On March 14, an otherwise volatile Monday in the nation’s capital, it was also where Prime Minister Justin Trinto and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh reached a landmark agreement between their parties during a three-hour meeting. The following Sunday, officials drafted a final agreement. At 4 p.m. The next day, a note from the Privy Council Office alerted the ministers to a cabinet meeting that had suddenly been scheduled for that afternoon at 7:15 p.m. The Liberal MPs were briefed on a virtual parliamentary group meeting at 8:30 p.m., while the NDP MPs were invited to their own meeting at 8:45 p.m. At these meetings, the Liberals and New Democrats received this week’s big surprise, first reported by CBC Vassi Kapelo shortly after 9pm on March 21: a trust-offer deal that would allow to the Liberals to rule with the support of the NDP by 2025, depends on the implementation of a list of policies and priorities after negotiation. The key to making the agreement work in practice can be found in the second sentence of the agreement: “To ensure coordination in this arrangement, both parties are committed to a guiding principle” without surprises “. The agreement itself should come as no surprise. The initial debates between the senior Liberals and the New Democrats took place after last fall’s election. Maclean’s news of these talks in October. But these first conversations yielded nothing concrete and the discussion was more or less put aside.
“We needed a short break”
“There was no hostility. We just needed a short break,” a senior liberal source with direct knowledge of the talks told CBC this week, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Unlike similar trust and supply agreements in Ontario, British Columbia and the Yukon – which came very soon after the election – there was not much urgency in the Trinto-Singh negotiations. The Liberal minority government was relatively safe and found the support it needed to take several steps before the House of Commons adjourned in December.
However, reports of a possible collaboration were greeted with enthusiasm in November by Erin O’Toole, who was still the leader of the Conservatives. Faced with his own problems, O’Toole condemned what he described as a “Liberal-SW coalition”.
Conservative leader Erin O’Toole rushed to talk of a Liberal-NDP deal in late 2021. (Justin Tang / The Canadian Press)
But unlike the negotiations between Jack Layton’s NDP and Stephane Dion’s Liberals in the hectic fall of 2008, these’s Liberal-NDP talks do not seem to have dealt with a coalition government anywhere.
“We want to be independent enough to be critical. We want to be able to oppose and demand more,” said an NDP source, speaking on condition of anonymity this week.
Discussions resumed with the new year. According to the Canadian press this week, a phone call between Trinto and Singh after the birth of Singh’s daughter in January helped to get the ball back on track.
These discussions included a small number of advisers – Trudeau Chief of Staff Katie Telford and Senior Adviser Jeremy Broadhurst for the Liberals, Singh Chief of Staff Jennifer Howard and NDP National Director Anne McGrath for the New Democrats .
Katie Telford, the chief of staff to Prime Minister Justin Trinto, was a key figure in the Liberal-NDP talks. (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press)
The NDP source said that maintaining a close circle reduced the likelihood of further leaks. Due to the pandemic, most discussions took place over the telephone or conference call.
Most of the deal seems to have come together in the last two weeks. An NDP source said the party wanted to reach an agreement in time to influence the government’s spring budget.
A liberal source said that as the March 14 talks came to an end, news was also circulating about a NATO leaders’ summit scheduled for Brussels this week. This meant that an agreement had to be completed quickly if it was to be announced before the prime minister left.
According to the Liberal source, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of the Treasury Chrystia Freeland was kept informed and consulted by other Cabinet ministers on aspects of their services.
Agreeing on the “blindly obvious”
NDP officials contacted individuals involved in the trust and supply agreements signed in British Columbia in 2017 and the Yukon in 2021. A liberal source acknowledged that the BC agreement was an important benchmark. At least three of the top negotiators also had first-hand experience – McGrath, Telford and Broadhurst participated in the coalition talks in 2008.
The Liberal source argued that while the government was able to get its most important bills through a divided House of Commons in the last parliament, the process was so time consuming that other bills – such as those on conversion therapy and justice reform – fell through. aside, even though the government knew it had the votes it needed.
“We do not have to look at everything in detail, but can we at least find a way to things that are blindly obvious and that we agree on?” said the liberal source, explaining the motive for a deal.
Police in riot gear storm a rally in Ottawa on February 19, 2022. (Evan Mitsui / CBC)
Then 2022 began and brought with it unforeseen events – a protest against the vaccine mandate occupying central Ottawa, followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These events took away more than government time. But the Liberal source also suggested that global unrest was putting pressure on progressive politicians to show that they had answers to their cost-of-living concerns.
As the procession ended O’Toole’s time as Conservative leader, he was apparently showing the Liberals and New Democrats that they could work together. While the NDP offered public approval for the government’s use of the Emergency Law to end the protest, the two sides talked behind the scenes about law enforcement and the Liberals coordinated briefings with government officials to answer NDP questions.
Building “relationships”
An NDP source said the two parties had co-operated in a “very mature way” following the invocation of the emergency law and were “honest and sincere” with each other. “There was more contact between the leaders in discussions about how to deal with it,” the source said in an interview. “And I think that helped build the leadership and staff relationships that helped us have these discussions. [about an accord]. “ While Trinto and Singh clashed directly and sometimes fiercely in last fall’s election, there was significant overlap in the parties’ overall priorities for affordable housing, healthcare, climate change and reconciliation. WATCH: Singh accuses Trinto of failing to respond to indigenous appeals for justice
Singh says Trinto has not acted on Indigenous appeals
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh accuses Liberal leader Justin Trinto of saying one thing and doing another when it comes to compensation for indigenous children. 1:13
But the two sides could not agree on everything. Electoral reform was introduced but rejected when it became clear that the two sides were unwilling to abandon their preferred alternative – proportional representation for the NDP, a Liberal ballot for the Liberals. Instead, under the title “Making Democracy Work for the People,” the Liberals and the NDP agreed to revive a series of proposals to facilitate voting.
Singh’s NDP proposed extending dental care to the 2019 and 2021 elections, and the Trinto government referred to dental care in its speech to the throne after the 2019 elections, but the pandemic soon caught the attention. The new agreement became an opportunity to do something.
Giving something, taking something
Commitments to subsidized dental care and advancement in pharmaceutical care were kept as NDP’s primary victories, but the deal also includes two other elements that were not on the Liberal platform last fall: a one-off supplement and a one-time supplement to Kana. changes to a federal program for building rental properties.
“We want to find ourselves in a situation where we have power and who are seen as equal in the relationship,” said the NDP source. “We give some things, we take some things. There are consequences for us if we retire, there are consequences for them if they retire.”
The liberal source said the duration of the agreement is due in part to the time it may take to implement all commitments.
Two NDP sources said there had been mixed reactions within the party’s parliamentary group – many MPs were excited, some were skeptical of the Liberals and some wished the NDP had gotten more. But no NDP MP was apparently willing to leave the deal or the party.
How the agreement will work in practice and for how long remains to be seen.
BC Prime Minister John Horgan has abandoned an agreement with the Greens for early elections. (Mike McArthur / CBC)
An agreement between the Ontario Liberals and the NDP in 1985 lasted two years. The 2017 deal between the BC NDP and the Greens lasted just over three years – but Prime Minister John Horgan pulled out of the deal when he decided he wanted early elections.
The line in this week’s “no surprises” agreement is borrowed from a similar proposal in the BC agreement, which is also repeated verbatim in the Yukon agreement. It also echoes what a top official said about the 1985 Ontario agreement.
“We never tried to do…
