Calling Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party "too weak, too selfish", the Left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) of Jagmeet Singh withdrew its unofficial support to the former's minority government. In a video posted on social media, Singh said he had informed Trudeau of his decision.
According to a report by the BBC, the two parties weren't formal allies but worked together as part of a framework called the 'supply and confidence' agreement, forged in 2022. Under the agreement, the NDP said it would support the Liberals in confidence votes and the latter pledged their support to the NDP on several of the party's key priorities in parliament.
The announcement would not directly trigger a federal election, but Canadians may go to the polls before the election scheduled for October 2025, BBC reported.
"Justin Trudeau has proven again and again he will always cave to corporate greed. The Liberals have let people down. They don't deserve another chance from Canadians. There is another, even bigger battle ahead. The threat of Pierre Poilievre and Conservative cuts. From workers, from retirees, from young people, from patients, from families — he will cut in order to give more to big corporations and wealthy CEOs," said Singh in the video.
He also said that the Liberals will not stand up to corporate interests, and he would be running in the next election to "stop Conservative cuts".
An NDP spokesperson said that plans to end the agreement had been in the works for the past two weeks, and that the Liberal government was told about their decision just an hour before the video went online, CBC News reported.
Jagmeet Singh, a Sikh leader born in Canada to immigrant parents from Punjab, has been a vocal critic of what he describes as human rights violations by the Indian government against its critics. He has also alleged that the Indian government hired killers to murder Sikh radical Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada last year. Nijjar's killing set the stage for a diplomatic row between India and Canada as Trudeau claimed last year that there were credible allegations of the murder being state-sponsored. India had dismissed the allegations as "absurd".