On the road to the coming federal election, none of the other parties should count on Jagmeet Singh’s new democrats to support their call. Singh, the lion from Brampton, Ontario, has said he will back the liberal government until the pandemic has been beaten. And that might take a while.
But then Singh has replaced courage with caution. The name he uses might mean ‘lion’ in Punjabi but he thinks that it is better to keep fighting the coronavirus with the liberals in power. He is probably right even though the liberals have rejected his condition that they back the NDP’s motion to enshrine a universal pharmacare program in legislation.
The liberals have been talking around a universal pharmacare program for some time now but there are no promises yet in their agenda. They are probably saving it for the election.
And whether Singh is ready or not, there will be an election. There is little chance that it can wait until the fall of 2022. Given completion of at least 60 per cent of vaccinations across Canada by August, you can probably count on an election in October. That is just eight months away and all parties are scrambling to be ready.
Singh will probably think the image of Tommy Douglas and Medicare will help the NDP but the facts are that it was the liberals who finally made it happen.
On this subject, it was amusing to see a letter arrive at our home today addressed to the wife. It was from Ottawa and signed by Justin Trudeau. There was a cardboard card attached to it that looked very much like a blood donor card. In fact, it said ‘2021 DONOR in big red letters. That was a bit presumptuous as neither of us pay any more than brief attention to all the e-mails, phone calls and mailings from the Ottawa office pleading with us to send money.
All political parties in Canada need to start treating their supporters with a little more respect. They are probably going to need our support in October.
-30-
Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be temporarily sent to [email protected]