NDP fate sealed by byelection timing?

A political rock star Singh is not

The prime minister’s belated decision to call a byelection in Burnaby South, one of three to be held on Feb. 25, brings to a close one of the more entertaining displays of bipartisan humbug in recent political history.

The B.C. riding has been without an MP since New Democrat Kennedy Stewart stepped down in September to run for mayor of Vancouver. More to the point, it is the riding NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh chose for his long-delayed bid to enter Parliament.

The prime minister’s reluctance to call a vote might therefore seem familiar. Prime ministers have been known to put off elections in the past when needed to thwart a surging opponent. The novelty of the current situation is that Justin Trudeau would appear to have done so not because he fears he might lose, but because he fears he might win.

It is safe to say Singh has not proved quite the rock star New Democrats hoped when they elected him leader in October 2017. Undertaker would be closer to the mark.

While the party trundles along at a little under 17 per cent in the polls, about its historic average, Singh himself is in single digits, slightly behind Elizabeth May as Canadians’ choice for prime minister.

Singh’s trajectory is a cautionary tale on the importance of experience in politics. With just six years in the Ontario legislature, Singh was barely ready for the job of provincial leader, still less the much sharper scrutiny to which federal leaders are subject. It has showed.

He appears frequently to be poorly briefed, on one memorable occasion having to ask a member of caucus, in full view of the cameras, what the party position was on a particular issue. He badly mishandled what should have been a softball question on where he stood on Sikh terrorism, and alienated many in the party with his knee-jerk expulsion of Saskatchewan MP Erin Weir for what appeared to be no worse a crime than standing too close to women at parties.

The decision not to seek a seat in the House until now has robbed him of what visibility the leader of a third party can expect, though his manifest weakness as a communicator makes it debatable whether this is a plus or a minus. Fundraising has dried up. Party morale is in free fall. Caucus members speak openly, if not on the record, of their desire to be rid of him.

For the Liberals, on the other hand, Singh is the answer to all their prayers. The prime minister’s own approval ratings may have dropped precipitously, but as long as the NDP vote can be kept to current levels of support or less the Liberals are unlikely to lose. (The NDP’S average share of the popular vote when the Conservatives win: 19.5 per cent. When the Liberals win: 14.8 per cent.) And nothing so guarantees a calamitous NDP showing as Singh’s continued leadership.

Hence the curious unspoken subtext of the Burnaby South race, with Liberals more or less openly rooting for him to win — and New Democrats hardly less publicly hoping he loses.

Were he to be defeated, that is, in his first encounter with the voters, the conventional wisdom is he would be forced to resign as leader. Admittedly, all previous experience would suggest this was unwise, so late in the electoral cycle and with no obvious replacement in the wings. His critics in the party will have reasoned, however, that they are unlikely to do worse, no matter who it is.

On the other hand, were he to win in Burnaby South he would probably have to stay on. Unhappily for Liberal hopes, that looks iffy. The NDP won the riding by a little over one percentage point in 2015.

A November poll of the riding by Mainstreet Research had the NDP squarely in third. Singh himself appears to have little name recognition in the riding, 3,300 kilometres from his home in Brampton, Ont.

The furious demands from New Democrats in recent months that the prime minister call the byelection forthwith might therefore be something less than the robust show of support for the leader they would otherwise appear — just as the prime minister’s obvious stalling until now may have other explanations than the usual.

Indeed, I have no doubt he would prefer to put it off even longer than he has, and would have, but for the unpleasant odour of cynicism that had begun to attach itself to the decision. Had he taken the full six months the law allows him, pushing the byelection into April or even May, the NDP would have been left in a bind whatever the result, with too little time to replace Singh even if he were to lose.

I think that offers an answer to the obvious question: if the Liberals were so keen on Singh winning, why did they even bother to put up a candidate against him? (For the record, she is Karen Wang, a local daycare operator.) There is, after all, the semi-tradition of the “leader’s courtesy,” not often observed in recent years, by which the other parties are supposed to offer a new leader unobstructed entry to the House. Why not use that as a pretext?

Because they’d still like to win it, so long as they can be sure Singh stays on as leader. Hence the exquisite timing of the byelection call, neither so early as to permit Singh to be easily disposed of nor so late as to seem obvious. Still, the result is much the same: even a Feb. 25 vote leaves barely six months until Labour Day, the unofficial start of the federal election campaign. That’s not much time to force out one leader and elect another.

So Singh may yet survive, thanks to the prime minister’s delay in calling a byelection Singh himself had repeatedly demanded he call. Nice work: Singh will owe his political life to his opponent, while Trudeau’s fingerprints are kept off the absence of a dead body.