The NDP’s dwindling popularity
Episode Stats
Summary
The Canadian political landscape is rapidly changing, and the New Democratic Party is no longer the only left-wing party in Canada. In fact, it may be the only party on the fringes of the political spectrum. In this episode of the podcast, I discuss why the New Democrats are slipping into irrelevance, and what they should do about it.
Transcript
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A supposedly big thing happened in Canadian politics the other week and hardly anybody
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noticed. A couple weeks ago the NDP released their federal election campaign platform. The
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ideas that they're going to use to fight the next election on. The ideas that Jagmeet Singh
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is going to use to try to become Canada's next Prime Minister. Few people heard about
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it. It made few news reports. It got little traction. I didn't hear about it when it happened
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and I do this for a living. I get the press releases sent into my inbox. Nobody made a
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big fanfare out of this. It hardly made the news. I only know about it now because somebody
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said, hey, did you hear this thing happened? No, I didn't and most didn't. Now a lot of
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this has to do with the really odd timing of this. They managed to release the platform
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right in the middle of the NBA finals when the entire country was just watching everything
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the Raptors did and it's all anybody cared about. They also made the odd choice of announcing
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the federal NDP platform at the Ontario NDP convention. So the Fed sort of going to a
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provincial event, releasing it there. I mean, what can you not get your own crowd out for
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all of this? So it suggests a lack of, I think, self-confidence and also just a lack of planning,
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a lack of looking at the calendar. I mean, during the Raptors game, come on. It also suggests
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something else though. It's just one more step into this ever-changing part of the Canadian
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political dynamic where the NDP are becoming increasingly irrelevant. They're just dropping
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off the map. They're getting closer to the Green Party and their polling numbers and we're
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moving into a two-party system, the Conservatives and the Liberals. I mean, right now, Jagmeet
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Singh is not even a part of the conversation. Whereas back in 2015, for a while, NDP leader
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Tom Mulcair, he was slated to become the next Prime Minister. He was winning with a majority
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in the polls. I mean, it didn't happen, but it shows that at certain points, the NDP could
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have been believers that they were going to form government with Jack Layton first and
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then Tom Mulcair later. Now, nobody thinks that at all. Nobody believes it. And the NDP
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strategists, I guess they're just trying to figure out a way to stay alive and to keep
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in party status. Now, in certain circumstances, if you're a conservative-minded person, this
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would be a welcome thing because you'd be going, well, look, this is a party that just
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doesn't have traction anymore. Far left-wing ideas aren't popular in Canada and all those
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votes are heading over to the Liberals and the Conservatives. That's not what's going on,
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is it? It's that Justin Trudeau has moved increasingly further to the left and he is
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eating their lunch. Even the things that's in that platform, they're talking about expanding
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health care, passenger bill of rights issues, plastic bans, climate change, you know, constant
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climate change issues and so forth. I mean, that's just what Justin Trudeau is doing. So
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you've got to feel for Jagmeet Singh. I mean, as I mentioned in a previous video, when you
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watch the Democratic debates in the United States, they were talking about border issues
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that made them look to the left of the NDP and Jagmeet Singh. So we've got a kind of worrisome
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situation on our hands here where we've got the Canadian political scene moving increasingly to a
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two-party system, but the dominant party right now is becoming more and more left-wing. So there might
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be some people who are supporting Justin Trudeau saying, well, you know, I'm a centrist. I'm not
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actually a left-wing individual or far-left individual. That's the NDP over there. And they may not
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even realize, no, you are actually being the left-wing party in Canada right now. And if you
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want a moderate party, maybe you should go over to the NDP and to Jagmeet Singh. Or if you're a
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centrist, maybe you should go to the Conservatives and join Andrew Scheer. A lot of criticisms from
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the likes of Maxine Bernie and others at the Conservative Party, well, they are more or less
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in the centre. The centre-right and then just the general centre, they're not actually on the
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political right of the spectrum at all. So really interesting stuff to see take shape this
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summer as the NDP continues to slip into irrelevance. Back decades ago, the NDP was happy to be very
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much a third party, and they would do activism on the far left, the left pushing the centre parties
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to move in that direction. They weren't trying to vie for power. That's not what this situation
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is like at all anymore. It's not like they're just activists out on the threshold, out on the
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fringes. They're just not relevant at all. And it's going to have consequences for the Canadian