Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

HOUSE OF COMMONS

Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP worried agreement between Liberals and NDP could result in unchecked spending

Mar 22, 2022 | 3:42 PM

OTTAWA — On Tuesday morning (Mar. 22), the prime minister announced his Liberals have an agreement in place with the federal NDP to ensure the minority government can remain in power until 2025.

PM Justin Trudeau says the agreement is a ‘confidence and supply’ deal and takes effect immediately. The Liberals currently hold 159 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons, while the NDP has 25 MPs.

Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Conservative MP Frank Caputo was surprised when the news broke, as it seemed the Liberals and NDP denied any such deal would take place.

“Everybody really denied that this was even happening, right?” Caputo told CFJC Today from Ottawa. “At the beginning of the election term — the election was held September 20 — shortly thereafter, there was denial that there was even any sort of discussion about this, more denials. Now we hear that there were discussions. It seems that they were kept secret for a reason because they didn’t want Canadians knowing about this.”

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This type of agreement is similar to the one that was reached by the BC NDP and the BC Green Party in 2017.

The deal will see Jagmeet Singh’s party support the Liberals in any confidence or budgetary votes that come up in parliament. Caputo says he’s concerned this will continue to drive federal spending.

“Billions and billions and billions of dollars of spending — simply put, we cannot afford it,” Caputo says. “Not only are there billions of dollars of spending being committed, we’re looking at spending that will essentially go unchecked by a minority government because there’s a commitment to support this over the next four years. That’s the key with a minority government, is that sometimes, when there’s a misstep, there’s always that accountability. We’ve essentially lost that accountability overnight.”