The big news out of Ottawa this week is that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has announced that the NDP will end the confidence and supply agreement that they first signed with the Trudeau Liberal government back in March of 2022.

The obvious question is what does this mean and by extension will Canadians see a federal election as a result?

It is important to recognize that after the 2019 federal election where the Trudeau Liberals failed to earn a majority government, there was no confidence and supply agreement with the NDP for the entire 43rd Parliament. Despite the lack of an agreement between the Liberals and the NDP the 43rd Parliament did not collapse because of the NDP voting against the Trudeau Liberals on a confidence matter.

The 43rd Parliament only collapsed when Prime Minister Trudeau called an unnecessary and expensive pandemic election hoping to politically capitalize on the pandemic to turn his minority government into a majority. When Prime Minister Trudeau failed to earn a majority government in the November 2021 election, eventually the Liberals and NDP would announce the confidence and supply agreement in March of 2022.

Ironically, this week's announcement from the leader of the NDP comes less than one week after Conservative official opposition leader Pierre Poilievre’s open letter to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, calling on him to pull out of the party’s confidence-and-supply agreement with the Liberals.

The Conservative Official Opposition Leader also stated that “Canadians cannot afford another painful, costly, chaotic and corrupt year of Justin Trudeau,” while calling on the NDP and Bloc Québécois to vote non-confidence in the minority government when Parliament resumes next month. For the Trudeau Liberals, who were quoted last week in national media as being “confident deal with NDP to keep them in power will hold until June” this news likely arrived as a bombshell.

From my perspective, considering the 43rd Parliament did not collapse due to the lack of an agreement between the Liberals and NDP, I believe it is unlikely that the lack of an agreement will result in the end of this current 44th Parliament. The NDP can, and I suspect likely will, continue to vote with the Trudeau Liberal government on matters of confidence not unlike what was done in the previous Parliament.

In my view, the Leader of the NDP is responding to criticism from what has been his current NDP strategy of bitterly condemning and complaining about things the Trudeau Liberals do outside of the House of Commons that the NDP fully supports when inside the House of Commons. Going forward, the Leader of the NDP can continue to condemn and criticize the actions of the Trudeau Liberal government without having to face criticism for voting in support of these actions as part of the confidence and supply agreement.

My questions for you this week: Do you believe the Leader of the NDP did the right thing in terminating the NDP agreement with the Trudeau Liberal government? Why or why not?

I can be reached at [email protected] or call toll-free 1-800-665-8711.