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Written by: Morgana Adby

Recently, Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet confirmed that unless PM Trudeau, his chief of staff, and Minister Morneau resign he will support the Conservatives in trying to trigger an election. Questions related to the allegedly unethical conduct in the Prime Ministers Office and potentially wasteful bailouts, compounded into the recent WE Charity scandal.

Over the past weeks, high ranking officials including the Prime Minister have testified at committees. Just like the SNC Lavalin scandal, this is a slowly dripping faucet.

The only issue is that to actually fulfill the threat, the Opposition will likely need the NDP on board. Alternatively, if the Conservatives and Bloc gained the support of the few independents and Green MPs in the house, the could also trigger an election.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh disagrees with this strategy. Throughout the pandemic, the NDP has kept things sunny for the most part. Negotiations over CERB and other services were done collaboratively, and the NDP focused on making measures more comprehensive.

This week, Jagmeet Singh confirmed that he believes that it is not “responsible,” or “right,” to trigger an election in the immediate future. Now this decision will be put to the test in a confidence vote, to be held on September 25.

On that point, he may be correct. If an election were to be called, there is a good chance that we would end up with a Conservative Government. Particularly if they managed to gain the majority, the NDP would find it more difficult to negotiate for social investment and welfare. Certainly, the NDP is aware of the impacts this could have on their agenda.

Likewise, Canadians have benefited from stability in our Government during these difficult times. The people that live on this land see that that stability ought not to be taken for granted.

Many people just want to focus on surviving, without political spectacle.

But when the Government stumbles blindly into an obviously unethical PR disaster, how should oppositions respond? A theatrical power play looks clownish but ignoring it looks spineless. Presently, the strategy has been a mix of the distasteful attributes from both the respective choices.

In committee, at the Hill and in the press, the NDP has choice words for a Prime Minister “just helping out his wealthy friends.” They are happy to look the part of holding the Government’s feet to the fire.

But that is essentially meaningless theatre. Make no mistake, when Jagmeet Singh says he is “focused on helping Canadians,” he is saying that his NDP simply has other priorities than stopping the Prime Minister from helping out his wealthy friends.

Again, a valid position to take, however, it is a weak position for the NDP to take publicly- at least at first.

Blanchet, to his credit, knows how to use time. He did not immediately declare his terms, he never publicly wrote off his trump card. He invoked the leverage following the perceived insult of the Prime Minister taking a vacation day during one of few parliamentary summer sessions.

The Bloc did not have to invoke their leverage at that moment. The heat was on as soon as Blanchet announced the Bloc may support the Conservatives in triggering an election. Given that other Parliamentary groups will likely not pull the trigger, the Bloc did everything it could to make their favourability a priority for the Liberals.

Not so much for the NDP, because they simply put aside their leverage. Unless something happened behind the scenes, the NDP got nothing for their good faith. Not a policy, not a political change, not even a renewed statement. They did not demand anything in exchange for their confidence.

That is not to say the NDP is lacking in ambitious interests. They have been advocating for comprehensive child and dental care.

More urgently, this week they put forward a motion spearheaded by MP Leah Gazan to convert CERB into a Universal Basic Income. Policy aside, why did the NDP not use the leverage of Opposition confidence to substantively back up an Indigenous woman representing a riding often forgotten?

At worst, it plays favourably to the progressive base, and at best the NDP can implement these policies.

Another endeavour that would have benefited from a bit more strategy is the proposed wealth tax. A wealth tax has been on the top of the NDP ticket for years. The leadership’s catchphrase, “ask the wealthy to pay their fair share,” has a strong appeal following the public disclosure of our $343 billion deficit.

If there was ever a time to reexamine how we ask the affluent to be taxed, it is now. Tax havens deny the government at least $10 Billion a year. According to a statement released by Canadians for Tax Fairness, “Canadian corporate assets in the top 12 tax havens soared to a new high of $381 billion in 2019. The figures tell of a troubling trend. Corporations increased the number of assets they report in their top tax havens by 135% in the past decade.”

Jagmeet Singh asked Bill Morneau to look into tax havens following the fiscal snapshot of July. It should be no surprise to the NDP that he has not yet taken action on that yet, considering he managed to forget about $41,000 of his own expenses. Also, he forgot he owned a villa in France, lead a company implicated in the use of tax havens in the Paradise Papers, and was appointed by a Prime Minister that got a plurality of his funding from another firm implicated in Paradise Papers.

For former Minister Morneau, tax avoidance is just business as usual. Presently, there is a small opportunity to push back on this with renewed interest in ethical conduct. The Conservatives have been pearl-clutching for months now, so the public is primed to pressure the Government to reform.

Certainly that pressure is mounting. Just today the Prime Minister announced his plans to prorogue Parliament following the former Finance Minister Morneau's sudden resignation.

For the NDP even soft influence could go a long way, as opposed to the empty outrage with no teeth. Many progressives have noticed the lack of demands, but a soft bluff would be better than the whole lot of nothing the NDP got for their support. Simply by refraining from comment, MP Singh could tell the Liberals that they need to keep working for NDP support.

It is the Government’s job to call Opposition’s bluff, but Jagmeet Singh is a really nice guy- he just did it for free.

Moving forward, the position of the NDP is locked in. The Liberals know they have the NDP support and know that this conduct is acceptable so long as we are dealing with a national crisis. This is not to say there is not momentum behind the aforementioned policies. UBI and wealth tax, in particular, are not going away.

The question is, how will the NDP capitalize on momentum moving forward, and will that strategy protect their proposed programs from the tomfoolery we have seen in recent months?

Instability and Elections

Many have argued that an election in pandemic time is unacceptable. Certainly, it would be a difficult election and certainly, there are risks of destabilizing our country with a Parliament shuffle.

On the first concern, Canada has strong institutions, and it is likely mail-in voting would not disrupt our democracy. The second concern is less easily dismissed. In an election, someone always loses and that is a risk that every party takes on.

Regardless of if you believe that the ethical scandal is worth calling an election over, we ought to be attentive to the risks of an election, and use the appropriate tools to mitigate the harms.

The political parties will continue being political during the pandemic. It is likely we will not have the health crisis figured out before the next election comes around.

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