There's so much in this article that rings true for me. For 23 years I was one of the single most stalwart New Democrats in Canada. I was an organizer, campaign manager, BC-based provincial and federal councillor and provincial and federal executive member.
The federal NDP started souring me on the NDP almost immediately when Jagmeet took power (I was a Mulcair booster). I suspended belief as long as I could and did my best to push my increasing concern with direction and obsession with identity political down.
It was actually the election of Poilievre that finally had me cut the cord. Jagmeet began fully embracing Conservative style wedge politics, engaging in the very kind of toxic division he always laments is too much a part of Canadian politics today.
I see Jagmeet as no different; someone seeking to wedge us against eachother, divide us, and use fear instead of hope in a time when we urgently need the latter.
Hard agree. I vote for the NDP provincially but never will federally until he is gone and the party comes to its senses. Mulcair was the first wrong choice for leadership and Singh is the second wrong choice. I notice when he's blathering about high rents being Trudeau's fault that he never mentions the BC NDP continues allowing BC landlords automatic inflation-driven rent increases for existing tenancies and unlimited increases for vacated tenancies. Provinces regulate rents but this is an inconvenient fact for Jagmeet.
The NDP could be great for Canada with a leader who had an enactable vision for the country. I was excited to see what Jagmeet would do with the leadership, but I’ve been more and more disappointed with his behaviour in office. IMO the supply agreement has been a policy success and good for the country, but the continuous PM-blaming mud slinging makes me think this is a party that’s too immature to govern effectively. He sells unicorns with lies to people who don’t understand our system of government or our jurisdictional boundaries. Over and over and over.
I completely agree that he needs to go, and the NDP needs to introspect about who they are, and where they’re going. Because what they’re doing now isn’t working.
What Jagmeet needs to answer is why he expresses no outrage about Premiers and municipalities taking the funding transfers for housing from the Feds and not applying it to affordable housing then doing a photo op for a 50 -100 bed unit pretending they did something. Basically, theft to hand to the developers who profit large from the inflated prices. So why does he suggest that taxpayers foot the bill for more profit that benefits the middle upper class only and places the rest on the verge of homelessness. Not everyone can afford a mortgage and need to rent. Rent control has been removed while many wages are capped. His plan is basically a bigger grift of taxpayer money that does nothing to bring the cost down but would actually inflate them further. Why does he attack the Liberal Federal government and is fine with Federal fund transfers being misappropriated by provinces and municipalities to build unaffordable housing for developer benefits and no one else's! You are right, he did the same with healthcare and the Feds continue to transfer funds to the province that is withheld from public care and funneled to predatory private capitalists instead. Why? He needs to answer.
As someone who is generally an NDP supporter I have no idea how they went from Layton to a series of leaderships that seem actively allergic to aspiration and principles.
Trudeau isn’t a particularly strong PM and a mediocre leader. And yet is somehow head and shoulders more competent than anyone the other parties have put forward during his tenure. We all deserve better, from every party.
I’m looking forward to the next election just to accelerate the post election leadership shakeup of the other parties
Suggest watching the video of Trudeau interacting with Muslims about LGBTQ. We don't often get to see what he is capable of, what he's made of, just the usual blather from mostly right wing media mocking his hair and socks. Trudeau isn't dumb and he isn't shallow. Beyond that I would point to the BC NDP proving the NDP is not the socialist party Jagmeet claims it is. The BC NDP is basically the federal liberal party.
I don’t think Trudeau is dumb and I don’t think he’s shallow.
I think he has issues of follow-through and organization. Isn’t very flexible, rides small mistakes down in flames rather than make adjustments, and keeps getting caught in the policy weeds without accomplishing much.
On the whole I think he averages out as a fairly replacement-level party leader. It’s just that the current crop of opposition leaders is dire, and I think we deserve better.
For that matter, I think it would make Trudeau better. If he was faced with credible oppositions leaders who could actually challenge him on policy, rather than focus on outrage, I think he’d quickly clean house and step up.
Perfectly stated Evan. Absolutely everything you said about Jagmeet's tactics is spot on and the NDP needs to fully review his leadership if they ever want to be a valid party with a chance to win elections. Maybe they do not want to and exist merely to wedge and politic as an opposition. Certainly appears this way. They are offering nothing but toxic wedge politics and he his Poilievre style lying and misleading Canadians. He knows that housing is provincial, rents are provincial but Conservative style gives them a pass to blame Trudeau and split votes Horwath style to basically hand elections to the IDU Conservatives who are fully behind the housing crisis.
