With the next Parliament looking like a mirror image of the last one, pundits and politicians from across the partisan spectrum have taken to calling the recent federal election a waste of money. But if you think the $600 million taxpayers spent on it was bad, wait until you find out how much it cost the NDP to end up back where it started.
After spending upwards of $10 million in 2019 to win 24 seats and 16 per cent of the national vote, Jagmeet Singh’s party more than doubled its campaign budget this time around to a reported $24 million. As NDP national director Anne McGrath told the Toronto Star, “We are spending more on advertising in this campaign than we spent on the entire campaign last time — so that’s pretty significant.”
But those extra millions only resulted in one additional seat and an extra 1.7 per cent of the national vote, with both totals coming in well short of what Thomas Mulcair managed in 2015. TikTok ads aren’t cheap, apparently.
This was the second straight campaign where Singh rated as the most popular leader in Canada, only to wind up leading his party to a fourth-place finish. But despite this underwhelming track record and his predecessor getting the boot after just one (vastly more successful) election, Singh’s position at the top of the federal NDP’s pecking order seems safe for now.
That doesn’t add up for David Herle, a former Liberal strategist and the host of The Herle Burly. “If this party had a winning instinct in it,” he said on his Curse of Politics podcast, “they would be crushed by this result, because this should have been a realignment election for them — or at least the possibility of it. They have a super popular leader, they’ve got a fully funded campaign, and their progressive opposition is vulnerable.”
It’s not just Liberals who are critical of Singh’s performance, either. As political analyst (and NDP supporter) Evan Scrimshaw wrote in his recap of the election, “My real ire is for Jagmeet Singh, who has run a deeply unserious campaign and blew a genuinely good chance at making advances. The party’s seat haul is deeply disappointing, and even if it improves slightly, to be as low as they are, after being told the NDP were a serious party, is pathetic. Jagmeet should resign for the good of the party, because it is clear he cannot run a campaign good enough to convert good vibes into seats.”
And for all the money spent on the leader’s tour, which saw the party charter a plane and send Singh to 51 ridings, it doesn’t seem to have delivered much in the way of ROI. As former NDP candidate for York-Simcoe Jessa McLean tweeted, “NDP federal council took the rebates from the local ridings and poured it all into @theJagmeetSingh’s image and campaign… We’re not a movement. We’re an ad campaign.”
The question the federal NDP faces now is the same one it has struggled to answer ever since the passing of Jack Layton: What, exactly, does it want to accomplish? Is it a movement that seeks to move the Overton window on key public policy issues, or does it want to win elections, form a national government and implement change? If it’s the latter, it needs to lean far more heavily on the experience of its provincial wings in Alberta and British Columbia, where the combination of a personable leader and more pragmatic policies has proven a winning combination. If it’s the former, it needs to do better on defining issues like climate change, where its plan was widely panned by both economists and climate scientists as being aggressively unserious.
It also needs to decide whether it’s going to start heeding its former leader’s call to be “loving, hopeful and optimistic.”
In the recent election, Singh campaigned far more like Stephen Harper than Layton, attacking Justin Trudeau at every available opportunity and trading in misinformation about everything from student loan interest payments to the eight child-care deals with the provinces and territories that had already been struck. Avi Lewis, his star candidate in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, launched a personal attack on University of Calgary professor Jennifer Winter — one that was reminiscent of his 2018 broadside against then-premier Rachel Notley when he described her as “the new patron saint of the corporate welfare bums.”
Based on his first post-election press conference, where he effectively blamed the prime minister for low voter turnout, that seems unlikely to change any time soon. “I think there’s a lot of cynicism,” Singh told reporters. “And I think that cynicism has been fed by people like Mr. Trudeau.”
At some point, the NDP faithful are going to have to decide if this approach deserves a third kick at the electoral can, or whether it’s time for a new leader who can actually give voice to Layton’s spirit of optimism and hope. At the very least, they might want to find one who can deliver a better return on their investment.
