The NDP was reduced to just seven seats in April’s election.Liam Richards/The Canadian Press
Take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.
In pondering the condition of the federal New Democratic Party, the old expression comes to mind.
The New Democrats are almost as low as low can go. In 2011, they won 103 seats. They now have seven, their fewest in history.
They’ve lost their official party status. They’re broke. They have less and less working-class horsepower. They have no Bernie Sanders.
The seven members that remain can’t even get along. Three of them raised Cain about not being adequately consulted on the selection of Don Davies as interim leader.
Tom Mulcair, the former party leader and now a shrewd CTV commentator, doesn’t mince his words: “It’s a gong show.”
Some, though not Mr. Mulcair, think it could be game over for the party and that we’ll move to a two-party system like in the United States. Less choice. More polarization. Diminished democracy.
But don’t bet on that. It’s not about to happen. Just as it did after the 1993 election, when it was reduced to just nine seats, the NDP will ascend from the depths once again.
Before long, the New Democrats will be back to their usual level of support between 15 and 20 per cent. They will be a force that Prime Minister Mark Carney – unless he can get enough floor-crossers to form a majority government – will have to reckon with to stay in power. Given their dismal standing, the NDP will not be hesitant to force an early election. They have nowhere to go but up.
Several considerations make a comeback for the party likely.
Polls already indicate the recent election result was a fluke. The NDP is at 12-per-cent popularity in the latest Nanos poll, which is double their share of the vote in the election.
Without official status, NDP looks to stay relevant in Parliament
The Mark Carney Liberals are moving from Justin Trudeau’s wokeish leftist brand to the moderate middle. This gives the New Democrats more open real estate on the political spectrum than they’ve had in decades. Jean Chrétien moved the Liberals to the middle but his factory-floor persona gave him blue-collar appeal. As Dalton Camp once quipped, he looked like “the driver of the getaway car.”
It’s the leader who dictates a party’s fortunes and the NDP will get a new one who will change theirs. For all his integrity and noble intentions, Jagmeet Singh was a dud as a vote-getter. He could not connect. As Matt Fodor, author of From Layton to Singh, points out, instead of being the outsider party challenging the status quo, the NDP was seen lately, via its support for Mr. Trudeau, as the party defending it. It diluted its brand. It became ambiguous. It was left to the Conservatives to channel the people’s wrath.
For a new leader, the party has potentially formidable candidates in the wings, like former Alberta premier Rachel Notley – if she can be convinced to run – and Nathan Cullen, the former British Columbia MP who made a good run for the party leadership in 2012. He’s witty, camera-friendly, experienced and policy-sharp.
Though feeble federally, the New Democrats are well entrenched provincially. They form the government in B.C. and Manitoba and are positioned strongly in opposition in several other provinces.
Sometimes you get the breaks in politics, sometimes you don’t. In the past election, the NDP got trapped by the Donald Trump effect. Progressive voters ran to the Liberals because they wanted a strong government to put up a resistance to the U.S. President. But when the next Canadian election rolls around, Mr. Trump will be either out, or on his way out.
Though the NDP under Mr. Singh was a political failure, it was not a policy failure. In teaming with the Liberals, it pressed for and helped secure social advances in child care, dental care and pharmacare – improvements the party can be proud of.
It’s worth remembering that as recently as a decade ago, the party under Mr. Mulcair was number one in some polls and appeared on the verge of forming government. It fell victim in Quebec to Mr. Mulcair’s principled stand on the niqab issue, and in the rest of the country to his tacking too moderately. The Liberals had a new, big-name leader in Justin Trudeau, and pounced.
But there’s no reason why the New Democrats can’t rebuild and issue a hard challenge to the two main parties again. They’re a Canadian institution. Their values are woven into this country’s fabric. They’ve had their lickin’. They’ll keep on tickin’.