Plenty of New Democrats know the problems and are willing to have a serious discussion about solutions - I'm one of them, actually, and I maintain my membership in the party more because of the quality of the local NDP candidates (amazing MPP, great federal candidate who finished a very close second) than because of the party itself. Power in the party - federally and in the provincial wings - has become so centralized, and the ability of members to have these discussions has been cut so badly, that it's impossible to have this discussion with the way the party is currently structured. There is a very small group of people with an iron grip on power who genuinely believe that everyone else in the party (and on the left in general) is wrong, and that they know exactly what they're doing and only they know how to get the NDP elected, who have actually never won an election in their lives and whose best talent is being able to sell themselves to the people who determine whether they keep their jobs or not. I attended a post-mortem meeting after the 2022 election for the ONDP and I was shocked at how angry members were at the results, how passionate they were about fixing the mistakes that were made, and making sure it never happened again, and they got nothing but lip service from the party in return. In fact, the mediator of the session from the central ONDP office asked if people could stop talking about what went wrong and start talking about what went right because they didn't want to hear the negative feedback anymore. I wonder how much longer rank-and-file members are willing to tolerate their role as fundraisers and cheerleaders who need to keep their mouths shut and listen to the "experts" who know how to get us elected - who have never actually got us elected - and continue to watch the party choke as reliably as the Leafs in the playoffs on election night, before they decide that spending their energy on a losing cause isn't worth their time anymore.
Jagmeet Singh’s latest mortgage bonus suggestion is the equivalent of offering owners of pick-up trucks a subsidy because they are so hard hit by the carbon tax. It is beyond stupid. I believe the leader of the NDP is just not very smart. But on top of that, he has surrounded himself with people that are equally not very smart. Anybody with only a partial understanding of economics would have been able to tell him that this mortgage bonus was a dumb idea.
As for replacements, Charlie Angus would definitely put the NDP on a different track. He is certainly capable of stealing a good chunk of the angry voters from the Pierre Poilievre. This would be the best case scenario for the Liberals.
A more dangerous choice for the Liberals would be somebody like Daniel Blaikie. I believe he is one of the few NDPers capable of constructing a coherent thought on more that one topic. He would take fewer of the angry voters, but would likely take a lot of Liberal voters that have lost the enthusiasm for the party.
Both the CPC and the Liberals want the NDP around. In times when they are popular, they siphon away Liberal votes to the benefit of the CPC. They also allow the Liberals to campaign from the left, and then govern from the right. I think many people had high hopes for the Greens to offer an alternative, but they have shown themselves to even more incompetent than the Dippers.
We all have known that Jagmet will never be Prime Minister of Canada for painfully obvious reasons, a few of which you've mentioned above.
The NDP has become the amateur political party of Canada with its elected members there for the salary, perks and pensions.
Having said that, the Liberals or Conservatives aren't proposing any assistance or relief in what is a housing crisis equal to a national disgrace.
The real estate development sector must be forced by an overriding federal law to build and market affordable rental housing for Canadians as part of any project, with NO loopholes, a move that will possibly require some public money yes, but more importantly a federal government with real gonads.
With unconscionably misguided plans for 500,000 new immigrants annually what other choice is there?
The thing that hits me so hard is that it's clearly true you believe in what you are saying. I've never been jazzed about the federal NDP, that I admit. But it's clear that there are many dippers who have supported the party, as well as those that have maybe only voted for them recently that feel so significantly betrayed by the party as it is now.
I was 12 when Layton passed and I fully admit that my memory of him might be greatly idealized, but nearly as long as I've been politically engaged he's been the sort of meter stick which l have measure my politicians. And it's clear to me is seeing your reaction and those of the other commenters that he has clearly fallen short
When I said that Mr Scrimshaw seemed todisplay a pathological hatred of the NDP I was not endorsing Singh's direction of the party. I referring to the extreme vitriol he has been hurling at the party lately, not just towards Singh but also the provincial parties in Alberta and Ontario. He railed at the leadership of both Notley and Horwath and prophesized their utter electoral doom.
