Canadian party says election more likely after end of deal with Trudeau

OTTAWA: An early election is more likely in Canada now that the New Democratic Party has ripped up its deal to keep Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in power, the leader of the left-leaning opposition party said on Thursday.

Jagmeet Singh spoke after pulling his unconditional support for the minority center-left Liberal government on Wednesday, forcing Trudeau to seek new alliances to stay in office until a federal vote that must be held by end-October 2025.

Polls show the Liberals would lose badly to the official opposition right-of-centre Conservatives amid increasing voter fatigue with Trudeau, who first took power in November 2015.

Singh, whose party has traditionally enjoyed union support, said he was particularly unhappy that the Liberals had last month forced railway employees back to work.

“I’ve ripped up the agreement with Justin Trudeau, and I know that means that an election is now more likely as a result. We are ready to fight an election whenever it happens,” he told reporters in Toronto.

Trudeau’s government can only be defeated if all the opposition parties unite and back a no-confidence vote.

Singh side-stepped questions as to whether he would vote to bring the government down, saying his party would decide on an issue-by-issue basis on whether to support the Liberals. The NDP is the fourth-largest party in the House of Commons.

The Conservatives, who say there is no difference between the NDP and the Liberals, are likely to try to force as many confidence votes as possible to put pressure on Singh.

Singh’s party now faces a dilemma in the coming months. If Singh backed Trudeau or abstained on a confidence vote, it would allow the Conservatives to continue portraying him as weak. If he voted to bring Trudeau down, it would trigger an election at a time when polls show low levels of support for the NDP.