- Max Fawcett
- Lead Columnist
- @maxfawcett
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Ad hominem comments are the
Ad hominem comments are the refuge of people without ideas. It seemed as if the only issue Singh really cared about has discrimination against minorities. The party needs to be about much more than that. It may be time to let him go.
got to love giving a liberal
got to love giving a liberal hack the lion's share of analysis of how sing and NDP did. As a long time supporter, that is sort of par for the pursed lip mainstream sour lemon reporting. I am amazed ANYBODY votes NDP given the relentless dismissive and sneering reporting on them.
I would like to see behind the curtain of why the party brass idd not pour resources in to star candidates like Levis--re Green New Deal being "too far left" for old guard in NDP.
I agree that no campus voting was terrible for getting out youth vote. How about questions on why? didn't look too safe at UBC with thousands waiting indoors for hours to vote.
the cons lots seats for how many millions in their campaign??
Libs same
go away max
Ha! Thanks. And you’re so
Ha! Thanks. And you’re so right about the “relentlessly dismissive” reporting. The CBC is no exception, eg Barton’s questions in their one on one, framing NDP housing policy as an either/or taking equity away from the boomers, a question Singh handled well.
While there is certainly room
While there is certainly room for criticism of this campaign, and what the Party needs to do next, every article by Max appears to be written by the PMO
Unfortunately, he lost big
Unfortunately, he lost big when he yanked the chain after only a year as a minority government partner who had a very temporary, rare spike in the polls. Layton could've done great things just as other NDP minority leaders supporting Liberal governments have done. Collapsing the government was a huge mistake that the NDP have never owned up to because, well ... it was Jack who had and still has a lot of deserved respect, but who evidently played with simple run-of-the-mill political strategy once too many times.
We got Stephen Harper out that mistake.
Fawcett: "If it’s the latter,
Fawcett: "If it’s the latter, it needs to lean far more heavily on the experience of its provincial wings in Alberta and British Columbia, where the combination of a personable leader and more pragmatic policies has proven a winning combination. If it’s the former, it needs to do better on defining issues like climate change, where its plan was widely panned by both economists and climate scientists as being aggressively unserious."
Under pipeline queen Rachel Notley, the Alberta NDP's climate policy was also "aggressively unserious". Likewise with the B.C. NDP's promotion of LNG.
Under Notley's climate plan, oilsands production and emissions would go up, not down. Alberta's total emissions would barely shift. Notley's oil-soaked "pragmatism" foundered on delusion and denial. "The most aggressive climate plan in the country" (Notley) would boost AB's emissions with no end in sight. Notley's policies exclude the only rational sane responses to our global emergency — reduce emissions and stop expanding fossil fuel infrastructure.
In Ottawa, meanwhile, Trudeau's Liberals still push fossil fuel expansion, heedless of IEA advisories and IPCC reports. An aggressively serious plan to fail on climate.
Fawcett's claim that "a
Fawcett's claim that "a personable leader and more pragmatic policies has proven a winning combination" does not withstand scrutiny in Alberta.
In Alberta, Notley won the 2015 election because the "conservative" vote was split between two parties — not by virtue of "more pragmatic" policies. Notley was tossed after one term after the right united under Kenney's UCP. If Notley's NDP return to power in 2023, it will be because of Kenney's disastrous leadership, not Notley's policies. A scarecrow could manage the pandemic more competently than Jason Kenney.
What is Fawcett suggesting? In order to win, the NDP need to move right and become more like Liberals? We already have one Liberal party. No room for two.
Many progressives did not
Many progressives did not support neoliberal Notley's turn to the right:
"The talk around our table is that the NDP government is just another platform of the previous Conservative government with a different logo. Nothing has changed." (Chief Allan Adam)
*
Dr John O'Connor: "Pre-election, the NDP/Rachel Notley were vocally supportive of bringing accountability and responsibility to bear on the environmental and health impacts,especially downstream, of the tarsands. After the AB Cancer Board report on Fort Chipewyan, she was notably outspoken on the need to comply with the recommendation for a comprehensive health study of Fort Chip, which was never even started.
