NDP members will get a chance to give the party their thoughts and opinions on the confidence-and-supply agreement that they share with the Liberals during their three-day convention in Hamilton on Friday.
The Liberal-NDP coalition has been in place since 2022 and Friday’s gathering will mark the first time members will get to share their views on it since it was first signed.
Trudeau’s Liberals only hold a minority government, meaning that the NDP can alter the balance of power regarding legislation being passed through their formal agreement.
The NDP favours key Liberal legislation and in exchange, the Liberals help the NDP to advance some of their party’s priority policies.
Numerous polls reveal that the majority of NDP party members seem indifferent on the current pact their party shares with the Liberals, however some do have concerns as to how the agreement will ultimately play out.
Among those concerned is NDP Indigenous People’s Commission head Trudy Spiller, who said she plans to push for more Indigenous rights issues at the convention.
Additionally, Spiller wants to see the establishment of a Red Dress alert system to provide better protection for Indigenous women, girls and members of the LGBTQ community who go missing.
While Spiller can acknowledge certain party wins under the agreement, like government-subsidized dental care, she also believes it’s time for the NDP to terminate their pact with the Liberals.
“I think after this convention, [the deal] has served its purpose. It’s time to get out and be on our own as New Democrats,” Spiller told CBC News.
While there aren’t any NDP prioritized resolutions that can’t happen under the current agreement, the party still expects that it will be a burgeoning talking point at the convention.
“Absolutely, I’m sure that people are going to want to talk about the supply and confidence agreement, and we’re going to have those open discussions with those folks,” said Dhananjai Kohli, the party’s outgoing president.
“I think, if anything, folks want us to be able to do more,” Kohli said. “And that’s totally fair.”
The B.C. NDP representative for women, Kristine Wickner, said she is disappointed that by this point in time the pact hasn’t yet led to a wealth tax or policies to create more affordable housing.
She feels that if anything, this agreement has given the NDP party an ambiguous identity.
“I think a lot of us are looking for the party at the federal level to occupy a truly left space. And I think Canadians want that, too,” said Wickner.
“When I talk to my friends who are not super partisan … they don’t really understand, at a fundamental level, the difference between the Liberal Party and the NDP. They don’t see why they would vote for the NDP.
“They’ll say things like Liberal 2.0 or Liberal light or Orange Liberals. And so, I think that’s presenting a pretty big challenge to us. It’s almost an identity crisis, it feels like.”
However, Wickner said she isn’t blaming party leadership in particular with her comments. “There’s a tendency to be hard on people in politics … we need to be softer on people and harder on systems, and talk about how we create a different system,” she said.
Despite that, a review of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh will surely be underway at the convention over the weekend.
Should 51% or more of NDP delegates vote in favour of leadership review, then a leadership convention will have to be called within a year of the vote, according to the NDP constitution.
Singh has had overwhelming majority support from party delegates since 2018 however, and during the last leadership convention in 2021, 87% of delegates voted against a leadership convention.
