Elizabeth May

March 23, 2022

Hearing the howls of protest from the Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs at the news of the confidence-and-supply deal between Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Jagmeet Singh’s NDP, one might imagine this is an affront to democracy. That is certainly not the case.

Westminster parliamentary democracies in minority government can legitimately adopt many different forms. Remember that the words “political party” are not found in our Constitution. Members of Parliament can assemble and re-assemble under different banners. As a Green MP and co-chair of the Global Greens Parliamentarians Association, I have international colleagues who have tried out every possible permutation — coalitions, confidence-and-supply agreements, confidence-and-supply agreements with seats for cabinet ministers from opposition parties.

In the case of a minority parliament, there are many ways to seek more cooperative governance. No question, most of these arrangements occur in countries with consensus-based voting systems, such as proportional representation. First-past-the-post creates a more toxic, partisan attitude that mitigates against cooperation after an election.

The most durable and fully merged option is when one or more parties form a coalition government. That involves a cabinet with multiple parties represented. Canada’s experience with coalition governments is very limited. We do have more experience with confidence-and-supply agreements, most recently with the 2017 agreement between the B.C. Green Party and the New Democrats.

There is nothing anti-democratic about the agreement between the Liberals and the NDP.

But is it a good thing for Canada?

Among a long list of pluses and minuses, I’ll start with the pluses. We have certainty about the electoral timing. Assuming the agreement holds — which may be wishful thinking … note B.C. Premier John Horgan ripping up the agreement with Greens when a snap election gave the NDP a majority — we can have greater stability in parliament and time to pass important legislation. It is certainly positive to see the extension of health care to dental care (moving in stages from low-income children to become universal). Moving to pharmacare is also significant. The Green Party of Canada was, by the way, the first party to call for dental care and pharmacare in recent election platforms. Both were in our 2015 platform. It is great to see the Liberals and NDP move to support policies we have championed.

But for the rest, I am frankly shocked the NDP caucus has agreed to vote for the next four budgets without getting more in return. Under the heading “Making democracy work for people” is a set of measures already put forward by the Liberals in December 2020, in Bill C-19, for measures to allow safer voting in a pandemic. Tacked on to that was the protection of the number of Quebec seats. How does Jagmeet Singh credibly parade this as an NDP victory for democracy? Why bother including this hollow promise at all other than to mislead people as to the scope of the agreement?

The Green Party of Canada was, by the way, the first party to call for dental care and pharmacare in recent election platforms. Both were in our 2015 platform. It is great to see the Liberals and NDP move to support policies we have championed.

The same can be said of many other “wins” for the NDP in this agreement. They are primarily things the Liberals had already promised, like a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry for corporations or ten days of paid sick leave, or providing supports for Indigenous peoples to continue the devastating horrors of searching for stolen and buried children.

But, for me, the worst element of this agreement is that it demands nothing on climate action. Instead, it actually does harm.

It includes a hollow climate section so it cannot be said climate is not mentioned.  Charitably, the only new element out of five bullet points is “early moves in 2022” from an existing commitment to end fossil fuel subsidies. There is nothing new that gives any hope that Canada will contribute to the global effort to hold global average temperature increase to no more than 1.5 degrees C.

We know that the only time we see improvements in climate action from the Liberals, or any other party for that matter, is in elections. Our current targets are woefully inadequate and now, thanks to the NDP, the Liberals have room to cruise to 2025 without aligning our targets with IPCC science. This week’s news that temperatures of surging 40 and 30 degrees Celsius above normal at both the Arctic and Antarctic poles is more than alarming. It is terrifying.

The free ride for Liberals on climate, able to continue with the weakest target in the industrialized world, the only nation putting forward our target as a range (40-45 percent  below 2005 by 2030) through to 2025, is a disaster for climate action.  The window on 1.5 degrees will likely have closed – and closed forever – before the next election.

With the over-budget boondoggle Trans Mountain pipeline extension hanging by a thread, the least the NDP could have done was insist on it being cancelled. To achieve real climate action now, we have to rely on the Liberals to decide for themselves that their actions fall short.

This agreement could have been something to celebrate. If only Jagmeet Singh understood the difference between climate as a check mark on a political score card and an urgent and irreversible threat to our future.

Contributing Writer Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, is former Leader of the Green Party of Canada and is its Leader in the House of Commons.