"Now—it’s buried and forgotten. Such hypocrisy."
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Former AB Liberal leader Kevin Taft: "Through her whole career and her whole party, up until they became government, [Notley and the NDP] were very effective critics, counterbalances to the oil industry. As soon as she stepped into office, as soon as she and her party became government, they've simply became instruments of the oil industry."
Taft: "The world is working hard to end its dependence on oil, so hitching the country’s economy to an industry that must be phased out is recklessly short-sighted."
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Reakash Walters, federal NDP candidate in Edmonton Centre 2015: "As one of two people who nominated Rachel in 2015, I am truly disappointed in the direction the provincial party has taken and that they have chosen to prioritize oil extraction in the middle of a climate crisis."
"What was Rachel Notley suggesting when she said she’s not committed to voting for Jagmeet Singh’s New Democrats?" (Alberta Politics, 2019)
• https://albertapolitics.ca/2019/10/what-was-rachel-notley-suggesting-whe...
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Greg Fingas: "Notley's enabling of oil and gas sector poor political strategy"
https://leaderpost.com/opinion/columnists/notleys-enabling-of-oil-and-ga...
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Naomi Klein (06-Feb-18): "Alberta has a left-wing political party in power, one that has somehow convinced itself it can beat the right by being a better suck up to Big Oil."
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Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour lashed out at the NDP govt on its failure to raise royalties:
"At the heart of Mr. McGowan’s critique of the government’s announcement and the panel report that recommended it is the view it is both bad economics and bad politics. 'Some people say the NDP have come face to face with reality. I say what happened can best be described as the government being captured by industry.'
'I honestly think the government has made a profound political mistake. We don’t believe progressive governments have to become conservative to deal effectively with economic issues or to succeed politically. That’s a fallacy.
'Virtually none of our concerns or suggestions are reflected in the royalty report. Those ideas were passed over in favour of a plan that could have been introduced by a PC or Wildrose government.'"
"Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan assails Notley Government’s royalty ‘mistake’"
• https://albertapolitics.ca/2016/01/alberta-federation-of-labour-presiden...
Notley's "pragmatic policies"
Notley's "pragmatic policies" actually helped turf the NDP from office. The more Notley fought for pipelines, the more she fanned the flames of anger among Albertans. Underlining her own failure on the file. All Albertans seemed to get out of the deal was a detested carbon tax. The blame for all our ills, real and imagined, fell upon Notley and Trudeau. A pipeline project became the rallying flag for Albertans, whose sense of grievance against Ottawa burns eternal. Fuelling the right-wing rage machine.
Some praise Notley's "pragmatism". Our house is on fire. "Pragmatic" is putting the fire out. Oilsands expansion and new pipelines are not "pragmatic" politics — just plain lunacy. Doesn't matter what your policies are on farm labor, GSAs, childcare, etc. If you're not progressive on climate, you're not progressive.
Political parties who ignore scientific reality do not deserve the votes of responsible citizens. Rapid man-made global warming is a disaster. So are govts that fail to address it.
So Mr Fawcett's advice for
So Mr Fawcett's advice for winning elections is to lean on the experience of NDP provincial governments in Alberta (push that pipeline) and BC (cut down the last remaining old growth; frack for LNG)? Why not just tell them to merge with the Conservatives?
The substantive issues
The substantive issues identified in the article that had me voting Liberal after a lifetime of voting NDP are two. First, the CPC-lite approach to campaigning and opposition. I want an NDP that will engage with a minority Liberal government to achieve progressive public policy goals - not one that is obsessed with scoring points in the media. The NDP I used to vote for knew how to do this and helped deliver fundamental change in Canada. Changing the conversation and advocating powerfully for real and achievable change is what we need. Not making demands that ignore the realities of our current system of government.
Second, the focus on achieving power has not served the NDP well. I left when they chose Mulcair - who confirmed my opinion of him by running to the right of the Liberals. Get back to shaping the national conversation around public policy and leveraging minority governments to make real progress for Canadians. If your predecessors could help deliver publicly funded healthcare and EI this way, surely the NDP can help to address the enormous problems we face today.
