Jagmeet Singh Needs To Put Himself, Not Trump, On Notice

Plus Bonus Leger Takes!

Yesterday, in what I’m sure was meant to be some cool mic drop moment, Jagmeet Singh went on CNN and declared that he - the leader of the fourth party in Canada’s Parliament who is 0/2 at winning more seats than a party that only runs in one fucking province - was putting Donald Trump “on notice”, whatever the fuck that means. That was clearly an intended line, something he planned out and thought would work … and when I saw it I burst out laughing.

It’s so ludicrous I don’t even know where to start, but it’s also so blatantly thirsty as a tactic. He went on CNN to say that in the hopes that Donald Trump would have Truthed about him (maybe even with some anti-Sikh slur that he could use to condemn Trump for using) and get himself into a news cycle again. It was an attempt to bait a response that would elevate Singh to a level above his current station. It didn’t work, but that’s obviously what he wanted. And it’s just pathetic.

Singh has absolutely been this site’s greatest punching bag, and despite the “Professional Asshole” label I give myself I do think quite a lot about the work I do and the way it comes across. I worry, almost constantly, that I am being unfair to Singh or that the level of vitriol is excessive. And then he does something like this and I realize that all of my animus and more is not just reasonable but entirely deserved.

The NDP are an allegedly serious party being led by a fucking lunatic. They are, and no amount of lying to ourselves or personal affection for Jagmeet changes this fact. It’s an absurd position we find ourselves in, solely at the whims of a selfish egomaniac who has refused to engage with the blatant truth that everybody fucking understands except for him.

The latest stunt is a great example of the other crisis the NDP face, beyond the whole “they’re two parties stuck together by First Past The Post” thing I’ve complained about for years. Related to that but not solely because of it, the party hasn’t had any new ideas in 25 years. Their two big accomplishments in this Parliament were Layton-era, if not even older, ideas that had stuck around for this whole time. There’s no new thinking from the NDP, no purpose for their existence in a modern society.

The value of the NDP is in being the conscience of the Liberals, but also in being the place for left wing ideas to build momentum and credibility, to eventually be implemented by the Liberals. Where is that thinking? The Liberals were the ones who introduced a means tested child benefit when the NDP were running on the Conservatives’ universal and less generous benefit, the NDP’s climate policy at the last election got eviscerated by every serious climate expert, they have no coherent policy on anything of importance, and their caucus members with brains are all leaving.

What’s the NDP’s policy on AI? Their housing policies are nonsensical efforts to vaguely hint they’re not left-NIMBYs but also very much are left-NIMBY adjacent at best, they don’t understand that building is good even if it’s “luxury condos” that the local Indigenous community want, and their big “plan” they mooted in 2023 was a ban on people being landlords to too many people, except it wasn’t clear at all what that meant or who that would apply to.

Their foreign policy is at least understandable, in that they are pro-Palestine and pro-Ukraine, and the Federal Party has mostly avoided the controversies of their Ontario and BC provincial branches, but the fact that their foreign policy is the most coherent part of their pitch isn’t a good thing. They are a union, workers party at its core and we are talking about the only thing they can be coherent and articulate about is foreign policy? It’s better to be coherent on it than not, but it’s not a good sign that so much of their intellectual capacity is going to a conflict where we are fundamentally bit players.

The NDP under Singh have signed up for horribly regressive fiscal policies like GST exemptions that would aid the rich a hell of a lot more than the poor, they’ve wasted Lord knows how many years bitching about the grocery giants without a single coherent plan to end Canada’s dependence and reliance on triads of corporations in grocery (and telecoms), and have no actual plan for how to lower prices.

They don’t even use their platform to push for a big Millionaires Surcharge on income tax or something. Obviously it’s not that easy, and I’m not sure that such a tax would raise that much money, but it’s the NDP, and they need quick soundbites that are popular, and they can’t even do that right. They’re just fucking rudderless, at the whims of a man who is staggeringly incompetent and endlessly arrogant.

Because of my US politics coverage and general obsession, I have a lot of US political junkies as friends, and they pay a nominal amount of attention to our politics. They know most of the people, they don’t pay much attention except when it gets to crunch time, but they read every fifth column I write about Canada and absorb enough just through osmosis. And every time Canadian politics comes up with that cadre, it’s the same question: “if Jagmeet sucks so much, and the NDP are so fucked, why do they keep him as leader?” And the answer I always give is the same - “because the NDP are too stupid to listen to everybody else.”

If you could line up every Liberal and every Conservative who does TV appearances, who have credibility, every columnist with any serious audience, and get them to honestly answer, they’d all say they don’t get why Jagmeet is still NDP leader. It might be the only thing you could get them all to agree on, but every time I talk to anybody on either side of the aisle, the only thing we can agree on is bafflement about the NDP. It’s truly remarkable how insular the NDP have become.

The NDP are dying in the vine of their leader’s arrogance, and their leadership is shocked by the crisis that is here. There are individual New Democrats who have fought for better, and they deserve our respect. But their party doesn’t. They’re going to get destroyed because they let this clusterfuck roll on unabated. Thankfully, it just might save the Liberals.

Bonus: Hung Parliament Baby!

Leger released a poll today showing a swing left, and with that, my model now has the Conservatives on 170 seats and below the majority government line. Now, this is one projection at one point in time, others still have them in majority (though crashing fast), yadda yadda yadda. This is genuinely approaching crisis point for the Tories.

It’s likely when Abacus drops Thursday the Tories lose a bit more again, as the remaining CPC+20 poll gets replaced by something closer. The really interesting thing is BC, where the Liberals have been suddenly more competitive in recent polls. It could be noise, but I’d be curious to see if the NDP slide and the Liberal gain nationally translates to better Liberal results and worse NDP ones in BC - which would hurt the NDP in the interior and north (and on Vancouver Island) but help the Liberals in the Greater bits of Greater Vancouver.

The other notable thing would be Quebec, where Leger has the Liberals ahead by 4%. It’s going to be interesting to see where that shakes out, and Quebec will get a full column later this week, but it’s notable that the polls have closed well there, after being the Liberal weakness even as soon as late January.

I’ll likely be posting my model to my Substack soon as well - probably a pinned post in the manner of Nate Silver’s 2024 content. i just have to decide how to display it so that you can see every riding in a legible way (as anyone who’s seen my work knows, Graphic Design is certainly not my passion.