A free NDP is party’s best chance to win back Canada’s working class

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party's clean break from the parliamentary supply-and-confidence agreement presents a pivotal opportunity to mount a serious challenge to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in the next election. While I know Ottawa insiders, political observers and some voters may be skeptical, please allow me to explain why this is not the era to enter an election looking like a centrist coalition — and why the NDP is now better positioned to counter the Conservatives.

In Europe, the modest rise of the far-right has coincided with the decline of centrist parties. In the EU elections held last June, far-right parties gained ground at the expense of liberals and greens, while the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) remained relatively stable. The recent victories of the social democrats in Germany, France, and the UK, have European liberals soul-searching — a theme that dominated discussions at the Das Progressive Zentrum’s Progressive Governance Summit, which I attended this year in Berlin, Germany.

In our hemisphere, populist progressives are riding a renewed wave of success, securing historic victories in Colombia, Brazil, and Chile — often against formidable, authoritarian-leaning opponents. Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who campaigned on a platform of working-class empowerment, recently won a historic supermajority.

Globally, the populist left has proven to be the most effective opponents to a mobilized right, and this holds true in Canada. I see this where I live in southwestern Ontario, where the same voters can cast ballots for Conservatives in one election, and then turn around and cast ballots for New Democrats municipally. 

This right-left switcher dynamic was also evident in former NDP leader Jack Layton’s impressive 2011 campaign, which I worked on. In Toronto, one-third of voters who chose the NDP in 2011 previously voted for Rob Ford as mayor in 2010. Voters are real people — complex and prone to switching — very unlike the rigid political identities within the Ottawa bubble who would no doubt be perplexed. 

As we look toward the next federal election, any serious progressive opposition ought to study the key ridings where the Conservatives aim to gain new seats. These are places where people feel forgotten — outside of metro Toronto, affluent Vancouver and urbanist Montreal. They are ridings with Liberal MPs, where the excitement for Justin Trudeau in 2015 has shrunk as fast as their family’s budgets. These voters want a new government that will respond to their needs. For many, that alternative won’t be a re-branded Trudeau or his Liberal Party, which has long been seen as the political establishment, or in Jagmeet Singh’s words, “beholden to corporate interests.”

The NDP can more credibly present itself as that alternative. They can point to the gains Singh secured for the working class with the agreement and the stability of one of the longest minority governments in Canadian history: coverage for diabetes medication will be a life-changing win when rolled out, dental care for 2.3 million Canadian kids and seniors, and having the federal government finally get back to building new homes in cities across Canada, and, of course, anti-scab legislation. 

Now, free from the agreement, the NDP can lean into its historic bread-and-butter roots of championing working-class people against corporate profiteering and a laissez-faire government.

With rising prices and grocery store boycotts, the NDP ought to revisit proposals that protect people against predictable shocks: price caps on essential groceries and removing political influence on the Competition Bureau. While the grocery giants will no doubt continue to influence Conservatives and Liberals into doing nothing, the NDP can take cues from Kamala Harris, who is resonating with U.S. working-class voters by calling for an end to price-gouging at grocery stores.

It is a winning strategy. The same dynamic applies to workers’ rights. When push comes to shove, the Liberals have aligned with the Conservatives to undermine unions fighting for cost-of-living wages. Not to mention the continued scandal of the industry-controlled temporary foreign workers program, a Conservative legacy program that the Liberals maintained despite migrant workers themselves, Canadian unions and international observers calling out its brazen exploitation of workers and distortion of the job market. Even if the NDP’s principled positions don’t come to pass immediately, they will offer working people a clear contrast — who is fighting for you, and who isn’t.

The “Sunny Ways” promised by Trudeau is no more, replaced with working-class anger. Poilievre has been great at harnessing peoples’ frustrations, but his free-market ideology is at odds with solving the inflation crises the market created. Consumption taxes are only a fraction of the cost and aren’t the root problem. People’s hopes will be misplaced if Poilievre wins, as there will be no salvation when it comes to the price of groceries, housing and energy.

My hope is that this marks a fresh start in what could be a necessary long game to present a viable alternative to Poilievre’s Conservatives. It is possible to do it. 

Jagmeet Singh can win over the working-class by exposing the Conservative Leader's populist agenda. With its roots in class politics and its geographically diverse areas of support in northern, industrial, and prairie seats, the NDP is well-placed to be the best bet for challenging these Conservative-targeted ridings.

The Liberal Party has long positioned itself as the ‘natural governing party,’ but Canada’s establishment broke its social contract with working-class people. A revolt is happening, and it’s global. The destructive ‘burn-it-all-down’ far-right can only be combated effectively by traditional social democrats who have always offered a real alternative to the status quo.

Jen Hassum is executive director of the Broadbent Institute.