Amen to all that!
Amen to all that!
I'm in the same frame of mind, especially after Glen Clark and Mr. LNG Fairy Creek Horgan (BC), Rachel Notley AB), and Layton (feds), a nice guy who cancelled an excellent chance to actually govern and replaced it with a failed act of political expediency. The modern NDP is not the party of Tommy Douglas, David Lewis or Ed Broadbent.
After 45 years of waiting for the social democratic messiah, my family has lost faith in a party that plays the strategy game too much. We opted to play it back since 2015 with a half million other strategic voters across the land. It has worked marvellously three times in a row in my riding, first to get rid of Harper, and second + third to diminish Trudeau and his lofty rhetoric and inaction.
I believe strategic voters now play a big role in keeping the Conservatives out of power, and the NDP in a place where they hold the balance of power. The NDP needs to embrace that role and dump their strategists and scheming gamers.
It is a reasonable suggestion
It is a reasonable suggestion that any kind of standard proportional voting system will give Canadians the parliament they voted for, and will lessen the need for strategic voting to keep the barbarians out of power.
I'm with Kerry on the obvious
I'm with Kerry on the obvious solution to ALL our problems on the left, which are most accurately summed up as classic examples of the narcissism of small differences. Talk about missing the forest for the trees, about veering solidly and consistently into the weeds. The right wing has demonstrably lost its mind, period, such as it was, and we can ALL see where that can lead as it unfolds in the States. The seed has been planted here obviously; the proliferation of "proud boys" tells the tale-- no more feminization of society by these pussy men like Singh and Turdeau! There's simply no excuse for continuing to indulge our narcissisms OR our tribal tendencies under the dire circumstances now before us. Talk of uniting the left HAS been around for some time but for some reason was completely absent this time around when we need it most. WTF? And we're supposed to be the smart ones. It's like climate change; we're running out of time here; our love of the bloody game may well do us in.
There's a book called "Amusing Ourselves to Death."
Don't be silly. This is not
Don't be silly. This is not the United States. We just had an election. What was the result? A Liberal minority which can, if it wishes, work with the NDP and in some cases the Bloc to do left wing things. That does not represent the sky falling. It's a disappointing result for the NDP (which would have preferred, well, the exact same result but with a higher seat count for the NDP), but as excuses for a merger between the kind-of-left party and the corporate-neoliberal-but-not-racist party go it's pretty dashed thin.
If anything, the crazy
If anything, the crazy fascist right had so much to work with in the US precisely because of the two party system you appear to want to emulate. Lacking any challengers to their left, the Democrats were free to drift further and further to the right and become more and more worthless and corrupt. It was the Democrats as much as the Republicans who shifted the "Overton Window" rightwards. This resulted in so much failure of governance that society there has started to break down. Merge the Liberals with the NDP and we'll get that here.
FPTP are the current rules of
FPTP are the current rules of the road, and we ignore them at our peril. Merging would bring stability.
But that said, as to minority governments, they have become more "stable" in recent years because no losing party can afford to wage constant elections. As a citizen, if you really think about that, it's nuts. If I recall, this is in part the result of a Harper-era "innovation" that should now be revisited. It's amazing how quickly, easily and quietly election funding laws can get messed with for political advantage while real electoral reform still seems somehow out of reach.
And yes the bloody game (and that's all it is in a lot of cases unless we're talking about something real like about climate change or covid) is doing us in.
Agreed. The bloody game is
Agreed. The bloody game is doing us in. Like in the squirrel in the movie "Up."
I didn't like this article
I didn't like this article much, I thought it was lousy analysis done basically from a Liberal perspective. But it did point to one thing I agree with: The NDP campaign and platform were not very good. However, that doesn't mean we need a new leader. It means we need new NDP backroom types.
Singh's basic personality seems to be very engaging, and people seem to like him a lot. And he seems to be a genuinely nice, good guy, who wants to do good things for people, something the other political parties rarely have in a leader. Those are important assets.
