PEOPLE AND POLITICS | Welcome to Town Hall, Part 1: The Good News

MONTEBELLO, Que. – The Bloc Québécois is ready to wheel and deal with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in exchange for support during confidence votes now that the Liberal government’s confidence and supply agreement with the NDP has ended.

That support won’t come cheap, the Quebec-based Bloc said, and the sovereigntist party led by Yves-François Blanchet has already drawn up a list of demands.

In an interview ahead of the opening of Monday’s party caucus retreat in the Outaouais region, Bloc House Leader Alain Therrien said his party is happy to regain its balance of power.

“Our objectives remain the same, but the means to get there will be much easier,” Therrien said. “We will negotiate and seek gains for Quebec … our balance of power has improved, that’s for sure.”

He called the situation a “window of opportunity” now that the Liberals are truly a minority government after New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh tore up the confidence and supply deal between the two parties last week, leaving the Bloc with an opening.

While Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have promised multiple confidence votes in the hope of triggering a general election, the Bloc’s strategy is not to rush to the polls and instead use their new-found standing to make what they consider to be gains for Quebec.

A Bloc strategist who was granted anonymity by The Canadian Press because he was not authorized to speak publicly stated bluntly that the NDP had officially handed the balance of power back to the Bloc. The Bloc is taking for granted that when a federal election is held in about a year or less, it will be a majority Conservative government led by Poilievre, whose party has surged in the polls for over a year and has been ahead in the rest of Canada for over a year.

Quebec won’t factor so much in that win, the source added, where the Bloc will be hoping to grab seats from the Liberals and where the Conservatives hope to gain from the Bloc.

“It’s going to happen with or without Quebec,” the source said. “They (the Conservatives) are 20 points ahead everywhere in Canada, with the exception of Quebec, and that won’t change … their (Conservative) vote is firm.”

It is not surprising that the Bloc sees excellent news in the tearing up of the agreement that allowed the Liberals to govern without listening to their demands, said University of Ottawa political scientist Geneviève Tellier.

“The Bloc only has influence if the government, no matter which one, is a minority,” she explained. “In the case of a majority government, the Bloc’s relevance becomes more difficult to justify because, like the other parties, it can oppose, it can hold the government to account, but it cannot influence the government’s policies.”

On the Bloc’s priority list is gaining royal recommendation for Bill C-319, which aims to bring pensions for seniors aged 65 to 74 to the same level as that paid to those aged 75 and over.

A bill with budgetary implications that comes from a member of Parliament, as is the case here, must necessarily obtain royal recommendation before third reading, failing which the rules provide that the Speaker of the House will end the proceedings and rule it inadmissible.

The Bloc also wants Quebec to obtain more powers in immigration matters, particularly in the area of ​​temporary foreign workers, and recoup money it says is owed to the province.

The demands concerning seniors’ pensions and immigration powers are “easy, feasible and clear,” Therrien said.

“It’s clear that it will be on the table. I can tell you: I’m the one who will negotiate,” he added.

The Bloc also wants to see cuts to money for oil companies, more health-care funds for provinces as demanded by premiers and stemming or eliminating Ottawa’s encroachment of provincial jurisdictions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

FREDERICTON – New Brunswick‘s Liberals got a jump on the province’s coming fall election today with the official launch of their party’s campaign.

The kickoff, which took place in the Fredericton riding where Liberal Leader Susan Holt plans to run this time, came before the official start of the general election set for Oct. 21.

The Liberal platform contains promises to open at least 30 community care clinics over the next four years at a cost of $115.2 million, and roll out a $27.4 million-a-year program to offer free or low-cost food at all schools starting next September.

The governing Progressive Conservatives, led by BlaineHiggs, have so far pledged to lower the Harmonized Sales Tax from 15 per cent to 13 per cent if re-elected.

Political observers say the issues most affecting people in New Brunswick are affordability, health care, housing and education.

Recent polls suggest Higgs, whose leadership style has drawn critiques from within his caucus and whose policies on pronoun use in schools have stirred considerable controversy within the province, may face an uphill battle with voters this fall.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will face a fretful and strained caucus in British Columbia Monday, with MPs looking for him to finally reveal his plan to address the political purgatory the party has endured for months.

Several Liberal MPs privately and publicly demanded they meet as a team after the devastating byelection loss of a longtime political stronghold in Toronto last June, but the prime minister refused to convene his caucus before the fall.

Their political fortunes did not improve over the summer, and this week the Liberals took two more significant blows: the abrupt departure of the NDP from the political pact that prevented an early election, and the resignation of the Liberals’ national campaign director.

Now, with two more byelections looming on Sept. 16 and a general election sometime in the next year, several caucus members who are still not comfortable speaking publicly told The Canadian Press they’re anxiously awaiting a game plan from the prime minister and his advisers that will help them save their seats.

The Liberals have floundered in the polls for more than a year now as Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have capitalized on countrywide concerns about inflation, the cost of living and lack of available housing.

Though Trudeau hasn’t yet addressed all of his MPs en masse, he has spoken with them in groups throughout June and July and stopped in on several regional caucus meetings ahead of the Nanaimo retreat.

“We’re focused on delivering for Canadians,” Trudeau said at a Quebec Liberal caucus meeting Thursday.

He listed several programs in the works, including a national school food program and $10-a-day childcare, as well as national coverage for insulin and contraceptives, which the Liberals developed in partnership with the NDP.

“These are things that matter for Canadians,” he said, before he accused the NDP of focusing on politics while the Liberals are “focused on Canadians.”

Wayne Long, a Liberal MP representing a New Brunswick riding, says the problem is that Canadians appear to have tuned the prime minister out.

Long was the only Liberal member to publicly call for Trudeau’s resignation in the aftermath of the Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection loss, though several other MPs expressed the same sentiment privately at the time.

Long shared his views with the prime minister again at the Atlantic caucus retreat ahead of Monday’s meeting.

“I’m really worried the old ‘stay calm and carry on,’ which effectively is where we are, is not going to put us on a road to victory in the next election,” said Long, who does not plan to run again.

“If we’re going to mount a campaign that can beat Pierre Poilievre, in my opinion that campaign cannot be led by Justin Trudeau.”

Long fears a Trudeau campaign could lead to a Poilievre government that dismantles the prime minister’s nine-year legacy, piece by piece.

Long is one of several Liberal MPs who confirmed to The Canadian Press they do not plan to go the meeting in Nanaimo. But Mark Carney, the Bank of Canada governor whose name is routinely dropped around Ottawa as a possible successor to Trudeau as Liberal leader, will be in attendance.

He’s expected to address MPs about the economy and a plan for growth.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s decision to back out of the supply and confidence deal certainly complicates any calls for the prime minister to step aside and allow a new leader to face off against Pierre Poilievre in the next election, since that election could now come at any time.

“It makes a much more precarious situation, because Singh probably holds the keys to when that election could be,” said Andrew Perez, a longtime Liberal with Perez Strategies, who also called for Trudeau’s resignation earlier this summer.

“Maybe it presents an argument for the pro-Trudeau side to say that we need to stick with Trudeau, because there’s no time.”

But while some caucus members describe feeling frustrated by the political tribulation, Long insists that those who are running again aren’t yet feeling defeated.

Speaking about those in the Atlantic caucus, he said “to a person, they’re ready to fight. They’re they’re ready to go.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2024.