Now comes the hard part
Life’s tough for New Democrats, at least those of the federal kind. Just as they were celebrating Jagmeet Singh’s impending entry into the House of Commons after a long 16 months of wandering the land, seatless, Statistics Canada dropped this little gem:
It put out new figures showing the Canada Child Benefit introduced by the Trudeau Liberals in mid-2016 is lowering poverty in a significant way. Fully 278,000 fewer children were living below the poverty line in 2017 compared to just two years earlier. That’s big.
What’s the connection? Just this. Once Singh takes his seat in the Commons as NDP leader, following his convincing byelection victory on Monday night, he’ll have to persuade voters on the broad left of the political spectrum to turn away from the Liberals and go with his party.
Early signs are that he’ll take the standard NDP approach, arguing the Liberals are in bed with big business and the rich while only the New Democrats are “on your side.”
But good luck with that when the facts show the Liberals’ signature social policy is working to lift tens of thousands out of poverty. The national poverty rate dropped more than a full percentage point in a single year, according to StatCan. New Democrats would be proud to boast such a record, and rightly so.
It comes down to how Singh intends to position his party for this fall’s election, now that he’s secured a seat in Parliament. He has to put the stumbles and misstatements that have undermined his leadership behind him and develop a coherent critique of the Liberals.
So far, the NDP line is that Trudeau & Co. are tools of their corporate cronies, as demonstrated by the 50 meetings secured by SNC-Lavalin and its lobbyists with government officials to avoid a damaging trial on corruption charges. This, says Singh, amounts to “spending time trying to find a way to help his friends avoid the consequences of breaking the law.”
If anything, this line of argument suggests the NDP has written off its chances in Quebec, where the survival of SNC-Lavalin and the thousands of jobs associated with it is seen, to put it mildly, as involving a lot more than propping up the undeserving rich. It’s something to see the self-styled party of working people so cavalierly dismiss the importance of protecting the livelihood of thousands of Quebec families.
There are other promising issues for New Democrats. Take affordable housing, a pressing concern in Singh’s riding of Burnaby South and other places where property prices have soared out of reach.
There, too, the Liberals will compete fiercely. They took steps to cool the hottest housing markets two years ago, and in his pre-election budget Finance Minister Bill Morneau is expected to address the difficulties first-time buyers have in getting into the market.
Voters will be looking for forward-looking solutions. But on Wednesday, Singh had this to say to CBC News: “Let’s build houses the way we did in the 1970s or the late ’40s.” It’s clear what he meant: Government should invest more in social housing of various kinds. But could there be a more backward-sounding statement, harking back to the approach of four or even seven decades ago?
The bottom line is that winning a seat in the Commons is just prologue for Singh and his party. The lights will be all the brighter once he takes his place in Parliament and is expected to put forward a smart, persuasive critique of the government every day.
Most important, the NDP has to figure out where its own heart lies and express that in a way that will give voters a distinct choice in October. With the Liberals occupying the centre-left, it’s not obvious how to do that. And the election countdown clock is already ticking loudly.
So far, the NDP line is that Trudeau & Co. are tools of their corporate cronies