Bloc Québécois says end of Liberal-NDP deal is 'window of opportunity' for party

The Bloc Québécois says its ready to wheel and deal with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's party for support during confidence votes now that the Liberal government's supply-and-confidence 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 Monday's party caucus retreat in the Outaouais region, Bloc House leader Alain Therrien says 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.

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh's decision to back out of the confidence and supply deal last week leaves the Bloc with an opening, the party says.

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 into one 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 the assumption that when a federal election is held in about a year or less, it will be a majority