‘Catastrophic loss’: Former MP says NDP lost touch with core supporters
The New Democratic Party ran a leader-focused election campaign and lost touch with core supporters who ended up backing the Conservatives, says a former member of Parliament.
Charlie Angus, who did not run in the last election after representing the northern Ontario riding of Timmins — James Bay for more than two decades, — called the election a “catastrophic loss” following a campaign that spent too much time selling leader Jagmeet Singh and not enough time pitching its policies.
“I think it’d be really dangerous to tell ourselves that we were simply the victims of strategic voting, and it was the times and there was nothing we could do,” Angus said. “We stopped being the New Democratic Party of Canada some time ago and we became a leader-driven movement.
“When it came to the biggest economic and political crisis in memory, we didn’t have an offer on the table because we were selling a leader and his likable personality and his style.”
The Conservatives picked up several endorsements from trade union locals and won over many blue collar voters. While the NDP sought to hold its incumbents, it lost all of its MPs representing voters in Ontario manufacturing towns.
Before the election, the NDP had 24 seats in the House of Commons. It now has seven. Singh, who is stepping down as party leader, was one of the MPs who lost their seats.
Preliminary results from Elections Canada show the party took 6.3 per cent of the national vote total, down from 17.8 per cent in the 2021 election.
The party needed 12 seats to maintain official party status. The last time the federal NDP lost official party status was in 1993, when it was reduced to nine seats.
A mid-campaign visit by Singh to Windsor, Ont., on March 27 — when Singh stood outside of an auto plant to meet workers as they came off shift — offered an early indication that the NDP’s relationship with union voters was slipping.
Some of the exiting autoworkers greeted the NDP leader. Some criticized him to his face. Most ignored him.
From behind a gate, one woman repeatedly expressed her support for U.S. President Donald Trump and said that she should have worn her MAGA hat. One man told Singh that “the only viable option is (Conservative Leader) Pierre Poilievre.”
Matthew Green, the New Democrat who represented the riding of Hamilton Centre before it flipped to the Liberals in the election, said the race was “quickly reduced” to two parties, making it “all but impossible” for the NDP to break through.
Green, who said he plans to run again in the next election, argued voters fell into a state of “panic” over Trump’s trade war and threats against Canada’s sovereignty, and fled to the Liberals.
“I think our work is a search for and reconstruction of the soul and the core identity of our party,” said Green — who was in the process of packing up his office while speaking with The Canadian Press and had to pause the interview to say goodbye to his campaign manager.
Angus said he thinks the party suffered because it wasn’t rooted deeply enough at the riding level. He said the party needs to do what it “used to do” and hold regular regional meetings at community halls.
“You can have all the data-driven stuff you want, you can have all the Instagram likes, but that’s not the same as being in the communities,” Angus said, adding that he doesn’t think the party has had a coherent outreach strategy over the last few years. “You can’t just go into an election and think it’s going to be there based on previous numbers.”
Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said that while the NDP got several endorsements from large labour unions, most of the Conservatives’ labour endorsements came from smaller locals. She said trades workers helped get many Conservative candidates elected, especially in areas of southern Ontario that have tended to be more left-leaning.
“I think the NDP does have a tremendous amount of work to do to go back to appealing to the everyday worker,” Bruske said.
“It’s not just simplistic messaging, but I think in order for workers to see the NDP as the party of workers, we need to speak to the bread-and-butter issues,” she added, citing the high cost of living and health care.
Jordan Leichnitz, a former NDP strategist, said that while the Conservatives did not get endorsements from a lot of union leaders, it’s “very clear” they made gains among union rank-and-file.
“That is something that is not actually a new trend this election. That has been the case now for a number of years,” she said, adding that the trend of working-class voters leaning toward right-wing parties is international. “I think that reconnecting with those voters is going to be a really important part of the conversation going forward.”
Former NDP MP Nathan Cullen has been floated as a possible replacement for Singh, although he has said he’s not thinking about the job right now. He said it’s obvious the NDP’s outreach has to go beyond union executives and connect with workers on the shop floors.
“It’s been a tension ever since I’ve been involved in the party, but it manifests in a tough way given the circumstances of this election,” he said. “That support we can win back.”
Emmett Macfarlane, a political-science professor at the University of Waterloo, said Poilievre did the legwork of a “retail politician” by engaging with blue collar workers.
“The impression is certainly that Poilievre put that effort in to secure those relationships,” he said, noting that the Conservative base has included a blue-collar constituency for a long time.
He said those Conservative-leaning union members tend to be people working in sectors that are being threatened directly by Trump’s trade war — and many of them feel they’ve been ignored by the Liberal government.
Macfarlane said Poilievre’s ability to connect with voters on the issue of affordability helped him make inroads with organized labour.
“Depending on again what the political climate looks like moving forward and what issues move to the top of the agenda, the new leader is going to have to do a bit of a rebuild here,” he said. “I don’t think that they have somehow permanently lost their historic bases of support … but they’re going to have to demonstrate that they are still a politically viable force.”
Former NDP president Anne McGrath — who is now unemployed, since the party lost official status and had to lay off many staff — said strong contenders for the interim party leader position include Alexandre Boulerice and Don Davies, MPs who won their ridings.
She said the party needs “somebody who is not afraid of hard work.”
“It’s going to be a slog,” McGrath said. “It’s got to be somebody who’s really kind of willing to work hard, to listen to people and to have a vision for what it means to have a strong social democratic party in this country.”
The smaller NDP caucus met Thursday and Friday. The council and executive will meet early next week and, in consultation with caucus, will name an interim leader and lay out plans for the leadership race.
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