OTTAWA—What is the price of parliamentary peace? Is any price too high for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau now that the NDP-Liberal co-operation deal is dead?
Liberals have begun talks with the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Tuesday. The goal is to find common political ground with the opposition for the months ahead.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he is out to topple the government “at the earliest opportunity.”
The Liberals appear in no hurry to cut new deals, but the parliamentary math for the minority Liberals is bloodless.
In the current 338-seat House of Commons, a majority of 170 votes is needed in order for the Trudeau government to pass laws, approve spending of public funds, or survive a non-confidence motion.
Trudeau has the most MPs — 153 — but he’s 17 shy of the majority needed. So he needs a lifeline from either the Bloc which has 33 MPs, or the NDP with 25, to retain the “confidence” of the House that is required to govern.
Poilievre can count on his MPs’ 119 votes. But the Conservative leader needs the other two main opposition parties to join him in a vote to defeat the government.
(The rest don’t make a difference. The Green Party has two MPs. There are four Independents and two vacant seats where byelections have not yet been called.)
Here’s what we know about some of the Bloc’s and NDP’s demands and priorities, and where they could try to extract gains during the Liberal government’s final months.
Pharmacare and dental care
The NDP has suggested its support for the Liberals will last as long as it takes to get the pharmacare bill to provide free contraceptives and diabetes drugs and devices through the Senate and into law, and to expand eligibility for dental care beyond children and seniors. The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) estimated the cost of pharmacare at about $1.9 billion over five years, assuming provincial and private plans continue covering medications under their current terms.
Senate leaders have agreed to finish study of the pharmacare bill by Oct. 10. Royal assent could soon follow.
Dental care is now available to eligible seniors, children under 18 and disabled Canadians. The Liberal government says about 750,000 Canadians have already received care under the plan. Online registration for all remaining eligible Canadian residents between the ages of 18 and 64 is expected to be available in 2025. The PBO pegs the cost at $10 billion over five years.
The expansion, in theory, could be expedited, allowing both the Liberals and the NDP to claim credit.
More money for seniors
The Bloc Québécois wants more money for seniors aged 65-74, which would align with changes the Liberals have already made for those aged over 75. The PBO analyzed a Bloc MP’s private member’s bill that underpins the Bloc demand.
It would increase the amount of the full pension to which all pensioners aged 65 or older are entitled by 10 per cent, according to the PBO, and raise the exemption for employment income or self-employment earnings to $6,500 from $5,000 when it comes to determining the amount of the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS).
The PBO analysis of the bill said the changes would cost $2.9 billion in the first year, rising to $3.5 billion a year in the fifth year, for a total of $16 billion over the first five years.
Freeland on Tuesday touted what the Liberals have done for aging Canadians to date. The Liberal government already reversed a past Conservative government policy and restored the age of eligibility for OAS and GIS to 65 from 67, and increased the GIS for single seniors by up to $947 annually.
Should there be more changes? Freeland, who is finance minister, declined to answer , saying only that the Liberals are having “fruitful conversations” with the NDP and Bloc.
One Liberal source said Liberal MPs have discussed whether seniors should be allowed to earn a higher level of income before seeing the GIS clawed back.
Speaking in New York Tuesday, Trudeau told reporters the Bloc didn’t support the government on dental care, which helps seniors, but said he is “going to continue to work with any progressives in this House that want to deliver for Canadians in concrete ways. I’m always ready to talk about what more we can do for vulnerable seniors.”
Chalk this one up to maybe.
Grocery price cap
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says big grocery chains and suppliers should be forced to lower the price of essential food like bread and baby formula, or face a price cap. In July, he set a six-month timeline for the price drop he wanted to see.
But other than beefing up the Competition Bureau’s ability to investigate price-fixing or halt mergers that limit competition — which the Liberals have done — it is not clear how the NDP thinks prices should be capped. The Liberal government has gotten all major retailers to sign onto a voluntary grocery code of conduct.
