Stage set for story of redemption

Iqbal Singh Sidhu  

Burnaby South is a federal electoral district in the suburbs of Greater Vancouver and the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. Its population is just over 1,10,000 and a majority, about 38 per cent, are of Chinese descent. There are other ethnic groups too, like the Europeans (32 per cent), South Asians (8.4 per cent) with smaller fractions of other migrant communities like West Asians and Filipinos. It was in many ways one of numerous nonchalant, uninteresting federal electoral districts strewn across the suburbia of Canada sharing almost all of their salient features. But everything changed on February 26. It became the riding (the seat of an MP is called a riding in Canadian parlance) of the leader of one of the three major Federal parties of Canada. Jagmeet Singh of the New Democratic Party (NDP) won the by-election by securing 8,884 votes, that is 39 per cent of all valid votes.

Jagmeet had been a king without a kingdom till now. For more than 15 months after his election as the leader of the NDP in October 2017, he had been without a parliamentary seat. This left him in a precarious position vis-à-vis his party’s parliamentary caucus of 44, now 41, MPs, and to counteract the other two Federal leaders on news shows alone. Given his position, Jagmeet was often the butt of jokes told by professors to amuse political science students, or by newspaper columnists to sound witty. There have been instances in the past when the leader of a federal party was without a parliamentary seat — although it had not happened in a long time, so the jokes sounded fresh and innovative.

The NDP has been in doldrums ever since the federal elections of 2015. It was touted as the favorites to win in 2015 but the erstwhile party leader, Thomas Mulcair, somehow managed to bring the party a peg down instead of moving a peg up — from the benches of the official opposition to the benches of the third largest party instead of the treasury benches. Consequently, heads were demanded and a revision of the party platform and its public image were made the areas of prime focus. Jagmeet fit the bill of the perfect candidate to lead it and was subsequently elected its leader while Mulcair unceremoniously resigned from active politics. Jagmeet is a member of a visible minority group, a second-generation immigrant and has a suave sense of dressing and a degree in law from a reputable university. Yet, despite the investiture of this ideal candidate, things have not improved. 

Its fundraising has been below par with fears that the party will not have sufficient money to run a full-fledged election campaign. Membership numbers have stalled since the party held its leadership election in 2017, at least 11 of the currently serving 41 MPs have declared that they don’t intend to run for re-election in 2019 and not until too long ago, the party’s leader had been without a seat in the House of Commons. At least one of the problems has been solved, and the party has Jagmeet Singh to thank! The other problems, of course, will need to be addressed immediately given the federal elections are only about half-a-year away. 

It does not fill any party member's heart with joy to see his leader flounder on serious foreign policy questions on live TV, or be labelled as a separatist sympathiser, or mocked for his lack of a parliament seat. Jagmeet Singh has been on the receiving end in all of the given instances but at least going forward, he will not have to endure the jibes on not having a parliamentary seat. The road ahead looks tough for him and as per the current scenario, it will take nothing less than a miracle for him to better the record of Thomas Mulcair’s 2015 result in 2019. The stage is set for a story of redemption, or for another slogging of the New Democrats. 

What remains to be seen is how well Jagmeet is accepted by the diaspora. The reports so far have been conflicting, with some strongly supporting the NDP simply because ‘one of their own’ is leading it while others choosing to sidestep or even oppose the party because the leader happens to be, or is perceived to be, on the other side of the ideological divide. There were three byelections on February 26 with all three major parties bagging a seat each. The NDP, however, also suffered the setback of losing its former leader Thomas Mulcair’s old seat, Outremont in Montreal, to the Liberals. It does not bode well for a party which is expected to do well in Quebec to lose its launch pad, from where it has historically unleashed its ‘orange wave’.