Ontario Premier Doug Ford accused NDP leader Jagmeet Singh of being a “greedy” politician only interested in securing his taxpayer-funded pension.
The Ontario premier said he’d “be floored” if Singh had the gumption to call an early federal election since it would jeopardize the threshold date he must pass in order to receive his parliamentary pension, which he can only qualify for after February.
There has been much speculation of a potential early election in the wake of Singh’s decision to pull out of his party’s supply-and-confidence pact with the Liberals last week.
The NDP agreement has been propping up the Liberal government and allowing them to pass legislation and remain in power despite plummeting popularity.
The agreement between the two parties was first struck in 2022, with the NDP pledging to keep the Liberals in power until June of next year in exchange for support on certain issues.
“As far as I’m concerned MP Singh is just blowing smoke,” Ford told reporters in Prince Edward County on Monday.
“There’s nothing more important to these greedy politicians than collecting a pension. And he was elected in October 2019 and I’ll be floored, I’ll stand up here and apologize to all the greedy politicians if he calls the election early.”
Ford made the comments during a funding announcement for a new water treatment plant in the area.
“But let’s face it, he wants his pension. He’s not going anywhere (until October 2025) because there’s him and a whole lot of other politicians who want to grab the taxpayers’ money,” he added.
“So my bet is he’s not doing anything, he’s just putting on a big show like he has for the past number of years there.”
While Singh has denied any correlation between prolonging calling an election and his pension eligibility date, the coincidence has not been lost on critics and opponents.
“Sellout Singh. He gets his pension. You pay the price,” said the Conservatives in an attack ad video earlier this summer and party leader Pierre Poilievre has been calling on Singh to either resign or trigger an early fall election for some time now.
Meanwhile at the provincial level, Ford stayed mum on whether Singh’s ending of the NDP-Liberal coalition would affect his own plans to possibly call an early election in Ontario.
“We haven’t made that decision yet, we aren’t calling an election this year and we’re going to make sure that we continue with prosperity and creating jobs for the people of Ontario,” said Ford on Monday.