While both suffered electoral disappointments neither flamed out nearly to the extent Mr Scrimshaw had excitedly predicted.
If I wanted this kind of frothing-at-the-mouth political analysis I would turn to Fox News, whose tone Mr Scrimshaw too often emulates.
The objective of a political party is to gain power (through democratic means) and to govern. The NDP failed at that objective both in Alberta and Ontario. In Alberta they could not convince a majority of people to vote for them, even against a clearly unqualified UCP leader. That is a failure. Pure and simple.
Jagmeet Singh has defecated on the social democratic heritage of the NDP. The is contemptuous of average working Canadians. Singh Trudeau and Notlet are the Woke Three Stooges whose antics are fuelling Canada's precipitous decline.
Thanks for saying what needs to be said. Jagmeet Singh has ruined the NDP and sold it out to Trudeau. The party cares nothing about the common people anymore and is obsessed with woke identitarians. It has run BC for years and what has happened to the housing crises there?
It feels a little hopeless to be on the Left in this country when you've got the Liberals launching a barrage of intrusive digital legislation that I'd love to oppose, and the NDP somehow managing to back them up 100% while figuring out ways to still sling mud at Trudeau in the process.
Either stand up for the left wing ideals you claim to and back the concerns of individual users, creators, and artists instead of continually backing bills that just support Bell and Rogers--or just give up with the gaslighting and admit you're supporting the Liberals.
I am a member of and donate to the NDP, but that's probably going to change. I've never felt so much like I was being treated like a piggybank than by Singh's NDP these past couple years, and it feels really gross to see Singh managing to back every Liberal want while somehow still trying to pretend like he's 'fighting billionaires' and fighting Trudeau.
Not to sound unpatriotic, but giving an extra dollar or two to Bell Media instead of giving it to Google or Netflix doesn't really enthuse me as a working class Canadian.
And hey, it's okay for me to disagree with some party policies--but stop treating us like we're stupid. We can see what you're doing, and what you support. Stop pretending otherwise.
There's so much in this article that rings true for me. For 23 years I was one of the single most stalwart New Democrats in Canada. I was an organizer, campaign manager, BC-based provincial and federal councillor and provincial and federal executive member.
The federal NDP started souring me on the NDP almost immediately when Jagmeet took power (I was a Mulcair booster). I suspended belief as long as I could and did my best to push my increasing concern with direction and obsession with identity political down.
It was actually the election of Poilievre that finally had me cut the cord. Jagmeet began fully embracing Conservative style wedge politics, engaging in the very kind of toxic division he always laments is too much a part of Canadian politics today.
I see Jagmeet as no different; someone seeking to wedge us against eachother, divide us, and use fear instead of hope in a time when we urgently need the latter.
Hard agree. I vote for the NDP provincially but never will federally until he is gone and the party comes to its senses. Mulcair was the first wrong choice for leadership and Singh is the second wrong choice. I notice when he's blathering about high rents being Trudeau's fault that he never mentions the BC NDP continues allowing BC landlords automatic inflation-driven rent increases for existing tenancies and unlimited increases for vacated tenancies. Provinces regulate rents but this is an inconvenient fact for Jagmeet.
The NDP could be great for Canada with a leader who had an enactable vision for the country. I was excited to see what Jagmeet would do with the leadership, but I’ve been more and more disappointed with his behaviour in office. IMO the supply agreement has been a policy success and good for the country, but the continuous PM-blaming mud slinging makes me think this is a party that’s too immature to govern effectively. He sells unicorns with lies to people who don’t understand our system of government or our jurisdictional boundaries. Over and over and over.
I completely agree that he needs to go, and the NDP needs to introspect about who they are, and where they’re going. Because what they’re doing now isn’t working.
What Jagmeet needs to answer is why he expresses no outrage about Premiers and municipalities taking the funding transfers for housing from the Feds and not applying it to affordable housing then doing a photo op for a 50 -100 bed unit pretending they did something. Basically, theft to hand to the developers who profit large from the inflated prices. So why does he suggest that taxpayers foot the bill for more profit that benefits the middle upper class only and places the rest on the verge of homelessness. Not everyone can afford a mortgage and need to rent. Rent control has been removed while many wages are capped. His plan is basically a bigger grift of taxpayer money that does nothing to bring the cost down but would actually inflate them further. Why does he attack the Liberal Federal government and is fine with Federal fund transfers being misappropriated by provinces and municipalities to build unaffordable housing for developer benefits and no one else's! You are right, he did the same with healthcare and the Feds continue to transfer funds to the province that is withheld from public care and funneled to predatory private capitalists instead. Why? He needs to answer.
