Bloc Québécois ready to extract gains for Quebec in exchange for supporting Liberals

MONTEBELLO, Que. — The Bloc Québécois is ready to wheel and deal with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in exchange for support during confidence votes now that the Liberal government’s confidence and supply agreement with the NDP has ended.

That support won’t come cheap, the Quebec-based Bloc said, and the sovereigntist party led by Yves-François Blanchet has already drawn up a list of demands.

In an interview ahead of the opening of Monday’s party caucus retreat in the Outaouais region, Bloc House Leader Alain Therrien said his party is happy to regain its balance of power.

“Our objectives remain the same, but the means to get there will be much easier,” Therrien said. “We will negotiate and seek gains for Quebec … our balance of power has improved, that’s for sure.”

He called the situation a “window of opportunity” now that the Liberals are truly a minority government after New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh tore up the confidence and supply deal between the two parties last week, leaving the Bloc with an opening.

While Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have promised multiple confidence votes in the hope of triggering a general election, the Bloc’s strategy is not to rush to the polls and instead use their new-found standing to make what they consider to be gains for Quebec.

A Bloc strategist who was granted anonymity by The Canadian Press because he was not authorized to speak publicly stated bluntly that the NDP had officially handed the balance of power back to the Bloc. The Bloc is taking for granted that when a federal election is held in about a year or less, it will be a majority Conservative government led by Poilievre, whose party has surged in the polls for over a year and has been ahead in the rest of Canada for over a year.

Quebec won’t factor so much in that win, the source added, where the Bloc will be hoping to grab seats from the Liberals and where the Conservatives hope to gain from the Bloc.

“It’s going to happen with or without Quebec,” the source said. “They (the Conservatives) are 20 points ahead everywhere in Canada, with the exception of Quebec, and that won’t change … their (Conservative) vote is firm.”

It is not surprising that the Bloc sees excellent news in the tearing up of the agreement that allowed the Liberals to govern without listening to their demands, said University of Ottawa political scientist Geneviève Tellier.

“The Bloc only has influence if the government, no matter which one, is a minority,” she explained. “In the case of a majority government, the Bloc’s relevance becomes more difficult to justify because, like the other parties, it can oppose, it can hold the government to account, but it cannot influence the government’s policies.”

On the Bloc’s priority list is gaining royal recommendation for Bill C-319, which aims to bring pensions for seniors aged 65 to 74 to the same level as that paid to those aged 75 and over.

A bill with budgetary implications that comes from a member of Parliament, as is the case here, must necessarily obtain royal recommendation before third reading, failing which the rules provide that the Speaker of the House will end the proceedings and rule it inadmissible.

The Bloc also wants Quebec to obtain more powers in immigration matters, particularly in the area of ​​temporary foreign workers, and recoup money it says is owed to the province.

The demands concerning seniors’ pensions and immigration powers are “easy, feasible and clear,” Therrien said.

“It’s clear that it will be on the table. I can tell you: I’m the one who will negotiate,” he added.

The Bloc also wants to see cuts to money for oil companies, more health-care funds for provinces as demanded by premiers and stemming or eliminating Ottawa’s encroachment of provincial jurisdictions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2024.

Michel Saba, The Canadian Press