But that likeability was undermined by poor political strategy, a weak campaign platform, and bad talking points. So, does that mean the NDP needs a new leader? Uh, could we get real for a moment--leaders don't do that stuff in modern political parties. Sure, the leader has some impact on policy, but on a campaign usually the messaging, strategy, ad buys . . . all that is the domain of a group of quiet electioneering wonks who busily decide on the angles to take, write up speeches and talking points and so forth.
Some party leaders do take the reins on this stuff, for better or worse. From what I've heard Harper did, for better and, eventually, worse. Jack Layton did to a fair extent although not entirely. But most don't, and I don't get the impression Singh has, except maybe for being in charge of his Tik Tok stuff, which by all accounts was quite successful. So the flaws that Mr. Fawcett points out are flaws with the NDP electioneering team more than with the leader himself.
NDP electioneering teams in general seem to be overly timid and centrist in their approach. In times when both the zeitgeist and the polls suggest people want bold policies, they pull in their horns and go moderate, craving respectability. The problem seems to be that they're scared, plus a bit out of touch. They've seen too many cases of an NDP leader saying a strong thing and getting tons of headlines about what an out-of-touch commie he is, so now they don't dare let a leader say anything that might be controversial.
Much of the NDP's failure to be the strong party it could be, both in campaigns and in government, actually seems to come from fear of the media. They don't want to be portrayed as "extreme", so they shy away from strong, left-populist policies. This is misplaced in my opinion--the media will never treat a left-ish party well until they go full Blair and become "New Labor"/Liberals/Democrats. And the NDP have never quite been willing to do that. So they might as well go for it and push policies that give people some real stuff and make some real difference.
And if they do it, they should take this one leaf from the right: Never apologize, never back down. If anything, double down when challenged. Whenever the NDP is caught out actually backing policies that would be good for people in a sizable way, they end up backing out and apologizing for it. It just makes them look weak and wishy-washy. And frankly, that's because they ARE weak and wishy-washy. If they get some guts the media might hate them, but the media hates them anyway, and everyone else will respect them more.
Note that such a focus on strong messages does NOT imply constant carping on the failures of the Liberals and Liberal leaders. The NDP campaign went with that BECAUSE their own message wasn't very strong. If you're offering REAL hope and REAL change, you can campaign on that.
Silly? In this deeply divided
Silly? In this deeply divided time, why pretend we can indulge ourselves by flirting with "we shoulds" or "we need to's" when orcs abound and are at the door? These differences between progressive viewpoints AREN'T small under the current circumstances? We are BARELY holding onto power; as in the States, progressives are the majority which means that regressives have to double down to win, and so ARE, and with social media platforms they've won the jackpot. Look at the States, mentor for the cons here. Look how many voted for a complete idiot. Most people don't even FOLLOW politics, just submit to the messages of which there are many and they are now in a silo, so they respond emotionally to basic tribal shit or the equally irrelevant cult of personality. That's the reality. Low-information voters are US, the abiding Achilles heel of any democracy. So you truly have to be more objective and utilitarian really. Politics ARE the art of the possible. There ARE two kinds of people in the world---open and closed. In such a polatized reality, this is the stark choice before us at this time.
The main difference with the Liberals is that they have critical, attackable mass, having actually BEEN in governance, are actually the naturally governing party by virtue of simply being at the helm of the capitalist system that has determined this country's entire economic direction. There is definitely arrogance there, personified by Pierre Trudeau, but not found in Lester B. Pearson for example. They brought in the Charter, patriated the constitution, created the flag, established our impeccable reputation abroad. And always worked with corporations that have indisputably played a huge part in our relative wealth. That's a reality, so just dismissing them out of hand is just ridiculous. It's called "working in harness" and it's what the NDP or the Greens or any party would be faced with once they step into the traces of the system that is in place. So blaming the Liberals for that structure is like blaming individuals for burning natural gas to heat their homes right now. The NDP could provide the "Leap" factor, as well as embodying the idealism afforded anyone at a remove. Remember how in 2008 the Democrats bailed out the banks? That was because that represented the salient SYSTEM underpinning their whole economy. A structure that is not easily changed by any ideology, no matter how compelling. Mark Carney has the right idea, he's approaching change from within the reality of the world's financial systems, which are the very heart of power. He supports the Liberals and may well be next up.
