Big dreams central to Singh’s charisma
Jagmeet Singh’s highest political hurdle may be convincing skeptical Canadians to buy into his big dreams for them. The federal NDP leader’s second highest hurdle could be selling his concept that paying taxes is a patriotic investment. We can hope that his visible Sikh culture isn’t a political obstacle in 21st Century Canada but many of us fear it may be.
At least one problem, possibly the fatal one three years ago, shouldn’t hurt the NDP in the next election. If his performance at Halifax’s Dalhousie University recently is an indication, Singh’s New Democrats won’t be outflanked on the left by the Liberals. That tactic, executed to perfection in 2015, is credited by many as key to the Grits’ victory, which became a decisive majority when Canadians sensed, and pollsters confirmed, the momentum.
Nor is there any risk that the youthful Prime Minister’s exuberance will outshine Singh’s enthusiasm. The NDP leader is eight years younger and every bit as high-spirited as Justin Trudeau. He is also more polished, thoughtful and articulate than Trudeau was when the future PM led the third-place party in the Commons before the most recent national vote and prior to the perceptional growth spurt that accompanies elevation to the nation’s highest elected office.
The large, friendly crowd at Dal predictably skewed younger, although there was healthy representation from veteran social democrats, battle-hardened by decades of electoral losses but, as always when together, upbeat and eternally optimistic that a plurality of voters will soon recognize Liberal duplicity and come over to the one true progressive creed.
Singh’s national political ascendance has been meteoric. Virtually unknown outside Ontario where he sat in the provincial legislature since 2011, he was a decided underdog when he entered the NDP leadership race only to win the four-person contest on the first ballot. Whatever charisma is, Singh has it, along with just enough humility to admit he’s made mistakes since becoming leader and will almost certainly make more. He drew his audience’s audible approbation when he said he’s unafraid to admit when he’s wrong or to change his mind.
In this room the audience arrived armed with approbation. They wanted to like Singh and he made it easy. Whether calculated for maximum effect, or a novice’s oversight, he needed the final question from the floor to prompt him to declare, before several hundred Dal students, that university education should be free for every Canadian. The graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School noted he paid $8,000 a year in tuition “not that long ago” but today Osgoode law students pay $30,000 in annual tuition. The Canadian Federation of Students estimates the cost of eliminating post-secondary tuition across Canada at between $7 billion and $10 billion a year, and Singh thinks, with a federal budget approaching $350 billion, its a reasonable and attainable goal.
If free university isn’t a big enough dream for you, Singh has more. Government-funded universal health care needs to be recognized as a tool of social equality and expanded to include universal drug coverage and dental care, he said adding that a federal NDP government would reverse the “offensive” reductions in federal health funding initiated by the Harper Conservatives and maintained by Trudeau’s Liberals.
Singh isn’t shy about advocating higher taxes and raised the subject unprompted several times. He did qualify it by mentioning elimination of tax shelters and other breaks that primarily benefit wealthy Canadians, but his message is about everyone paying a fair share rather than the old “tax the rich” bromide.
Singh’s early days as his party’s national leader haven’t been smooth. It’s always a challenge for a leader without a seat to direct a Parliamentary caucus, and the 44 New Democratic MPs had their faith shaken when Singh disciplined veteran David Christopherson for breaking ranks on vote, although he later reversed the sanction.
Barring a catastrophe, Singh will take the party into next year’s federal election but the NDP Jack Layton led to official opposition lacks the patience it had when moral victories were enough.
Singh will need to improve on the 2015 disappointment, when the party took just 20 per cent of the popular vote, or like Tom Mulcair before him, he may get just one chance to lead the federal New Democrats into an election.