The Liberal government has today cemented an informal agreement with the National Democratic Party (NDP), such that the NDP will support the Liberals in confidence votes until the natural end of the current Parliament in 2025, in exchange for government action on some NDP priorities. It is not an official coalition (there will be no NDP member in cabinet, for example), merely a "confidence and supply agreement" to support each other, but with the understanding that there will still be some disagreements, and that the two parties may not move in lockstep.
It is essentially just an extension of what has been the status quo thus far in the current Liberal minority government. It's an agreement - and not even a binding agreement, at that - for both parties to do pretty much what they would have done anyway. All the MPs we voted for last year are still there, representing their various parties; nothing much has really changed. Jagmeet Singh promises to keep up the tough NDP opposition questioning on a variety of issues, but will not actively seek to bring the government down.
Most people were not that surprised or shocked. The opposition Conservatives, though, are outraged. Outraged, I tell you! Interim leader Candice Bergen fumes, "This is nothing more than a Justin Trudeau power grab. He is desperately clinging to power". She blusters about "a Jagmeet Singh-led government in charge", and is horrified by the prospect of the "socialist" NDP having more power than her own party ("socialist" being the worst swear-word she can think of). "The NDP and the Liberals were meeting in secret and they cooked up a backroom deal", she says, asking as many trigger words as possible. But did she really expected to be invested to the negotiations?
Leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre added his own expression of pique: "They have agreed to a radical and extreme agenda to expand the power of government by taking away the freedoms of the people". "Radical" - check. "Extreme" - check. "Power" - check. "Freedoms" - check. Poilievre's Twitter feed calls it a "Socialist coalition power pact" which is rather awkward grammatically, but also manages to squeeze the maximum number of Tory buzzwords and trigger words into the smallest possible space. He also called Trudeau "an NDP prime minister". Really, these people talk in clichés; they are like cartoon MPs.
I mean, of course the Conservatives would have to make their disapproval known, but such disingenuousness beggars belief. Like they would not have done something very similar themselves given half a chance. The Liberals and NDP are not a million miles apart policy-wise these days, and an agreement of this kind (or even a full-blown merger, if you ask me) is not a big stretch for either party. The Tories probably have more variability of views WITHIN THEIR OWN PARTY than these two centre-left parties.
As for the Conservative claims that the accord is merely a case of two leaders seeking to extend their personal brand for as long as possible, that may indeed be true, but that is not a crime. More importantly, though, they are seeking to extend the time that their respective parties have to push through their policies, and that is merely common sense. Mr. Trudeau has effectively achieved the majority government he sought through entirely legal, non-violent, and not even particularly underhand, means
This agreement is party politics in action, no more and no less than usual. Like it or like it not, the Conservatives have been out-played and out-manoeuvred at their own game, and it smarts. You can, if you like, look at it as a sneaky measure to keep the Tories completely out of the picture for an extended period of time (for which we should all be very grateful, in my humble opinion). But that is the very worst that can be said about it, and essentially it is just parliamentary business as usual, not a case of the sky falling (again). Try as I might, I fail to see how "democracy is being eroded" by this move. The loud Conservatives' complaints ring hollow, and just sound like whining and sour grapes to me.
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