorities.
This is as old a trope as Tommy Douglas pushing Lester Pearson
to come forward with the medicare program back in the 1960s.
But it also ends up making the NDP once again the you know,
the conscience of Parliament but never the governing party in Parliament.
I think that in agreeing to prop up the Liberals in exchange for the Liberals
moving on NDP priorities, Jagmeet Singh has acknowledged that he will never be
Prime Minister of Canada, the NDP will always be the party of opposition,
the conscience of Parliament, but never the actual governing party .
[Singh] This is a starting point. This is our ability to use our power to get results for people.
But we're gonna have to continue to fight for it.
That's why we're going to continue to put pressure to hold this government to account.
[Ibbitson] In someways, Jagmeet Singh's role is much greater than it was in the past.
But in some ways it's less too.
Yes he is now able to compel the Federal government, the Liberal government
to implement part of the NDP agenda, that's his achievement.
That's what Justin Trudeau has agreed to in order to have stability over the
next three-and-a-half years, but he has also diminished his power.
Under the ad-hoc arrangements, the NDP could on any given vote decide to withdraw confidence,
by threatening to vote against it on any confidence motion.
To bring it down. To force an election.
It has surrendered that power
in exchange for having its dental care and Pharmacare agenda implemented.
[Singh] I am hopeful that the deal will be honoured.
But it is true, that at any point in time we are able to withdraw our support.
[Ibbitson] Well of course what we don't know about this pact is whether it will survive until 2025.
Yes the NDP is committed to support the Government on its budgets,
provided those budgets meet NDP priorities which have been laid out.
Especially in the area of health care.
But you know, politics is all about the unforeseen.
If there's anything we know from the last three years it's how much of the unforeseen
arrives and smacks us upside the head.
So you know, what if there's a scandal?
This is the Liberal government they are prone to scandal.
Will the NDP support the government through whatever that scandal might be?
And of course we also don't know how it will affect the Conservative leadership race.
The conservatives are going to have a leader now in place for three years
before being tested by a Federal election.
How will that influence the choice of either Pierre Poilievre or Jean Charest or Patrick Brown as leader?
We don't know that either.
We could also have a new leader.
I'd be surprised if Justin Trudeau fought the next election in 2025.
I predicted before the last election that he was likely
to step down sometime in the course of this term.
I think that's still true. So the next Prime Minister or the next Leader of the Liberal Party,
whether it's Chrystia Freeland or somebody else, might well decide they don't want to wait.
They want to go to the country and get a fresh mandate as a result.
So scandal or a new leader are the two things that could undermine this pact.