Poilievre asks Singh to pull support for Liberals, prompt fall election

conservative leader Pierre pev is calling on NDP leader jug meit Singh to scrap his agreement with J Justin Trudeau's liberals and trigger an election the cbc's Kate McKenna joins us now in Ottawa so Kate what more can you tell us about what PV is asking Singh to do and why well conservative leader Pier PV is basically calling jug meet Singh out saying that if he truly disagrees with the direction of the Trudeau government uh then he should vote against uh its measures in the House of Commons when it resumes in September and trigger a national election now the NP and the Liberals have been in uh what they call a supply and confidence agreement uh for some time now where basically they've made a deal uh the NDP uh gets some things on the legislative agenda for instance dental care and legislation around uh replacement workers uh and as part of the deal they vote with the government essentially keeping the government in power now at the uh Federal uh cabinet Retreat earlier this week we heard house leader Karina Gould say as far as she's concerned this agreement is going to continue until the end of June of next year which would essentially put an election either in the summer or fall of 2025 so Pierre POV today saying that jug meet Singh if he really disagrees with what the Trudeau government is doing then he should uh end the end the deal and uh get trigger an ction my message to sellout sing is this put the people ahead of your pension break the costly Coalition with Trudeau to trigger a carbon tax election where Canadians can choose between the costly Coalition of the NDP liberals that tax your food punish your work take your money double your housing in cost and unleash crime and Chaos in your community or common sense conservatives who will ax the tax build the homes fix the budget and stop the crime now the conservatives have been wanting to go to an election for some time now uh for more than a year they've been leading in opinion polls at about a 15-point margin so a significant margin compared to where the Liberals are at uh but it is worth mentioning Pier POV mentioned in that clip and also in the letter that uh jug meet Singh Is is continuing to prop up the government because he wants his pension in February uh I mean Pier PV has had his pension since 20110 so uh but this is all in the context of a rail dispute uh that uh the federal government moved to uh send to binding arbitration a week ago now and jug meing was very critical of uh the uh Federal liberals for doing that saying essentially they were turning their backs on workers now Pierre PV is saying well if you really don't agree with that then why are you continuing to support this government uh uh and of course another key part of this or key detail is that there is a byelection happening right now in Manitoba that is seen to be a a race between the conservatives and the NDP uh it's something uh both parties have really been pushing uh to get the labor vote of course the labor is the Bedrock of of new democrat politics but we've also seen from uh Pierre POV uh he's he's going to shop floors he's talking to the workers he at one point said that his if he's elected his daily obsession will be what's best for the working class of Canada so uh we're we're seeing more and more these two parties kind of at loggerheads okay but How likely is it that sing is actually going to force an election this fall it's it's not likely it's not likely at all as I mentioned we heard from Karina Gould saying that as far as she's concerned uh this is something that's going to last until next spring uh we did receive a statement from um the NDP saying they're always willing to uh dissolve the agreement if they feel something meets that bar but then the question of course becomes what meets that bar the NDP has been critical of the government for a number of things we can think of the budget they were uh upset that there wasn't more money for the disability tax credit they've been very critical of the government on foreign interference and then of course most recently the the rail strike uh but uh they do get things out of this agreement and there have been tangible uh things that they've received such as Dental Care legislation far pharmacare the beginnings of pharmacare uh and the anti-cab legislation uh but chrisa Freeland the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister was asked about this today here's what she had to say I think we need to really take these assertions by the conservative leader with a healthy a very healthy grain of salt the reality is in recent weeks and months we have had a steady stream of good economic news for Canadians we have had inflation within the bank of Canada's target range for 7 months in a row down to 2.5% in July we have had interest rates coming down twice and Market analysts forecasting they are going to continue to come down earlier this week there was a cabinet retreat in Halifax and I was there speaking with liberals and they told me and other reporters that they really feel like the pinch the financial pinch that Canadians are feeling uh will subside or at least lessen in uh the coming months as interest rates sort of tick down and inflation is ticking down as well uh they're kind of relying on that or or hoping that that's going to make a difference in their electoral fortunes and that's sort of what we heard from christop Freeland there Kate thank you this cbc's Kate McKenna live in Ottawa