Absolutely. But that makes your comment that you fail to see the upside for the NDP puzzling.

Not really. I fail to see the reason for the big announcement as, essentially, all the NDP have agreed to do is what all politicians ought to do.

Not enough has been made of this comment in this thread. The biggest problem with Canadian politics right now isn't the Liberals or the NDP, nor even the Bloc, but the complete disarray of the Conservative party. Harper at least had the force of personality to (more or less) steer all the wheels in the same direction, but under Scheer and then what's-his-name the nonentity (oh yes, O'Toole - I genuinely had to work to recall his name...), they've completely fallen off. The more noise the socially conservative right wing folks make, the more difficult it will be for the party to be even remotely appealing to a majority (sorry, a plurality)of the general electorate. With Bergen in interim "control" trying to stem the more ludicrous excesses, and with the likes of Poillievre making the running in the leadership election, there's little prospect of any meaningful opposition to Trudeau, let alone a potential party of government, any time soon. Trumpist populism has had its day (excepting Mr Kenney and his Cnut-like attempts to hold back the tide of sentiment in Alberta, of course...).

Trudeau has not done much for Canada since taking office - for sure, he's not had the easiest brief, with having had to deal with the US under Trump and then dealing with all the pandemic crap, but there's not much he's done that leaves Canada in a better position domestically or internationally than it was in in 2015. But he will be allowed to continue in his mediocrity if the Cons can't produce a charismatic and electable leadership candidate with the political nous to realize playing to a diminishing base will not get them to government.

Keep an eye on that Pierre Poilievre fellow, he's probably the biggest chance the conservatives have of winning if he becomes the party leader. He is the only politician talking passionately about the housing crisis, which is probably the number one affordability issue in Canada right now, particularly for young people. The Liberals and NDP have completely dropped the ball on this issue.

I don't think this single issue is enough to overcome his abhorrent views on everything else nor his unpleasant persona. He also has an issue with the clash between his accent and his far right constituency. He's not black, he's not Jewish, but he does sound French and that's getting on for being as bad.

By the time of the next election, if Trudeau doesn't try again what he tried last year, he will be approaching the time that the electorate generally tire of the incumbent, no matter how well they are doing. As a result of this, I don't actually believe the any party's policy will sway anyone, it will simply be the fact that the incumbent needs to be punted, particularly if, by then, he can't point to anything of merit that he has actually achieved in the almost decade that he would have been in office.

Raising your expectation? It's already beyond 5-9% lol

What about those of us who were tired of him even before he became PM and could see he was weak on substance?

They were unlikely to have voted for him under any circumstances. I can't think of anything that he has done that anyone would agree was a good thing. One could argue that his changes around the Canada Child Benefit were good but he did so without having any plan to pay for it so the deficit simply rose.

His environmental plans have fallen flat on their face which is why he appears to be panicking somewhat now.

Isn't that standard liberal procedure though. in addition to him having no substance.

Not really. It would be difficult to criticize the Paul Martin liberals' economic policies.

Didn't he legalize marijuana?

Sums me up. I find him quite uninspiring. Just remember that the budget will take care of itself.

The insane genius of Canada's first-past-the-post system, combined with highly regionalised voting, is that it doesn't take too much of a shift in the national popular vote to completely remake Parliament. Just ask Kim Campbell, whose Progressive Conservatives went from 156 seats to 2, in the 1993 election. Which was later followed by a Conservative Party (no "Progressive" this time) resurgence into a relatively right-wing, populist (in Canadian terms, anyway) national government under Steven Harper from 2006 - 2015.

Serial realignments of the left and right are now the order of the day in federal politics. The Liberal - NDP accord is just the latest iteration of that.