The Liberals and NDP still have reasons to work together — are they good enough?

If the 44th Parliament can hold it together until April 28, it will become the longest-lasting minority Parliament in modern Canadian history.

This Parliament's longevity is already well above average — 823 days as of Thursday. The 10 minority Parliaments that existed between 1957 and 2021 lasted an average of 526 days.

The chance to make history isn't the best reason the Liberals and NDP have to reach an agreement on pharmacare, but there's something to be said — maybe even a lot — for stability.

The confidence-and-supply agreement between the Liberals and New Democrats — the deal that has helped keep this Parliament on track — is unprecedented at the federal level. It can still feel like a live experiment meant to answer the question of whether two Canadian political parties are capable of sustaining at least some level of cooperation for a meaningful period of time.

In some countries, that sort of thing is more or less expected. In Ottawa, the end of the Liberal-NDP deal has been anticipated almost from the moment it was signed, and a fresh round of questions about its possible demise has popped up every month or so.

The issue of pharmacare has produced the most speculation to date. And though it's hard to tell exactly how great the differences between the government and the NDP are, or have been, it's probably a mistake to dismiss the possibility that this could be the end of the Liberal-NDP deal.

«We're working with the NDP and I'm confident we're going to get it,» Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told CBC Radio's Mainstreet Cape Breton on Thursday.

What pharmacare is about and what it would mean

There seem to be two broad issues: the wording of legislation that would set out the broad parameters of a national pharmacare