10/10 no notes
As someone who is generally an NDP supporter I have no idea how they went from Layton to a series of leaderships that seem actively allergic to aspiration and principles.
Trudeau isn’t a particularly strong PM and a mediocre leader. And yet is somehow head and shoulders more competent than anyone the other parties have put forward during his tenure. We all deserve better, from every party.
I’m looking forward to the next election just to accelerate the post election leadership shakeup of the other parties
Suggest watching the video of Trudeau interacting with Muslims about LGBTQ. We don't often get to see what he is capable of, what he's made of, just the usual blather from mostly right wing media mocking his hair and socks. Trudeau isn't dumb and he isn't shallow. Beyond that I would point to the BC NDP proving the NDP is not the socialist party Jagmeet claims it is. The BC NDP is basically the federal liberal party.
I don’t think Trudeau is dumb and I don’t think he’s shallow.
I think he has issues of follow-through and organization. Isn’t very flexible, rides small mistakes down in flames rather than make adjustments, and keeps getting caught in the policy weeds without accomplishing much.
On the whole I think he averages out as a fairly replacement-level party leader. It’s just that the current crop of opposition leaders is dire, and I think we deserve better.
For that matter, I think it would make Trudeau better. If he was faced with credible oppositions leaders who could actually challenge him on policy, rather than focus on outrage, I think he’d quickly clean house and step up.
Perfectly stated Evan. Absolutely everything you said about Jagmeet's tactics is spot on and the NDP needs to fully review his leadership if they ever want to be a valid party with a chance to win elections. Maybe they do not want to and exist merely to wedge and politic as an opposition. Certainly appears this way. They are offering nothing but toxic wedge politics and he his Poilievre style lying and misleading Canadians. He knows that housing is provincial, rents are provincial but Conservative style gives them a pass to blame Trudeau and split votes Horwath style to basically hand elections to the IDU Conservatives who are fully behind the housing crisis.
It's amazing how the NDP should be thriving in this political environment and yet they're floundering in every way.
And no Dippers are willing to take a good look of self-reflection why.
Exactly. With current wealth inequality and cost of living crises this should their moment.
Plenty of New Democrats know the problems and are willing to have a serious discussion about solutions - I'm one of them, actually, and I maintain my membership in the party more because of the quality of the local NDP candidates (amazing MPP, great federal candidate who finished a very close second) than because of the party itself. Power in the party - federally and in the provincial wings - has become so centralized, and the ability of members to have these discussions has been cut so badly, that it's impossible to have this discussion with the way the party is currently structured. There is a very small group of people with an iron grip on power who genuinely believe that everyone else in the party (and on the left in general) is wrong, and that they know exactly what they're doing and only they know how to get the NDP elected, who have actually never won an election in their lives and whose best talent is being able to sell themselves to the people who determine whether they keep their jobs or not. I attended a post-mortem meeting after the 2022 election for the ONDP and I was shocked at how angry members were at the results, how passionate they were about fixing the mistakes that were made, and making sure it never happened again, and they got nothing but lip service from the party in return. In fact, the mediator of the session from the central ONDP office asked if people could stop talking about what went wrong and start talking about what went right because they didn't want to hear the negative feedback anymore. I wonder how much longer rank-and-file members are willing to tolerate their role as fundraisers and cheerleaders who need to keep their mouths shut and listen to the "experts" who know how to get us elected - who have never actually got us elected - and continue to watch the party choke as reliably as the Leafs in the playoffs on election night, before they decide that spending their energy on a losing cause isn't worth their time anymore.
Jagmeet Singh’s latest mortgage bonus suggestion is the equivalent of offering owners of pick-up trucks a subsidy because they are so hard hit by the carbon tax. It is beyond stupid. I believe the leader of the NDP is just not very smart. But on top of that, he has surrounded himself with people that are equally not very smart. Anybody with only a partial understanding of economics would have been able to tell him that this mortgage bonus was a dumb idea.
