NDP House Leader Peter Julian said his party will vote non-confidence in the minority Liberal government if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remains leader at the end of the winter.
Singh called on Trudeau to resign but when asked by reporters if he would declare non-confidence in the government, he said, “All tools, all options are on the table.”
When asked to clarify, he repeated that “all options are on the table, that means anything is possible.”
Singh said what is “clear” is that Trudeau and the Liberal government are “focused on themselves” and “infighting at a time when people cannot even do their groceries.”
Singh and Julian’s comments came after Chrystia Freeland tendered her resignation as a cabinet minister. In her resignation letter to Trudeau, she said she had been “at odds” with the prime minister over the management of the economy and said he had been engaged in “costly political gimmicks.”
Freeland did not expand on which economic policy she disagrees with, but Parliament just passed a two-month GST holiday with the support of the NDP.
Julian noted to CBC News there will be non-confidence votes around February and March and that, by that time, if Trudeau has not resigned, the NDP will drop its support.
“When it’s a straight-up confidence motion, if at the end of February-early March, if we have the continued debacle that we’re seeing here, and the prime minister has not stepped down ... We simply cannot continue like this,” Julian said. “So yes, the NDP, as the adults in the room, would step up on that.”
The NDP kept the minority Liberals in power through a supply-and-confidence deal they reached in March 2022. Singh announced he was breaking the agreement in September, a few days before byelections in Winnipeg and Montreal ridings where the NDP has been faring well.
After getting out of the deal, which would have kept Liberals in power until June 2025, Singh said his party would consider each confidence vote separately. The NDP did not vote non-confidence during the fall session.
Singh repeated his call for Trudeau to step down in the House of Commons on Dec. 17, saying he has “failed to defend workers from rich CEOs.”
“Will the prime acknowledge he has failed? He has to quit,” said Singh during the last question period session until Jan. 27, as MPs break for holidays.
Government House Leader Karina Gould responded that MPs voted in confidence of the government “just last week on multiple occasions.”
In recent days, the House passed the government’s supplementary estimates and defeated a Conservative non-confidence motion that included Singh’s own criticism of Trudeau.
Trudeau has so far given no indication he intends to quit. The prime minister has weathered growing internal criticism since the loss of a Toronto stronghold in a June byelection.
