NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says his party is prepared to withdraw from the supply and confidence agreement he signed with the Liberals if there is no federal action to address the health-care crisis.
The deal would see the NDP support the minority government on key votes in the House of Commons to avoid triggering an election before 2025. In exchange, the Liberals have promised to make progress on a number of NDP priorities, including health care.
Awww look at him, pretending he's all relevant and stuff
I doubt there's much in this. But - it does give some answer to the question of why Justin ordered all his people to be ready for a spring election. The budget is when the issue of funding for the provinces will be front and center, and realistically if Jaggers wants to actually pick a fight that's when he's likely to do it.
Interesting side note - the ndp backing out of the deal wouldn't automatically mean an election. The ndp and the cpc together don't have enough votes to vote down the Liberals. It would take the ndp, cpc AND the bloc voting against the libs to bring the gov't down. So if the libs did something to keep the Bloc happy then that's all it would take.
But the libs might choose to call an election based on teh ndp backing out just because it's probably the best time for them unless they replace the leader. The recession hasn't started yet, it's been weeks since his last scandal, he has more money than the ndp by far (and he must get their voters if he's going to win), PP hasn't had time yet to truly prepare for an election so he's weaker than he will be in 3 years, and the public still doesn't know him all that well.