NDP MP Blake Desjarlais discusses the federal NDP’s decision to withdraw from a supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Michael Higgins: NDP leader Jagmeet Singh made a social media post Wednesday making the surprise announcement his party has exited the supply and confidence agreement – a governance deal propping up the minority Liberal government for the past two and a half years.
Joining us now, Blake Desjarlais, NDP Member of Parliament for Edmonton Griesbach. Mr. Desjarlais, welcome back. What does severing these ties achieve for your party?
Blake Desjarlais: That’s a great question, and I think that’s something that we’re going to have to see in the upcoming minority Parliament as we go vote by vote by vote.
I think what the confidence supply agreement has done has been to deliver for people.
I know as a new MP myself in this 44th parliament, I wanted to be elected to help everyday, regular Canadians. We’re going to do everything we can to do that.
I don’t want to just go into Ottawa and sit there for four years sling slogans and not get what so many Canadians expect from parliamentarians – which is to deliver results for Canadians.
We’ve seen historic expansion of our public health care system with the introduction of dental care, with the work that’s being done on PharmaCare to deliver free insulin diabetic equipment, free contraceptives.
Also, the work related to ensuring that workers unions have the power and ability to exercise their constitutional rights so they can actually get good deals, they can get fair wages, safer work environments, like we’ve seen just earlier, a couple weeks ago, with the Teamsters being forced back to work.
These are serious concerns for New Democrats, and ones that we know Canadians are concerned about as well.
We also know that there’s a choice coming up. We know that next year there will be an election, and that election is going to be one that we have to decide what kind of future we want for Canada.
Do we want a Canada where we support people?
We support working people right now as they struggle with affordability, the cost of groceries, the cost of rent, these things are serious.
Their wages haven’t increased, and I think a lot of people are feeling let down by the Liberals and me included.
MH: Speaking of decisions, what cemented this decision to pull the plug? From your standpoint, as an MP from Alberta.
BD: We began these decisions months and months and months ago.
I think that the Conservative war room knew about these discussions that we’ve been having internally in our caucus, related to how we actually deal with the massive disappointment and broken promises just like so many Canadians are.
So these discussions have been ongoing for a long time, and we decided that after listening to Canadians, listening to our constituents – me, I door knocked here in Edmonton Griesbach all summer.
What I heard consistently and resoundingly was that PharmaCare is great, dental care is great, but we need more from a government that’s supposed to look after Canadians.
So what I hear from that is they need us to push harder, hold this government more accountable, and push for programs on a vote by vote basis that are actually going to achieve the kind of reduction in the cost of living that so many Canadians are experiencing right now.
The Liberals need to know that they don’t have a guaranteed dancing partner when they continuously side with corporate greed.
Just not that long ago, before we rose in the House of Commons, they joined up with the Conservatives to vote against a food price cap.
How shameful is that, when we have so many people right now who are unable to afford basic food in our community?
New Democrats stand for people, and that’s what we want this election to be about – about people.
Making sure that we actually tackle the affordability crisis. New Democrats are the only ones with the courage to actually challenge corporate Canada that continues to raise the price on Canadians, asking them to do more work and get less out of it.
MH: Before you get to the election, how likely in the interim is this to put policies and programs at risk that your party has championed through the agreement?
BD: This is up to the Liberals. The Liberals have the opportunity still to do what’s right.
They can keep their promises.
They can ensure that the PharmaCare Act that we’re seeing provinces attempting to stop or the dental care – for example, here in our province of Alberta, we have a conservative party in power.
They’re saying they’re going to stop getting dental care to kids, stop getting dental care to seniors.
The federal government could actually act, and they can say, “no, no, we’re going to disallow the provinces from stopping what is a really important program for millions of Canadians, from withdrawing from it.”
They can do that, but they haven’t had the courage yet to do it.
They haven’t had the courage to stand up to conservatives who are threatening to take away people’s benefits, threatening to cut real programs that support people.
So it’s going to be up to the Liberals.
I know a lot of folks are saying that it’s up to New Democrats, but the Liberals are in government right now.
We’re going to be going on a vote by vote basis, and they’re going to know that they’ve been put on notice.
That we expect them to table good policy and good pieces of legislation that help regular, everyday Canadians – and if they don’t, they will face an election.
MH: How then does your party navigate the road ahead without sending Canadians to an early election- or are you okay with that?
BD: New Democrats are ready for an election if we need to, but Canadians I’ve heard resoundingly, are not there yet, and so that’s okay.
What that means is we’re going to go back into a regular minority setting.
Most Canadians know what a minority setting means. It means that we are going to go vote by vote.
We’re going to battle out the legislation.
We’re going to fight to get gains in committee for Canadians, and we’re going to make sure that every piece of legislation that’s tabled in the House of Commons is one that’s going to be made better because New Democrats were in the room.
The reason the confidence supply agreement was important was because it gave us runway to table big pieces of legislation – and the time necessary to get big pieces of legislation going.
A year isn’t enough time, no matter what, to get big pieces of legislation done, but a minority setting does allow us the leverage to continue to negotiate in Parliament without going to an election, while also making programs and gains for Canadians.
That’s the biggest difference between us and Conservatives that are going to sling slogans.
They’ve been doing that all session so far, doing no proposals for solutions.
A good opposition doesn’t just oppose. They propose good solutions.
New Democrats, because of our values of compassion and care for people, have been consistent in that, and we’re going to take those values and continue in the minority setting and go vote by vote and improve the lives of Canadians as every piece of legislation comes up.
MH: How locked in are you yourself in seeking re-election? Do these developments change at all your pursuit of returning as an as an MP?
BD: As a matter of fact, I’m even more resound in my work towards ensuring that the people of Edmonton, the people of Alberta, have a place in Ottawa.
It’s clear to me that we have politicians from our province in Ottawa right now that don’t have a grasp on the issues that are facing so many community members.
We have poverty that is affecting so many people in Edmonton.
We see it on our streets. We see businesses really struggling, and we see people losing their houses because they can’t afford the immense increases in the cost of living that are made possible by corporate Canada.
Grocery stores are increasing the price of bread, for example- they were just charged in historic Competition Bureau case that had all the major grocery stores found guilty for fixing the price of bread.
This is the kind of Canada we’re in right now.
If there’s ever been a time for New Democrats – people who are dedicated to fighting against corporate Canada’s immense interest for the billionaires – it’s now.
We need regular people like myself, like other Edmontonians, that are supporters of our party to now organize.
I often get questions about viability, and I always remind them of Jack Layton.
Jack Layton had the same questions. “You can never win an election!”, and he showed people that New Democrats are viable.
That when we use our compassion, we use our good Canadian values, we can actually unite as regular working people, as persons with disabilities, as single parents, as people who actually need government to work for them. We can actually unite towards a better future.
Jack Layton showed us that, and I think we can make that reality in the next election. So I’m even more resolved in my fact that if there’s ever been a time for New Democrats, it’s now.