NDP tenders two requests to Trudeau while commencing its own election post-mortem
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh recently revealed his first demands for the new minority parliament, following a meeting with his new caucus in Ottawa.According to the report on The Globe, Singh issued two calls to the Liberal government. The first call was for the Liberal government to support a future private members’ bill from the NDP on universal, single-payer pharmacare.He also requested that the Liberal government drop an appeal of a human rights tribunal decision involving Indigenous children.
“They’re going to need us,” Mr. Singh told reporters, after a meeting in Ottawa. “We are ready to work but we are going to hold them to account.”
Mr. Singh said he believes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would show a willingness to co-operate on such issues as pharmacare and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples; this includes dropping their appeal on a human rights tribunal ruling. Singh says he also believes that Canadians have shown they want co-operation in the next Parliament
The Liberal government had in October 2019, applied for judicial review of a September ruling from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on First Nations children who were taken into the child-welfare system without necessary justification. This move had stirred a couple of Indigenous leaders and advocates, to begin to question the Prime Minister’s true intentions, when it comes to reconciling with Indigenous peoples.
In other news, Singh also recently admitted that even though he was proud of his party’s successful election campaign, he remains unsatisfied with the results of the elections. This is in spite of the fact that NDP MPs were elected in 24 ridings.
NDP MP,AlexandreBoulerice recently told reporters that the party will talk to all candidates and MPs who lost, to investigate the areas in which the party could improve next time.Boulerice saidof his party leader, “I’m really hopeful for the future because Jagmeet really revealed himself in this campaign,” he said. “The more [voters] know him, the more they like him.”
Former chief of staff to late NDP leader Jack Layton and a 2019 campaign adviser, Anne McGrath, also admitted that the party ran a successful campaign but admitted that there was some sadness in the party over NDP’s loss in Quebec.
“I obviously was very, very upset at losing those seats but I think that the bones of what we built in Quebec are still there,” she said, pointing to Quebeckers responding to Mr. Singh in the last few days of the campaign.
Matthew Dubé, another NDP MP, who was first elected in 2011 but lost his seat last week, said he believed that the campaign in Quebec was a positive one, adding that Quebeckers highly appreciated NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh and his style as a politician.
“I think at the end of the day, it is not just in Quebec, [but] throughout Canada, that [it] didn’t necessarily translate to votes,” he said. “He did a lot of great work and it’s why I hope he will continue.”