Don Newman

March 25, 2022

The agreement between the Trudeau government and the New Democrats in the House of Commons to keep the minority Liberals in office until June of 2025 changes both the dynamic and some policy options facing Canada in the next three years.

It takes 170 seats in the 338-seat House to have a clear majority. The Liberals are 11 short with 159. But with 25 from the NDP, the combined total of 184 gives the two parties together comfortable control in the House of Commons.

The dynamic — in the House specifically and federal politics in general — is changed by the Liberals no longer having to worry about facing defeat and a subsequent election that could be triggered any time it faces a confidence vote. At a minimum, votes on budgets and throne speeches are matters of confidence that could defeat a government. But beyond that, on any “opposition day” — when a party other than the government decides what the House will debate — a motion that the government no longer has the “confidence” of the House can be proposed and voted on.

The Liberals would have been in particular danger of facing that prospect after the Conservatives pick a new leader next September. If the governing Liberals were down in the public opinion polls, the Conservatives might have moved a non-confidence and the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrats might have been persuaded to join in. That would have defeated the government. Now, with the NDP-Liberal agreement, that can’t happen. And nor can it happen on any of the next four budgets between now and 2025.

In return, the government has agreed to speed up work introducing both a public insurance dental plan and a similar plan to pay for prescription drugs. The Liberals had already said they favoured both ideas, but now they will have to move faster, and more money will have to be committed sooner to get them underway. Added to the spending from combatting COVID-19, promises from the last election campaign and recent commitments to increase defence spending, something will have to give. Nevertheless less, the prospect of larger federal deficits seems inevitable.

But the agreement does something else. It will alter the way politics plays over the next three years. Justin Trudeau is now guaranteed that  he will remain as prime minister, should he choose to, until at least  mid-2025. That would give him an even decade running the country. That is not a record, but it puts him in the same company as Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper.

Trudeau says he plans to run in the election that will now be held in September 2025. Of course, to remain in control of his party and Parliament he has to say that. But most observers assume he will step down. Still, by staying until 2025, he changes the dynamic of the contest to succeed him.

Until now, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has been regarded as his most likely successor. But by 2025, she will have been deputy prime minister and Finance minister for six years. And if Trudeau were to move her to another job, that would be seen as a demotion. Freeland will be 57 in 2025, in Parliament for a decade and possibly weighing either a move up or one back to her very successful career as a business journalist or, given her executive experience, a CEO. Now, with another three years of runway, there is an opportunity for a number of ambitious, lesser known Liberals to spread their wings and become leadership contenders, while Freeland could be seen as part of the ancien regime.

And what of the other parties? The announcement of the Liberal – NDP agreement comes just as the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party is heating up. Part of the excitement of the Conservative race was the possibility that the winner could be the next prime minister, and that there could be an election if the Liberal minority government were defeated in the House on a budget vote in 2023.

That possibility would have factored into the party’s choice for leader. Somebody like Jean Charest — ready to be prime minister now — has the benefit of experience to do the job. But now that the election won’t be held for three Septembers, in 2025, a younger candidate with time to grow into the job might be a better choice.

And what of the junior partner in this deal? Junior partners often do badly in power-sharing arrangements. Not everyone in the New Democrats thinks this is a wise arrangement for the party to be in. Jagmeet Singh has risked everything on this agreement, arguing that NDP policies like the drug and dental care insurance plans will be at least partially enacted and the party will get the credit. He has to hope that is the case, or the party could decide that after three years of co-operating with the Liberals, to differentiate the NDP the party needs a new face to lead it into the next election.

So, while the agreement guarantees the survival of the Liberal government until the next election, it raises the question of survival for a lot of politicians.

Contributing Writer and columnist Don Newman, an Officer of the Order of Canada and Lifetime Member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, and is Executive Vice President of Rubicon Strategy, based in Ottawa.