Why Jagmeet Singh's NDP stopped being Trudeau's BFF

UPDATED: Sep 5, 2024 16:56 IST

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received a jolt on Thursday as the New Democratic Party (NDP) withdrew its support from his minority government. The Jagmeet Singh-led NDP said it was doing so because of Trudeau not delivering on his promises. However, the real reason is nothing but realpolitik. With an election in Canada to be held within a year, the NDP might have played its best hand by moving away from the Liberal Party of Canada.

In 2021, Trudeau and his Liberals were voted back to power for a third consecutive term. However, they just got 154 of the 338 seats in Parliament, short of the 169 halfway mark.

The Leftist NDP, led by Jagmeet Singh, turned out to be Trudeau's BFF. With its 24 MPs, it got into a 'confidence-and-supply agreement' and lent support to Trudeau's government against any vote of no-confidence.

"The deal is done," Jagmeet Singh posted on Thursday.

The NDP has recently been attacking Trudeau's government, especially over its "failure to deal with high prices at grocery stores".

The Leftist Jagmeet Singh hinted that in his post, "Justin Trudeau has proven again, and again he will always cave to corporate greed," he said in a video on X.

The NDP-Liberal agreement was supposed to survive till June 2025. The election for Canada's parliament is slated for October 2025.

The NDP's withdrawal of support doesn't mean an immediate election, but raises the question as to why Jagmeet Singh actually ditched Trudeau.

The NDP-Liberal pact would have ended in June and the polls held in October, leaving a four-month cool-off period for the two parties.

WHY TRUDEAU, LIBERALS HAVE BECOME UNPOPULAR

Though that wouldn't have mattered to Trudeau's Liberal Party, an early disassociation might have been in the best interest of Jagmeet Singh's NDP.

Trudeau's government has increasingly become unpopular among Canadians over its policies, including on immigration. Canada's economy is in the doldrums, and Canadians are seeing high unemployment rates and a severe crunch in housing units, both blamed on record-high immigration.

In June, the Conservatives dealt a stunning blow to Trudeau by winning the Liberal stronghold of Toronto-St Paul in a federal bye-election.

An Abacus survey that month showed that Trudeau's Liberals were 20 points behind the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre. The poll also showed that 59% of the respondents had a negative view of Trudeau.

WHY THE RUSH TO DISASSOCIATE FROM LIBERALS, TRUDEAU?

Jagmeet Singh's rush to disassociate his party from Trudeau's is most likely to avoid this contagion of unpopularity.

"An election in mid-2025 would give the NDP enough time to distance itself from its partnership with the unpopular Liberal government," Lori Turnbull, a professor of political science at Dalhousie University, told Canada's CBC.

Turnbull also said that it would give the NDP enough time to "raise the money and resources to mount an effective election campaign focused on keeping the Conservatives out of power".

The NDP needed to reestablish its full independence well before the election, Fred Cutler, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, told Reuters.

"At least some voters will say, 'Oh, yeah ... the NDP are not just in the Liberals' back pocket, they're competing against the Liberals in the election,'" Cutler said.

JAGMEET SINGH PITCHED NDP AS CHALLENGER TO CONSERVATIVES

That Jagmeet Singh is trying to disassociate his party from the Liberals, and trying to project the NDP as the power capable of stopping the Conservatives is revealed in his post on the NDP-Liberal divorce.

"The Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to stop the Conservatives and their plans to cut. But the NDP can," Singh said.

Jagmeet Singh has bought time for his party to try and shed association with the Liberals, but has put Justin Trudeau's government on a knife's edge. The Conservatives are gaining momentum. Will Singh's ploy give any boost to the NDP? We will have to wait till the next election, which may or might not be a wait till October 2025.