If you’ve seen any Canadian polls lately, you know that time is running out for Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party in Canada. They’re currently trailing the Conservative Party by a margin of around 40%-26% with support steadily eroding.
Fixed election date laws mean there doesn’t need to be an election until October 2025 but the Liberals currently have a minority government held up by support from the NDP.
Yesterday, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh threatened ‘consequences’ if a national pharmacare bill isn’t introduced by March 1. The support agreement between the two parties required the Liberals to introduce pharmacare by the end of 2023. That was extended to March 1 and yesterday, Singh and Trudeau met regarding stalled progress.
“It was a tough meeting,” Singh told reporters. “I made it clear to the PM that we expect legislation, and we expect the government to take steps to go beyond that, and we expect that by the first of March.”
This is something we’re very serious about. We’re not going to extend this further. We are very serious that pharmacare has to be delivered. We need to see legislation and some additional steps and I made that very clear to the Prime Minister. I put him on notice. We expect that by March 1, if not, there will be repercussions.”
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh
Normally, Canadian elections are largely a non-event for the currency but given the near-certainty that Conservatives would win and Trudeau’s unpopularity, I would expect bids in the loonie.
Conservatives have been coy on offering solutions, saying it will come during an election. I would expect the usual mix of tax cuts and spending cuts though given their polling lead, they may choose to remain vague.
What are the chances a spring election happens? A few days ago I would have said 5% but after these comments, I’d put it around 15%. The NDP hasn’t been able to capitalize on failing Liberal fortunes and it may be looking for a tangible issue where they can say they’ve held the Liberals to account