New Delhi: The key political ally keeping Justin Trudeau in power in Canada — Jagmeet Singh of the New Democratic Party — Friday announced NDP’s intention to bring down the government, capping off a week of multiple crises facing the embattled prime minister of Canada.
Trudeau’s week started with the resignation of his most powerful cabinet minister, Chrystia Freeland, who held both the posts of deputy prime minister and finance minister, the same day that the government was to announce a financial update to the House of Commons.
With Freeland’s exit weakening his grip on power, Trudeau was reshuffling his cabinet Friday when Singh’s NDP, which has been propping up the minority Liberal Party government, withdrew its support.
“The Trudeau Liberals said a lot of the right things. Then they let the people down again and again. Justin Trudeau failed in the biggest job a Prime Minister has: to work for people, not the powerful. To focus on Canadians, not themselves,” said Singh in a letter published on the social media platform X.
Singh added: “The NDP will vote to bring this government down, and give Canadians a chance to vote for a government who will work for them. No matter who is leading the Liberal Party, this government’s time is up. We will put forward a clear motion of no-confidence in the next sitting of the House of Commons.”
The scathing post comes at a time Trudeau’s polling numbers continue to lag far behind that of the leading opposition party, the Pierre Poilievre-led Conservatives, and also when the Canadian prime minister is struggling to fight against the threats of a 25 percent tariff on Canadian imports by US President-elect Donald J. Trump.
The tariff threat by Trump comes with a rider — Canada and Mexico must stop the flow of the opioid fentanyl, as well as undocumented immigrants, into the US.
For Canada, tariffs could lead to disastrous results, given that of its total $768.3 billion worth of exports in 2023, goods of $592.8 billion were for the US alone. Its trade in goods with the rest of the world was at roughly $174 billion, indicating the significance of the US in the Canadian economy.
Dealing with Trump and losing a key minister, Trudeau now has a little more than a month to save his government from falling. With 153 of 338 seats in the Canadian House of Commons, the Liberal Party requires at least 17 votes from other parties to maintain its minority government.
Singh’s NDP, which gave the government new confidence in September this year, seems to have finally reached the end of the road of the support it can extend to the Liberals.
The other party in the House of Commons —Bloc Québécois — has already called for elections in January 2025, with an X post saying, “This is the end of the road for Justin Trudeau’s government”. That leaves the Liberals with no viable alternative to hold on to power.
Poilievre calls for early elections
The Conservative Party of Pierre Poilievre has written a letter to Governor General of Canada Mary Simon, urging her to call on Trudeau to call for a vote of confidence before the end of this year or else dissolve the government due to the lack of a majority in the House of Commons.
“I am asking you to use your authority to inform the Prime Minister that he must either dissolve Parliament and call an election or reconvene Parliament on the earliest day that is not a statutory holiday before the end of the calendar year to prove to you and to Canadians that he has the confidence of the House to continue as Prime Minister,” said Poilievre in the letter, published on X.
The Leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Commons has been pushing for elections for the most part of this year, given that an average of all public opinion polls gives the Conservatives a 20 percentage point lead over the Liberals, according to CBC News.
The loss of Freeland has further dented Trudeau’s numbers, with the Liberals falling to just 21.6 percent of support compared to the Conservatives’ 43.2 per cent. Jagmeet Singh’s NDP has roughly 19.3 percent support currently.
With these numbers, the Liberals are staring at a potential wipe-out, similar to the 2011 federal elections, which saw it drop to just 34 seats, and finish third behind the NDP. The results in 2011 led to Trudeau’s ascent as the leader of the Liberals — a position he has held since 2013.
Amid this, Trudeau announced a new-look cabinet Friday, with at least a dozen changes and eight new ministers inducted. His close friend Dominic LeBlanc was already given Freeland’s finance portfolio Monday. David McGuinty was brought in as a new face to take over LeBlanc’s previous post as minister of public safety.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)