I Stand Corrected

I’ve got to admit, I never saw this coming and I am for it.

In response to Camille’s group blog post, The labour world during Pandemic, I stated our current Liberal government would most likely fail to support Canadians in the socially responsible way they’re being called out for by the Public Service Alliance of Canada. In the article, Labour Day 2020: Moving Canada Forward Together (Psaunion, 2020) they suggest the governments position is at a “critical juncture” and can “either rise to this historic occasion” or “opt to not prepare”, after-which they laid out a list of recommendations of public services and social infrastructures that would benefit all Canadians.

As the article is now a year and a half old a few of these topics have been addressed by the government, but my personal opinion was that they would fail to acknowledge the remaining as the Liberal government is not as socially conscious as the NPD. Times change and I suppose my opinion must to some degree as well. In the new article posted today on CBC, (Zimonjic, 2022) outlines an agreement made to combine party efforts in passing new legislation, among 17 other commitments:

• A Clean Jobs Training Centre to support retraining for energy workers as Canada moves away from fossil Fuels
• A commitment to work on a universal national pharmacare program
• An Early Learning and Child Care Act, to ensure child care agreements are secured long-term
• Legislation to ensure federally regulated workers get 10 days of paid sick leave per year

This new agreement between the Liberal and NDP governments hits all the talking points of the Public Service Alliance’s article, which to me is surprising. It will be interesting to see if the two governments can hold each-other accountable, or if these commitments will go the way of the all too easily forgotten campaign promises; never to be fully realized or addressed. While this deal is not a formal coalition, the confidence-and-supply agreement is meant to be mutually assuring. While it may mean Canada takes on a little more debt, socially speaking we will benefit greatly. What a better time than post-pandemic amidst rampant money printing to stir the pot and bring in legislation for the greater good of the people? They’ll just pay the debt with more debt anyway. (Debt clock, 2022)