Jagmeet Singh is trying — and failing — to copy Pierre Poilievre

National Post, 8 September 2024

Now that the NDP has decided to become its own political party again, it needs to get back to its roots

The decision by Jagmeet Singh to end his supply-and-confidence agreement with the Trudeau government, coupled with the Winnipeg federal byelection in nine days, invites the question of where left-wing populism fits today on the federal scene.

As Singh filed his “divorce” papers, he inveighed mightily against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as too much the defender of corporate interests. That’s not unusual from an NDP leader. In the 1984 election, Ed Broadbent blasted John Turner and Brian Mulroney as being the “Bobbsey Twins of Bay Street.”

The Bobbsey Twins reference indicates that it was a long time ago — indeed, the 40th anniversary of that election was on Wednesday. The Bobbsey Twins and their adventures were the subject of a long-running series of children’s books.

Like the reference, that charge would be out of date today. Trudeau might be accused of being the creature of corporate Canada, with his McKinsey-friendly administration, but Pierre Poilievre has rhetorically positioned himself as an enemy of the corporate elites. More than rhetorically; his Conservatives voted for the “anti-scab” labour bill that the NDP had pushed as part of its alliance with the Liberals.

The political energy in Canada today is with conservative populism, as it is in many places around the world. That is a big change from the Bobbsey Twins. As late as 2012, Stephen Harper addressed the Davos conference, the bête noire of the populist right; Poilievre has promised that none of his ministers will ever set foot there.

Where is the energy on the populist left in Canada? Now that the NDP has decided to become its own political party again, it’s a timely question.

The Trudeau-Singh alliance was congenial in part because both men are creatures of the new left, in which carbon taxes, contraceptives, plastic straws and pride flags are the great causes. The environment and identity politics have replaced the older populist left, which was about shop-floor issues and made space for cultural conservatives.

Western Canada gave expression to populism on both sides, the Social Credit on the right, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) on the left. The recent reconfiguration of British Columbia provincial politics is bringing back something of the old “Socred” tradition. And Jason Kenney’s new United Conservative Party shifted the centre of gravity in Alberta away from the elite-driven Progressive Conservatives toward a more populist style in the Socred tradition of Ernest Manning.

Singh shows no particular interest in that old Prairie CCF tradition. The NDP is now an urban phenomenon. Singh, who grew up in blue-collar Windsor — attending an elite private American school across the border in Michigan — moved first to Brampton, Ont. and then Burnaby, B.C. to run for office.

All of which makes the byelection in Winnipeg a timely reminder. It follows the resignation in March of Daniel Blaikie from the riding of Elmwood-Transcona in order to work in the government of Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew.

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