Roundup: A confidence agreement in the works?

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We are now on day twenty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine has refused to surrender the strategic port city of Mariupol to the Russians. As well, Russian shelling destroyed a shopping centre in Kyiv killing eight, which is escalating the attacks facing the capital. Also of note was a possible leak of Russian casualty figures, citing 9,861 killed and 16,153 injured over the course of the invasion, which contradicts Russian propaganda figures to date, and which could turn up the pressure on Putin by the Russian people.

Back in Canada, news started spreading over the evening that the Liberals and NPD had reached a tentative agreement to a supply-and-confidence agreement that would see the NDP agree to support the next four Liberal budgets so that they can stay in power until 2025 in relative stability, and in return, the Liberals will make “real progress” on national pharmacare and dental care. I’m a little confused why those would be the conditions, given that they’re wholly dependent upon the provincial governments signing on, and while the current federal government put a framework in place for national pharmacare, thus far only PEI has signed on (and I haven’t seen the NDP publicly haranguing John Horgan to sign on either). And while people ask why they can’t do what they did with early learning and child care, part of that answer is that the reason why provincial governments are gun-shy about these programmes is they are concerned that if they set them up, a future federal government will cut funding and leave them holding the bag for very expensive programmes. While Quebec has shown that child care will pay for itself once more women are in the workforce and paying taxes, I’m not sure the calculation is quite the same for the other two, or will at least take much longer for the fiscal benefits to work their way through the system. So could the government come to the table with a lot more money—maybe. But that doesn’t eliminate the trepidation that once 2025 hits that their fears won’t come true. There are also reports that the deal could include more for housing, reconciliation, and some form of wealth taxes, so we’ll see what gets announced this morning.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are touting this as evidence of a “coalition” and that it’s “backdoor socialism,” which doesn’t make sense. It’s not a coalition because there are no Cabinet seats for the NDP, and these kinds of confidence agreements are easily broken (see: British Columbia and the deal with the Greens, which Horgan’s NDP tore up when the polls looked good enough to get a majority, which he did). It’s not socialism because they’re not going around nationalising the means of production. They’re still going to wail and gnash their teeth, and pretend that this is somehow illegitimate when it’s one hundred percent within how hung parliaments work under our system, but I’m not going to say it will last the full four years. It will however alter the narrative of the Conservatives’ leadership contest, and could be read either as Trudeau giving himself enough runway to make a few more accomplishments before turning it over to a successor, or for him to try and build the case for re-election. Either way, it’s fairly unprecedented at the federal level in this country, and could make for interesting days ahead.

Good reads:

  • In advance of Justin Trudeau heading back to Europe for more NATO and G7 meetings, Mélanie Joly promises that there are more sanctions on the way.
  • Joly also says the government is looking to the private sector to provide more weapons to Ukraine, now that surplus from the Canadian Forces stockpile is gone.
  • In spite of calls for the government to implement back-to-work legislation on the CP Rail dispute, the government is staying mum, other than to encourage negotiation.
  • Harjit Sajjan says that logistical challenges in receiving countries are slowing vaccine donations by countries like Canada.
  • NSICOP has warned that some national security agencies have delayed or withheld turning over information they need to provide oversight, which is a problem.
  • The National Research Council suffered a “cyber-incident” on some of their systems over the weekend, which would not be their first hack.
  • MPs on the official languages committee roasted the CEO of Air Canada for his lack of French, and the airline’s continued inability to deliver services in French.
  • Charges were laid in Ottawa with the attempted arson of an apartment building during the occupation; the accused was not associated with the occupiers.
  • Membership sign-ups for the United Conservative Party in Alberta are skyrocketing in advance of the leadership vote on Jason Kenney.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column explains why there are so many Supply Days this week.
  • The Line hears from Neil Hauer in Odessa, Ukraine, who relays the story of one couple who fled Kyiv for Uzhhorod on the Slovakian border.
  • Paul Wells investigates what happened to the promised $655 million investment in the Lake Erie Connector project by the Infrastructure Bank.

Odds and ends:

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1505910421080973314

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: A confidence agreement in the works?”

  1. All the pundits are making the case that this is about finding an off-ramp for his retirement, but the Ottawa bubble is usually wrong, so it’s more likely the latter: he is building his case for reelection — and decimating the NDP, since the Bloc has proven too stubborn to get rid of. As well, RCI reported (in French) last week that he has no intent of leaving and has been explicitly firm about this with caucus, and there are no factions building to push him out. What would he do otherwise? Play golf and write books like Chrétien? He’d get bored too easily. He was, quite literally, born for this. I maintain that he has every intent of turning Pigeon Poilievre into fried chicken nuggets next election, and that the pundits are going to have to find themselves a new narrative when he pulls a Laurier — much to their chagrin. Poor Chantal Hébert will just have to cry into her Jean Charest cuddle pillow while Andrew Coyne goes and gripes to his disgruntled cousin.

  2. The conservatives were served up a plateful of tainted raw oysters today and MS. Bergen looks like a peptic ulcer. With all this coalition’s potential pitfalls, Canadians can breathe a sigh of relief that there will be no polls for a few years, the conservatives will have plenty of time relying on vitriolic attacks while the electorate in Canada will inexorably become more socialistic in the face of the necessities of climate change and world dynamics. Four years of the Cons chewing on oatmeal mixed with sand, Gritty times coming for them, good!

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