As for replacements, Charlie Angus would definitely put the NDP on a different track. He is certainly capable of stealing a good chunk of the angry voters from the Pierre Poilievre. This would be the best case scenario for the Liberals.
A more dangerous choice for the Liberals would be somebody like Daniel Blaikie. I believe he is one of the few NDPers capable of constructing a coherent thought on more that one topic. He would take fewer of the angry voters, but would likely take a lot of Liberal voters that have lost the enthusiasm for the party.
Jagmeet Singh's tweets mirror Poilievre's.
Two populist clowns not worth the time of day.
Both the CPC and the Liberals want the NDP around. In times when they are popular, they siphon away Liberal votes to the benefit of the CPC. They also allow the Liberals to campaign from the left, and then govern from the right. I think many people had high hopes for the Greens to offer an alternative, but they have shown themselves to even more incompetent than the Dippers.
We all have known that Jagmet will never be Prime Minister of Canada for painfully obvious reasons, a few of which you've mentioned above.
The NDP has become the amateur political party of Canada with its elected members there for the salary, perks and pensions.
Having said that, the Liberals or Conservatives aren't proposing any assistance or relief in what is a housing crisis equal to a national disgrace.
The real estate development sector must be forced by an overriding federal law to build and market affordable rental housing for Canadians as part of any project, with NO loopholes, a move that will possibly require some public money yes, but more importantly a federal government with real gonads.
With unconscionably misguided plans for 500,000 new immigrants annually what other choice is there?
The thing that hits me so hard is that it's clearly true you believe in what you are saying. I've never been jazzed about the federal NDP, that I admit. But it's clear that there are many dippers who have supported the party, as well as those that have maybe only voted for them recently that feel so significantly betrayed by the party as it is now.
I was 12 when Layton passed and I fully admit that my memory of him might be greatly idealized, but nearly as long as I've been politically engaged he's been the sort of meter stick which l have measure my politicians. And it's clear to me is seeing your reaction and those of the other commenters that he has clearly fallen short
When I said that Mr Scrimshaw seemed todisplay a pathological hatred of the NDP I was not endorsing Singh's direction of the party. I referring to the extreme vitriol he has been hurling at the party lately, not just towards Singh but also the provincial parties in Alberta and Ontario. He railed at the leadership of both Notley and Horwath and prophesized their utter electoral doom.
While both suffered electoral disappointments neither flamed out nearly to the extent Mr Scrimshaw had excitedly predicted.
If I wanted this kind of frothing-at-the-mouth political analysis I would turn to Fox News, whose tone Mr Scrimshaw too often emulates.
The objective of a political party is to gain power (through democratic means) and to govern. The NDP failed at that objective both in Alberta and Ontario. In Alberta they could not convince a majority of people to vote for them, even against a clearly unqualified UCP leader. That is a failure. Pure and simple.
There are no prizes for “not flaming out”.
Jagmeet Singh has defecated on the social democratic heritage of the NDP. The is contemptuous of average working Canadians. Singh Trudeau and Notlet are the Woke Three Stooges whose antics are fuelling Canada's precipitous decline.
Thanks for saying what needs to be said. Jagmeet Singh has ruined the NDP and sold it out to Trudeau. The party cares nothing about the common people anymore and is obsessed with woke identitarians. It has run BC for years and what has happened to the housing crises there?
It feels a little hopeless to be on the Left in this country when you've got the Liberals launching a barrage of intrusive digital legislation that I'd love to oppose, and the NDP somehow managing to back them up 100% while figuring out ways to still sling mud at Trudeau in the process.
Either stand up for the left wing ideals you claim to and back the concerns of individual users, creators, and artists instead of continually backing bills that just support Bell and Rogers--or just give up with the gaslighting and admit you're supporting the Liberals.
I am a member of and donate to the NDP, but that's probably going to change. I've never felt so much like I was being treated like a piggybank than by Singh's NDP these past couple years, and it feels really gross to see Singh managing to back every Liberal want while somehow still trying to pretend like he's 'fighting billionaires' and fighting Trudeau.
Not to sound unpatriotic, but giving an extra dollar or two to Bell Media instead of giving it to Google or Netflix doesn't really enthuse me as a working class Canadian.
And hey, it's okay for me to disagree with some party policies--but stop treating us like we're stupid. We can see what you're doing, and what you support. Stop pretending otherwise.