‘Orange wave’ still has strength, New Democrats say
Party insists it can draw support in Quebec despite byelection loss
The NDP is pushing back against claims by Trudeau cabinet ministers that the party’s “orange wave” in Quebec is finished, with one MP calling the claim an example of “old Liberal arrogance,” as Jagmeet Singh — fresh off his byelection victory in B.C. — promises to deliver a new plan to drum up support in the province.
It was but one facet of the post-vote spin battle in Canadian politics after each of the major parties scored a victory in federal byelections Monday.
Mélanie Joly, the Liberal minister of tourism, official languages and la Francophonie, told reporters in Montreal on Monday night that the NDP byelection loss in Outremont marked the end of the huge surge of NDP support in Quebec that lifted the party to its best-ever election result in 2011. Finance Minister Bill Morneau picked up the theme Tuesday on Parliament Hill, when he told reporters: “It looks fairly like there’s no wave to me. It seems like a fairly flat sea.”
The NDP’s Alexandre Boulerice bristled at that analysis. “That’s old Liberal arrogance, and people don’t like that very much,” the Montreal MP said.
Boulerice argued that the NDP’s second-place finish in Outremont — with 27 per cent of the vote — was still a strong showing, and that Singh’s byelection win in Burnaby South should put an end to questions about his leadership.
“It’s over. Jagmeet Singh is our leader. He is our leader in the next federal election, and he will be great in Parliament,” Boulerice said.
“It’s a huge victory for the NDP. He’s the first federal leader who is racialized who will sit in the House of Commons. We’re very proud of that.”
The potential for disappointment in Quebec has cast a shadow on Singh since the 2017 NDP leadership campaign, when questions were raised about how voters would react to a politician who openly wears the symbols of his faith in a province where a debate over state secularism continues.
Singh spoke briefly in French during his 19-minute victory speech in Burnaby on Monday night, pledging to travel to Quebec next week to deliver a “plan” that will unite left-leaning voters across French and English Canada, a goal he described as “the dream of Jack Layton.”
Boulerice said Tuesday that Singh will unveil at least part of the party’s platform for voters in Quebec.
But the Outremont defeat on Monday is being scrutinized closely because the province’s importance to the NDP began in that riding in 2007, when Thomas Mulcair won the longtime Liberal fortress for the first time.
That win was seen as the precursor to Layton’s “orange wave” in 2011, in which the party surged to 59 seats in the prov- ince. Fifteen of the party’s 40 current MPs now hail from Quebec.
Farouk Karim, a former NDP press secretary who is from Montreal, contended Tuesday that the “bittersweet” mixture of Singh’s victory in Burnaby South and NDP candidate Julia Sanchez’s loss in Outremont is “not that bitter.”
Sanchez took 26 per cent of the vote, Karim noted, arguing that shows solid support in the face of polls that have put voting intentions for the NDP in single digits across the province.
That, combined with his view that the Green candidate’s third-place finish shows a strong desire for environmental action, gives the NDP a solid foundation in Quebec, Karim said.
“It’s not orange-wave level, but it’s not catastrophic either. It’s something to build on,” he said.
Christian Bourque, executive vice-president of polling firm Léger, isn’t ready to count the New Democrats out in Quebec, either. “The NDP is not dead. “That was something people were watching out for because their national numbers are quite dismal. But, then again, the issue is the popularity of their leader across the country. As of this morning, he still remains the leader of the NDP.”
Indeed, speaking to the Star in B.C., Singh was casting ahead to his arrival on Parliament Hill just before the Liberal government tables an election-year budget on March 19.
He said the budget will be an opportunity for him to contrast the NDP’s call for Ottawa to directly build hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units, create universal pharmacare and invest heavily in clean technology with the Liberals’ housing plan and ongoing support — including the $4.4-billion purchase of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline — for fossil fuel industries.
“I want to see some commitments in this budget to make people’s lives better, to make the lives of people in Burnaby South better,” Singh said.
“So that’s what we’re going to focus on when I get back into the House, to push this government to deliver something meaningful that will help people out right now.”