Trudeau Speaks on Singh’s Terminating Deal With Liberals: ‘It Bugged Me’

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a Liberal fundraiser in Mississauga, Ont., on Sept. 27, 2024. The Canadian Press/Paige Taylor White

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it “bugged” him that Jagmeet Singh terminated the NDP’s supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals without first giving him a heads-up.

Singh’s move was motivated by “politics,” Trudeau said in an interview with Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith on his podcast program, Uncommons, adding that he thought he and the NDP leader had “developed a really good working relationship.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t reach out to call me. For him to do that, that way, it bugged me. And it bugged me because I know these things matter to him,” Trudeau said referring to priorities they share, such as the environment.

“He didn’t even call me,” Trudeau said. “The relationship obviously wasn’t what I thought it was. I know that if I had chosen to end it, it would have started with a call to him. I would have said, ‘You know what, Jagmeet? It’s not going to work.’ You make those tough calls.”

Singh ended his supply-and-confidence agreement with the minority government early last month saying the Liberals were “too beholden to corporate interests.”

The NDP entered the supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals in March 2022, shoring up the party’s minority government. The New Democrats agreed to support confidence votes in the House of Commons in exchange for the Liberals prioritizing certain items on the NDP’s agenda.

Trudeau said he harbours “no hard feelings” against Singh, despite being “disappointed” with how he handled the situation.

The prime minister said he believes “politics sort of kicked in,” placing Singh under pressure from his caucus and his voting base to cut ties with the Liberals in a bid to secure the Sept. 16 Winnipeg byelection in Elmwood-Transcona, an NDP stronghold. A byelection in Quebec on the same day also saw an NDP candidate in a three-way race to secure the LaSalle-Émard-Verdun seat which had long been held by the Liberals.

The NDP won its seat in the Winnipeg byelection but failed to do so in Quebec. The Bloc Québécois was victorious in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, taking over a seat held by the Liberals for the majority of the past century.

It was not the first byelection upset for the Liberals this year. The party also lost in Toronto-St. Paul’s, another Liberal stronghold. Conservative candidate Don Stewart won by a narrow margin, taking the seat that had been held by the Liberals for more than 30 years.

Trudeau discussed his regrets about the losses with Erskine-Smith, an MP known for voting against his own government on occasion.

Trudeau said the party didn’t give the candidates in the Montreal and Toronto byelections “enough time on the ground.”

“One of the things that I know that I would have liked to have been able to do earlier, is get the candidate in place and working the ground for longer,” he said.

Trudeau on Poilievre

Trudeau and Erskine-Smith discussed several topics during the nearly hour-long interview. The one name that consistently popped up throughout the conversation was that of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

Erskine-Smith asked the prime minister why he wasn’t “taking the fight to” Poilievre, saying he felt Trudeau had been too lenient and given Poilievre a “free pass” on some issues since he was elected Tory leader in 2022.

Trudeau said former Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried that tactic when Trudeau became Liberal leader in 2013 and that it didn’t work because “Canadians sort of had an idea of” who Trudeau was.

“Canadians don’t have much of an idea of who Poilievre [is]. He’s been in the House for 20 years, nobody knows who he is,” Trudeau said, adding that while he had the “opportunity” to launch an attack, he ultimately decided against it.

“There was something that didn’t feel true to me, in terms of, [saying] now I’m going to pick a fight with him when I should be fighting for Canadians, when I should be trying to tackle inflation,” he said.

While Poilievre and Conservatives often target Liberals and Trudeau with their talking points, including calling the government’s policies on issues such as drugs “wacko,” the Liberals have also taken shots at Conservatives and Poilievre in Parliament as well as on posts and short videos released on social media. These tactics have included branding Poilievre and Conservatives as extremists.

“Pierre Poilievre still can’t denounce the conspiracy theorists or the white nationalists who support him,” Trudeau said in a social media post on April 26.

The tactics have also included importing key words from U.S. politics. Most recently, several Liberal MPs accused Poilievre as being “weird,” a term which had been used by Democrats in the United States against Republicans.  In response, Conservative MPs made their own social media posts to accuse Liberals of being “weird.”

The Poilievre-led Tories hold 43 percent of the current vote share, according to a recent poll, giving them a 22-point lead over the Liberals’ 21 percent vote share, and making it likely the Conservatives would win a majority government if an election were held today.

Trudeau said he is aware that he has been criticized for his choices, both by Liberal supporters and by members of his own party. He told Erskine-Smith he’s not worried about those in his caucus who may be doubting him.

“There’s a question on whether or not I still have the drive, or the fight, or the ability to win this fight. That’s obviously a question that I have to ask as well,“ he said. ”Do I still have the drive to do this? And the answer is … absolutely, better than just about anyone else, because I have been fighting through crises and fighting against Conservative opponents.”