The view from Pete

To frame in the discussion, understand that we’re in the late stages of a unusually long minority government under the Federal Liberals’ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Justin has been the PM since 2015 when his party was elected to a landslide win over Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party – on a list of progressive pledges of which included electoral reform. A promise broken, by the way; and a problem that seemingly might haunt the Federal Liberals…and was entirely preventable. But more about that later.

We’re at a state of political discourse where the federal liberals are hated by almost everyone outside their own support pool. Even then, their support has been cut in half; and of those left, many are lukewarm about the leadership of Justin Trudeau.

Worse yet, several federal Liberal Cabinet ministers have quit the big table, some MP’s of his party have openly called for him to resign leadership too.

The calls are coming from inside their house.

The federal Liberal minority government is held in place as a result of a confidence and supply agreement (“CASA”) with the federal NDP. The NDP have a reputation of using their electoral and parliamentary clout to bargain for improvements to laws and/or regulations; formally or informally.

The federal Liberals had little choice but to make an offer to the NDP after the last two elections which saw their party reduced to minority status. They offered to pass legislation (which the NDP campaigned on and the Liberals opposed) in order to remain in power.

Whether you (the reader) agrees or disagrees with this arrangement, that’s not relevant. Its what legislators are supposed to do. I would argue that its a uniquely Canadian thing to do; to reach across partisan boundaries to achieve results for the benefit of the country.

It doesn’t mean that it plays out according to plan. The opponents to such arrangements in the Conservatives and their allies were frothing mad each time; feeling that they were entitled to power. But they would have been in a minority spot too – and would have to seek out their own CASA deal with a smaller party.

So now that we have core of this understood, we’re living in a timeline where the federal liberal government is seen as a stale government, seen as corrupt and inept. That might be due to effective marketing by their opponents, but just about every pollster is measuring this too.

2025 is an election year. Its scheduled to happen because of our election laws require fixed election dates unless prematurely triggered by a non-confidence action in parliament…and really, the election law can’t undermine the constitution. If the Prime Minister asks the Governor General to dissolve the house and sign writs of election, then the law takes a backseat here.

As the junior partner in the CASA deal, it only takes the NDP to oust the government in a confidence vote.

That vote is coming in the new year.

Justin Trudeau failed in the biggest job a Prime Minister has: to work for people, not the powerful.

The NDP will vote to bring this government down, and give Canadians a chance to vote for a government who will work for them. pic.twitter.com/uqklF6RrUX

— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) December 20, 2024

So be it.

An election is coming. It was coming anyways, after this news item, its coming a little earlier than the law requires.

Of course voters will decide these things. They always do. Elections matter. But in this discourse, liberal partisans are trotting out their worst behaviour, and preemptively blaming the NDP for the presumptive incoming CPC government under Pierre Poilievre.

Elections matter, right?

Whether by an (earlier) election via non-confidence this spring, or by the planned one later in the year, voters will choose their next government. To hear some liberals whine, they’ve already surrendered to the CPC.

No thanks.

They’ve tried this before and its exhausting. They claimed that Jack Layton ‘made’ Stephen Harper the Prime Minister in 2006. That is such a misread of facts that its an outright lie. The then Liberal government lost a confidence vote and the NDP parliamentary votes couldn’t save them. The CPC/Bloc votes were enough to sink the government and trigger an election (where a govt in power since 1993 faced an equivalently tired voter).

Its a political copy/paste routine for Liberal partisans; blaming the NDP for their own mistakes and misfortunes.

Every. Single. Time.

The federal liberals are famous for campaigning on NDP ideas; the governing as conservatives once securely in a majority government. That’s why we never got electoral reform as promised by Trudeau in the 2015 election. The flaws of first-past-the-post got them a dramatic win with only 40% of the vote – so why change it despite having promised it?

But then minority government results forced them to do things reluctantly. Such as a national dental plan, national pharmacare plan, national childcare plan; all of which the Liberals opposed when they were in a majority setting, but had to make legislative promises to secure the necessary confidence from the NDP.

At any time in the last three terms of office, the federal liberals could have brought in electoral reform. They did not. Why? Because at their heart, they do not share power unless forced to.

They would rather lose to the Conservatives and give Pierre Poilievre the keys to power than any institutional change required to our electoral system that might compel cooperation and power sharing.

The precarious position the federal liberals find themselves in (in some polls – they’re tied or behind the NDP) is their own fault. Interestingly, the federal support levels for the NDP has largely remained intact – its the Liberal vote that’s shrunk by half – and they’re trending to the CPC.

Now, thanks to the Liberals failure to enact electoral reform, the same voters might give the CPC around 40% of the vote and 100% of the power.

The largest block of voters the Liberals have relied upon is the red/blue swing voter. The Liberals blame…the NDP for this.

I have a better idea. Have some better ideas, Liberals.

But if you’re looking to blame someone for your political woes – use a mirror.

My2bits