Jagmeet Singh sold federal NDP’s soul for mere promise of pharmacare

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Jagmeet Singh’s NDP has sold its soul and didn’t even get 30 pieces of silver. At best, the Justin Trudeau Liberals have offered their NDP coalition colleagues a “pocketful of mumbles,” just promises that they will eventually do something.

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It’s paying off for the Liberals, though, as their NDP partners on Monday joined in voting down further investigation of the National Microbiology Laboratory issue.

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“It’s not necessary, it’s not urgent,” Liberal MP Iqra Khalid said before New Democrat Matthew Green joined the Liberals in shutting down the committee and further attempts to investigate.

Yes, heaven forbid we look into a matter involving two married scientists who were marched out of the Winnipeg facility in 2019 before being dismissed less than two years later. At least one was working close enough with China that their security clearances were revoked and the government spending more than four years covering up why and how this happened.

Thanks to documents the government was forced to release, we already know that Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, one of the two scientists fired from the Level 4 bio lab, was seen as helping China. She engaged in trips to China and held meetings with scientists, military and government officials and allegedly transferred scientific knowledge and material from Canada to the benefit of China.

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This activity went undetected for some time before CSIS got involved. Then in July 2019, Qui and her husband Keding Cheng, who also worked at the lab as a biologist, had their security clearances revoked and were escorted out.

“These Winnipeg lab breaches are part of a broader pattern by this government of neglecting Canada’s national security,” Conservative MP Michael Chong said in arguing for further investigation.

While he and the other Conservatives were game, the Liberals and the NDP were not; they shut down the investigation.

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When the coalition agreement between the NDP and Liberals was unveiled, Sun columnist Warren Kinsella dubbed the pairing “The Axis of Weasels.” Some thought that sounded harsh, but it seems to be accurate, especially after Monday’s vote not to look into this matter further.

“Both parties believe strongly in Parliament’s role to hold the government to account. Nothing in this agreement will undermine that critical function,” the agreement said.

Clearly, the NDP has other priorities than holding this government to account.

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Singh and his team, along with the senior partners in the Axis of Weasels, have spent the last week crowing about what they claimed was a major victory in the fight for universal single-payer national pharmacare. It’s not, it’s a promise to negotiate with some provinces to try to secure deals, likely starting in 2026 or later to offer birth control and diabetes medication.

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I say some provinces because Quebec already has universal coverage for prescriptions and other provinces have coverage at varying degrees. So Quebec has said they won’t participate, but will demand full payment for their system. British Columbia offers something close to universal coverage for birth control and Alberta has its own system and says it won’t participate.

Of course, the federal government and their NDP partners have said it’s fine for B.C. and Quebec to be compensated, but both are attacking Alberta.

This is what the NDP has sold their souls for: “A pocketful of mumbles, such are promises,” as Simon and Garfunkel sang in The Boxer. This isn’t a pharmacare plan, this is a hold-you-off, keep-defending-us plan.

As long as the Liberals promise that they will offer to pay for some prescriptions down the road, the NDP seems to be willing to do anything they want. There is no holding the government to account when free birth control is on the table.

There was a time when the NDP didn’t want power, but wanted to be known as the conscience of Parliament.

Those days are obviously long past.

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