Jagmeet Singh’s natty failure to launch
Ibelieve it was a theory in the early days of Jagmeet Singh’s rise to the top of the NDP (a hillock, not a mountain) that he was just the man to take on Justin Trudeau, on Mr. Trudeau’s own turf. The word “natty” occurred a lot in those assessments, there being a whole harvest of articles about Mr. Singh’s fastidious personal style. No less an oracle than BuzzFeed — Debrett’s for Valley girls — declared him the “most stylish politician in Canada by like a million kilometres” (a whole lot).
The American magazine GQ danced in rhapsody over this “incredibly well-dressed rising star” and “his custom-designed suits which look sharp as hell” (a very hot place). There was much, much more of the same during the actual leadership race, with many reflections on his colourful turbans (“lime, bright orange, pink”) as an added signature of his nattiness, and on his ability and desire to “stand out” from the grey-suited, down-at-heel fellow travellers in the genetically unstylish world of vote hustlers.
Trudeau, no slacker in the elegant drapery department himself, was about to meet his bespoke match. If the fashion press had anything to say about it, and it incontinently would, the next federal election at the leadership level would have little to separate it from a peacock mating ritual (a vivid, florid, aggressive display of puffed-up plumage).
Singh would also swab the deck with Trudeau’s multicultural, diversity obsessions. Trudeau talked diversity: Jagmeet was the item itself. At the Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner, the smooth-soled Singh showed Trudeau a thing or two about stepping out to the Bhangra. “That’s not a Bhangra. THIS is a Bhangra” (in India a harvest dance, on a state visit an “inappropriation.”)
Singh was the NDP’s patented antidote to the Trudeau charm and charisma. He could woo the young, Snapchat and selfie like he was born to it, and trade ironies with the hippest.
This was Jack Layton-plus. At least the early reviews said so. They seem so long ago.
An early and egregious misstep was not having a seat. Singh, almost eagerly, pointed out that Jack Layton stayed out of Parliament quite a while. But Jack Layton, out of Parliament — as those with political memories will easily recall — was more noticed than those in it. He was there at every scrum, haunted the lobby after every question period, and was as inexorably present for every minute that counted as the clock on the Peace Tower that counts those minutes.
Mr. Singh had not that dedication. In addition, he appeared out of sync with his caucus (the elected MPs of a party, who occasionally support their leader). His last big media wave came with his marriage proposal, to which, in a tribute to the liturgies of The Bachelor or the “sharing” ethos of Oprah, he invited all and sundry media outlets “to document the moment.”
Other than that, not much has panned out. In the outer provinces (east of Quebec) he has been barely a whisper in a shed or a coffee shop. Out West, with recent exception, not much either. The stayingout-of-Parliament plainly did not work. And so it is he now seeks election, far, far from home in Brampton, in the satisfyingly alliterative alternative of Burnaby, B.C.
Burnaby is the modern Mecca of anti-pipeline politics. An NDP national leader running in Burnaby inescapably ignites the rancour of an NDP premier in Alberta (a landlocked province, rich in oil resources). Just this week, Rachel Notley administered a scalding anathema to the natty Mr. Singh. Outside of Road Runner cartoons it is not often you get to see an anvil dropped from such a height: “I am a New Democrat that comes from the part of the party that understands that you don’t bring about equality and fairness without focusing on jobs for regular working people … To forget that and to throw them under the bus as collateral damage in pursuit of some other high-level policy objective is a recipe for failure and it’s also very elitist.” (Police are advising that traffic is still being detoured from the scene.)
On the vaguely positive side, the national Green Party leader announced that her party (it is hers and she is it) will not be running a candidate against him, which is also a sign that the antipipeline forces are perfectly congealed at this point — B.C.’s greens also support provincial NDPers. Green. Orange. They’re just colours after all.
The sum of all this is that Mr. Singh was not/is not the potential rival of Justin Trudeau in any of the categories he was originally thought to be, that the early bright flashes were more or less the highpoint. Should he lose in Burnaby, there are some in his party who will see that as a relief, a chance to try again for someone at the top to bring the party back to — at least — Tom Mulcair’s level of performance. And should he win, aside from escalating the intense frictions nationally and provincially on pipeline access, it will be more an exercise in salvage than a victory as such.