Yet when it comes to price caps, such as those enacted by a handful of European countries, the Liberals have said no.
The Commons agriculture committee, chaired by a Liberal, in its report last year hedged big time, urging a windfall profits tax instead.
A Liberal source says a price-cap mechanism is unlikely to find favour with a Liberal government hard-pressed to tell farmers why they can’t raise prices as their own costs increase, or as commodities worldwide rise.
So could the government tweak tax measures for big profit-making corporations or grocery chains? After her spring budget , Freeland directly avoided answering questions about the NDP’s call for a windfall profits tax. Another Liberal insider said the government believes the cost of such measures get passed on to consumers.
Chalk this one up to highly doubtful.
More powers for Quebec on temporary immigration
The Bloc Québécois wants what Quebec Premier François Legault has demanded: more power for Quebec to set limits on the number of asylum seekers and temporary foreign workers allowed into that province.
Last week, Immigration Minister Marc Miller was characteristically blunt when asked whether he would give into the Bloc demand to give Quebec more control over immigration, especially refugee claimants, in exchange for their support.
“Not a chance,” he told reporters.
Chalk this one up to unlikely.
Protections for agricultural sectors
In Canada, several agriculture sectors — milk, chicken and egg producers — operate under a system that regulates production, pricing mechanisms and imports.
The Bloc says it wants more protection for dairy farmers, and a Bloc private member’s bill now in the Senate seeks to exclude supply-managed sectors from any future international trade agreements negotiated by the international trade minister.
The Liberals have tweaked, but largely protected, supply management in trade agreements signed or renegotiated under Trudeau, and had to pay about $4 billion in compensation to dairy farmers after NAFTA was renegotiated. The prime minister said then that dairy would be protected in the future, and the Liberals voted for the Bloc bill, which awaits final passage in the Senate.
Chalk this one up to an easy area for the government to look co-operative.
Carbon pricing
Would the Liberals agree to dial back a signature policy like the consumer carbon fuel charge — say, lower the rate at which it increases until 2030 when it hits $170 a tonne — now that the federal NDP (and provincial Liberals in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador, and some federal Liberals MPs) have gotten cold feet because of the high cost of living?
That seemed impossible last spring. Until it wasn’t. Battered in Atlantic polls, the Liberals put a three-year pause on applying the carbon price to home heating oil, largely because of the financial hit to Atlantic Canada households where there are a lack of clean energy alternatives.
The NDP’s Singh said he no longer believes there should be a carbon pricing burden on “working people” and will introduce a new plan “in the coming months” to make “big polluters” pay “their fair share,” suggesting an increased price should be paid by industrial emitters.
On Tuesday, the Star asked Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault if there was any world in which the Liberals would again dial back the federal fuel charge, and he said flatly “No.”
That is also the prime minister’s view, said a government official.
Chalk this one up to highly doubtful.
Other opposition asks
Online harms bill
NDP and Bloc Québécois MPs have called for the Liberals to split their massive Online Harms bill C-63 that seeks to protect children from harmful online conduct, to ban hate propaganda, and to create a new digital regulator to investigate complaints against tech platforms.
Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet wants the removal of an exemption for religious speech which he said can be used by those who would “come and literally propagate hate against women, sexual minorities, and the people of Israel.”
Justice Minister Arif Virani is reportedly open to changes.
Chalk this one up to a possible area of co-operation.
Medical assistance in dying
The Bloc wants Ottawa to allow Quebec the freedom to broaden its own regime of medical assistance in dying (or MAID). The federal government has used its criminal-lawmaking power to regulate MAID across the country, but last winter the Liberals (with the support of the Conservatives and NDP) delayed by three years the expansion of MAID to people suffering solely from a mental disorder. That change would now only take effect March 17, 2027.
The Liberals have rejected past demands for a special carve-out from the criminal law for Quebec, saying MAID cannot be regulated on a province-by-province basis.
Unlikely to be reopened.
With files from Mark Ramzy.
