Jagmeet Singh’s comeback can’t wait
Needs to thrive where Trudeau has failed
With roughly a year to go before a federal election is held, Andrew MacDougall is taking a look at what each of the three major party leaders must do in the next 12 months to have a shot at becoming or remaining prime minister.
Today: Jagmeet Singh.
Remember a year ago, when Jagmeet Singh was the fresh young face of social democratic politics in Canada? When he was the even sexier/multicultural/ woke version of Justin Trudeau?
Or how about three years ago, when the prosecutorial Thomas Mulcair was tied with Stephen Harper in the polls in the midst of a federal election campaign? When the NDP were suddenly the party of sober, serious thought on debt and deficits?
What’s that? You don’t? Well, you’re not alone. Neither do most New Democrats.
No, the past year has all but beat the possibility out of Canada’s earnest socialists. Not only are the federal Dippers not chomping at the bit to unseat Trudeau, they’re still struggling to fit one into the mouth of their less-than-(Jag)meetsthe-eye leader. And while Singh was busy whining and bucking, several experienced NDP MPs decided retirement was the better life path. So much for solidarity.
The good news — inasmuch as being sent to a re-education camp is ever good news — is that Singh has now spent some time being “reset” by his spin doctors and is ready to contest a vacant seat in British Columbia. Hopefully, the party’s plastic surgeons are top notch, because it’s been ugly. Singh mustn’t wait any longer to stage his comeback, especially considering he never arrived in the first place.
And with Justin Trudeau now riding high, thanks to Donald Trump’s being alive, Singh’s task has been dialed up on the daunt-o-meter. You would need to poll a trillion pundits before finding one who rates Singh’s chances come this time next year.
The NDP’s long odds certainly explain the Cheshire Cat grin now plastered on Mulcair’s mug during his pundit appearances.
Mulcair, as you’ll recall, was ultimately dispatched for the crime of losing while bucking NDP orthodoxy, but it turns out betting on a bigger beard has only succeeded in putting the NDP in a hairier situation.
But fear not Team Orange, all is not lost.
Assuming Singh wins in Burnaby — which is still a big if unless the Conservatives and Liberals follow suit with the Greens by not running a candidate — he will finally have a daily national profile, which is no small thing. You have to first be seen before you can be believed.
As for beliefs, with Trudeau hogging the left wing, Singh will have to get even more radical. No, not “supporting blokes who run around the Lower Mainland trying to whack Indian cabinet ministers” radical, but pretty radical nonetheless.
The usual tame Dipper talk of affordable housing, a national pharmacare plan, and Indigenous rights just won’t cut it. There needs to be some boldness that Singh knows Trudeau won’t touch.
Enter electoral reform. Trudeau promised it during the last campaign, tried to rig the outcome in government, then took his ball and went home after people didn’t play the way he told them to. There are still plenty of people who feel first-past-the-post is past its day — especially given the most recent elections in B.C. and New Brunswick. It’s time for Singh to speak to their desires to have more voices and perspectives in the Canadian Parliament.
Trudeau has also tried to play both sides of the environment and economy argument, to the tune of spending $4.5 billion on a pipeline the government can’t (yet) build.
With the David Suzukis of the world desecrating the Liberals’ enviro credentials, there is room for an appeal to anti-oilsands sentiment. Singh should make a play for Elizabeth May’s crew.
Nor need Singh worry about offending Alberta Premier Rachel Notley with such a play. With Trudeau fumbling on pipelines and the carbon tax and Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party circling, it will take an act of God greater than the one that put Notley in office to keep her in function past next year’s election. Singh should cut bait now and fight tooth and nail to keep Alberta’s oil in the ground.
And he should do it while playing to Indigenous rights over Canada’s natural resources. There is perhaps no constituency more disappointed in the short reach of Trudeau’s long rhetoric than Canada’s Indigenous communities, as evidenced by Romeo Saganash’s recent f-bomb in the House of Commons. Trudeau promised a revolution and has delivered a diminished version of the status quo.
The beauty of the electoral reform-anti-oilsands-Indigenous-rights trifecta is that it doesn’t require oodles of cash to pull off. Not, that is, that Singh will be under any pressure whatsoever to fix the books Trudeau has so comprehensively buggered. Singh should thank Trudeau for making deficits great again.
To pull it off, Singh will need to massively improve his delivery. There’s a compelling story to be told in Trudeau’s disappointing performance on left-wing concerns, if only Singh can find his voice. Andrew MacDougall is a Londonbased communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.