Singh’s leadership is a mixed bag

OTTAWA — When Jagmeet Singh stampeded to a first ballot win in the NDP leadership race last autumn, senior caucus members acknowledged they had anointed a “high risk, high reward” candidate.

Six months later, the party has been living the risk.

It is still waiting for the reward. Any strategist will tell you it’s tough sledding getting an opposition leader known to voters between elections, but it appears to be exponentially tougher for this rookie leader.

Some of his problems have been above the surface.

His seeming hesitation to renounce violence and his tardiness in dealing with the Sikh separatist furor has been well-chronicled.

But there are other problems with Singh’s leadership below the surface as well.

There is open grumbling inside his caucus — some of which broke into the open Tuesday. He is not raising the money the party needs in advance of a 2019 campaign and the hiring transition period has been too long, leaving posts unfilled and leaving him challenged to get ahead of issues, join the national conversation and sense potential danger ahead.

The calculation that Singh not immediately seek a Commons seat seemed a sound strategy at the outset (and was endorsed in this space).

Singh didn’t need the forced theatre of a daily question period as a third party leader stuck in a corner asking a couple of questions that would be parried by the government message track.

More importantly, without any safe NDP seats available, he didn’t have to risk defeat and the setback that would bring to his leadership.

Better he use that well-known Singh charisma, speak to crowds across the country the way third party leader Justin Trudeau once did, and build a profile where the voters are.

But now there is a realization that Singh will have to spend more time in the capital. The House can break for the summer after seven more sitting weeks, and when it returns, the 2019 vote is only a year away.

Polls at this point are not necessarily harbingers (good news for the Liberals) unless they show an unmistakable trend and there has been no upward NDP movement since he was elected; no Singh victory bump.

His problems with the caucus are becoming more public, with NDP leadership runner-up Charlie Angus openly criticizing Singh’s decision to discipline longtime MP David Christopherson.

Christopherson broke party ranks to vote with a Conservative motion that condemned the Liberal summer works program policy which tied funding to organizations with core mandates that support rights and freedoms, including abortion rights.

Christopherson, who is pro-choice, said he believed the policy stifled people’s right of dissent and freedom of conscience. Singh stripped him of his role as vice-chair of a parliamentary committee.

Late Tuesday, Singh backed down and gave Christopherson his committee job back.

Singh has also left Saskatchewan MP Erin Weir twisting in the wind for two months after suspending him from party duties based on a vague email allegation by a fellow caucus member.

Christine Moore said she had heard harassment complaints against Weir, without citing any specifics, and Singh moved before informing Weir.

Last November, Singh had to quickly walk back a suggestion that bilingualism requirements for Supreme Court justices be waived to encourage Indigenous candidates.

That received immediate caucus pushback because the bilingualism requirement is party policy and of particular importance to his colleagues from Quebec, where Singh will face strong headwinds in 2019.

Part of the problem is Singh’s lack of time spent with caucus. That has made it difficult to build loyalty. But there have been victories. An appearance earlier this month on Quebec’s “Tout le monde en parle” was deemed by my colleague Chantal Hebert to be Singh’s best day of his leadership, from a Quebec perspective. His speech to a party convention was extremely well-received.

He has supporters who point out the party’s fundraising arm and senior staff had ossified under Tom Mulcair and they remind that Singh is attracting large, enthusiastic crowds in areas that are not traditional NDP turf.

Others compare his learning curve to that of Jack Layton, another NDP leader without a Commons seat. That is the worst argument of all. It was a long learning curve for Layton, and it took four elections before he brought New Democrats to official opposition.

There is much more pressure on Singh.

This wasn’t supposed to be a party that was prepared to invest four more elections to again find relevance.