I would say you're the one
I would say you're the one obsessing about tribalism. For you, the important thing is "orcs", a vicious uneducated social group.
Here's the thing: I am a leftist. I believe that politics is for the most part about class struggle. I'm on the side of the poorer up through middle--workers and so forth. The Liberal party is ultimately on the side of the people who own companies, not the people who work for them. They are on the OPPOSITE SIDE of the class struggle from me. They try to camouflage this by being nice. I'm glad they're nice, but they're still on the side of the downtreaders and I'm still on the side of the downtrodden.
So no matter how much the same my TRIBE might be with a Liberal, no matter if we went to the same university and have the same taste in lattes or whatever, we are on opposite sides in politics and joining up with them would be political suicide.
The Quebec vote plays a
The Quebec vote plays a significant part in all of this. Why do we have a leader in this election and all the others who insists on ensuring that he represents his own nation (Quebec)? What a nutty country this is. Singh is caught in the overall struggle of strategic voting wherein a large portion of the voting public vote "against" some party. Would it not be far more to the point to consider that TRUDEAU garnished the votes of somewhere in the neighborhood of three in every ten votes. Hardly a popular mandate(?) at all. Maybe he or his party should consider the price paid for such a humble performance? They will after all be dependent upon Singh if they want to get anything done. Not that they demonstrate much of "getting something done" very often.
As a long time NDP member
As a long time NDP member (since 1973), I get the impression that the NDP has lost its base. I know little about most riding associations but in my area there seems to be none at all, or, if they exist there is little activity. Respect of the membership by the NDP hierarchy seems to be gone as members are seen essentially as donors. Try to contact the national office, try to get clarity on donations, try to get simple support or information...basically impossible. And where is the grassroot involvement in developing policy and priorities? I sent 3 resolutions to my riding association annual meeting 3 years ago...they were adopted and I can't get any information for anyone as to what happened to them! And, partly because of COVID, party meetings, even at the local level seem no longer exist, never mind the fiasco of the last national conference. How can it be expected that the NDP will make gains at the ballot box when there are so few active associations and so little participation? A leader is very important, but a numerous, active and enthusiastic base is even more important!
It should be, anyway. Look at
It should be, anyway. Look at how a "numerous, active and enthusiastic" base aka the Tea Party took over the Republican party in the states. A lot of it was though primarying incumbents -- threatening them with an even further right candidate for the nomination in the party's primary elections. Our nomination process doesn't work like that, so where are the comparable pressure points?
The frustration I feel is the
The frustration I feel is the waste of money on negative advertising such as the CBC radio ads in about the last 10 days of the campaign. I heard them every day. It was all about attacking Trudeau. Not one word on a positive vision of the future, of the transition we need to be in, nothing about climate - when that was the issue on a great many voters minds, and the most urgent time for action is this next few years. I was very disappointed. There were some fabulous local candidates who were very positive, very committed, and named climate change on their web pages, and in their videos - such as Paul Taylor and Alejandra Bravo. They had to hold up this positive energy all on their own - and almost made it. It would have helped if the national campaign supported this vision.
With three parties that are
With three parties that are centre-left and First Past the Post, it's hard for the Greens or NDP to get traction. The Liberals will say, "Vote for us, or else you'll get those scary Conservatives," and people do vote strategically for the Liberals when they might prefer to vote NDP or Green. Oddly, the author did not talk about ROI for Conservative or Liberal spending which was stratospheric compared to NDP. It was a lot of money wasted for not much gained for all parties.
Membership must be by Sept 28
Membership must be by Sept 28, in order to vote :
https://www.greenparty.ca/en/civicrm/contribute/transact?id=43&source=NC...
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