NDP Could Make Election Interference Inquiry a Condition of Party’s Support for Liberals, Singh Says

New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh listens to a question during an availability on Parliament Hill, Jan. 19, 2023 in Ottawa. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says his party is not “ruling out” the possibility of ending its supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberal government if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fails to call a public inquiry into reports of foreign election interference.

Singh said on an episode of the Roy Green Show podcast on March 4 that while terminating the deal is not a decision his party will be making immediately, a public inquiry is something the NDP will continue pushing for—with the possibility of it becoming a deal-breaker for the supply-and-confidence agreement.

“There’s always an opportunity for us to revisit that,” Singh said in reference to the agreement. “So that remains an open question we can always revisit and we will constantly make that analysis.”

The NDP entered into the agreement with the minority Liberal government in March 2022 to keep the government in power until 2025 in exchange for both a national pharmacare and dental plan.

Singh previously called on Trudeau to initiate a public inquiry into the foreign interference allegations following reports by Global News and the Globe and Mail citing Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) sources detailing Beijing’s attempts to interfere in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 elections.

Trudeau has ruled out the possibility of calling a public inquiry into the allegations on several occasions.

Reporters asked Singh in late February if Trudeau’s hesitation to call an inquiry could affect the supply-and-confidence deal, but he said his party had not yet made a decision on the matter.

Singh gave a similar answer to podcast host Roy Green on March 4 but added that raising the agreement with the Liberal government is still a possibility.

“I’m not in any way ruling out that it could come to a point [where] we’ve got to exercise that ability,” Singh said. “That’s something that we absolutely have the ability to do. I’m just saying that’s not a decision we’re making today.”

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet have also called for a public inquiry into foreign election interference.

Former CSIS head Richard Fadden and Canada’s former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley have also made the same calls.

Both Poilievre and Blanchet have specifically called for a public inquiry chaired by a commissioner chosen by the whole of Parliament rather than by the federal government.

“All parties in the parliament must agree on who the commissioner is. We cannot have yet another Liberal crony named to head up this inquiry,” Poilievre told reporters in Ottawa on March 1.