The Liberals and NDP still have reasons to work together — are they good enough?
Both sides have something to gain, or lose, from sticking to their agreement
If the 44th Parliament can hold it together until April 28, it will become the longest-lasting minority Parliament in modern Canadian history.
This Parliament's longevity is already well above average — 823 days as of Thursday. The 10 minority Parliaments that existed between 1957 and 2021 lasted an average of 526 days.
The chance to make history isn't the best reason the Liberals and NDP have to reach an agreement on pharmacare, but there's something to be said — maybe even a lot — for stability.
The supply-and-confidence agreement between the Liberals and New Democrats — the deal that has helped keep this Parliament on track — is unprecedented at the federal level. It can still feel like a live experiment meant to answer the question of whether two Canadian political parties are capable of sustaining at least some level of cooperation for a meaningful period of time.
In some countries, that sort of thing is more or less expected. In Ottawa, the end of the Liberal-NDP deal has been anticipated almost from the moment it was signed, and a fresh round of questions about its possible demise has popped up every month or so.
The issue of pharmacare has produced the most speculation to date. And though it's hard to tell exactly how great the differences between the government and the NDP are, or have been, it's probably a mistake to dismiss the possibility that this could be the end of the Liberal-NDP deal.
"We're working with the NDP and I'm confident we're going to get it," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told CBC Radio's Mainstreet Cape Breton on Thursday.
What pharmacare is about and what it would mean
There seem to be two broad issues: the wording of legislation that would set out the broad parameters of a national pharmacare program and immediate federal funding for specific classes of treatment. While it's not clear how many areas are up for negotiation, the NDP says it's focused on making sure contraception and drugs to treat diabetes are covered.
Whatever happens, what comes of these negotiations will not be a full national program covering all pharmaceuticals. The Liberals do not appear to have the fiscal room to cover that and the NDP has not demanded it. The actual deal between the parties only called for "progress" toward such a program and the passage of enabling legislation.
But if the parties do come to an agreement, the NDP would be able to claim with a straight face that it probably wouldn't have happened if New Democrats hadn't been in a position to exploit some leverage.
The Liberals have shown some interest in pharmacare specifically, and reducing drug costs more generally, since 2015. In 2018, the federal government drafted a former Ontario cabinet minister to advise it on a path forward. But it's never been clear how high pharmacare ranked on the Liberal government's list of priorities.
The same can be said of dental care — an issue that was entirely absent from the last three Liberal election platforms.
In the Ottawa bubble, where memories are short and attention spans are shorter, such things are often swept aside not long after the official announcement. But dental care and pharmacare are real things the NDP could point to for years to come — rare achievements for a smaller party in the House of Commons. And while NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh's ability to convince Canadians to vote for the NDP remains in question, he could end up with a record of legislative accomplishment to rival any of his predecessors.
The NDP could still see plausible reasons to walk away from the supply-and-confidence agreement. Doing so might allow the New Democrats to put more political room between themselves and an unpopular government. And if the government was forced to negotiate the passage of legislation on a case-by-case basis, the NDP might be able to negotiate even greater concessions.
But the Liberals also would be free to work with the Bloc Quebecois (it's safe to assume the Conservatives would rather not be seen agreeing with the Liberals on anything, and perhaps vice-versa). And while the demise of the Liberal-NDP deal wouldn't immediately precipitate an election, it would significantly increase the odds of an election happening sooner rather than later.
Reasons for sticking together — or splitting apart
As things stand, it's not obvious why either the Liberals or New Democrats should be eager for an election to happen in the near future. The latest projection from the Writ's Eric Grenier has the Liberals falling to 72 seats and the NDP winning 27 seats, just two more than they currently hold. The Conservatives, meanwhile, would win 201 seats.
Both the Liberals and New Democrats might benefit from having as many tangible legislative accomplishments as possible to point to in the next election campaign. But if there's a decent chance the next election will result in a majority Conservative government — a government that likely would do very different things — it might be wise for the Liberals and NDP to use the time remaining to advance as many of their policy priorities as possible.
And for the sake of getting things done, the government might be better off maintaining the supply-and-confidence agreement. Obstruction, delay and procedural wrangling are so commonplace in Parliament that having enough support to periodically push things along, or step around roadblocks, is a valuable asset.
"One of the really important things that we've seen over the past couple of years in Ottawa, and [are] continuing to see, is what happens when progressive parties work together to deliver for Canadians," Trudeau said Thursday while sidestepping a reporter's question about the state of negotiations on pharmacare.
If the prime minister wants to be able to continue boasting about that, he has all the more reason to keep the supply-and-confidence agreement in place.
Any number of factors can cause a deal between two political parties to fall apart, such as real differences over policy, political calculation or simple miscommunication. But even if this agreement collapses at the end of this month, it's still fair to wonder whether the future of Parliament will look more like this kind of cooperation than not.
The record for the longest-lasting Parliament since 1960 is currently held by the 39th Parliament, which survived for 888 days between 2008 and 2011. The longevity of that Parliament, presided over by a minority Conservative government, was not attributable to any agreement between parties. Instead, it would be fair to say it survived in large part because of the weakness of the opposition parties — and the fact that someone always blinked whenever a confidence vote turned parliamentary democracy into an elaborate game of chicken.
If the Liberals and NDP want to continue demonstrating that there's a better way to do things, they only need to find a way to agree on the broad terms of pharmacare and some immediate steps to expand drug coverage.
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