Jagmeet Singh has a problem: ‘If the NDP are supporting the Liberals, I can’t support the NDP’

The man, who preferred only to be identified by his first name, Craig, spoke to Singh and the NDP’s candidate in the area about his lifelong ties to the New Democrats. His son, meanwhile, asked Singh the most-asked question that came up on doorsteps: what could the NDP leader do for people fed up with trying to find a place to live?

“I hear you, OK?” Singh said. “Housing. We’re working on it.” 

The foursome enthusiastically snapped a photo before parting ways in the biting cold.

But as Singh turned the corner and walked out of sight, Craig had a confession to make.

“Unfortunately, I just think the country, in the state it’s in right now, means I can’t support the Liberals,” he told the Star.

“And if the NDP are supporting the Liberals, I can’t support the NDP either.”

In many ways, Craig, a local tradesman who has long admired the NDP’s championing of the working class, is exactly the sort of voter the New Democrats were hoping to encounter when they chose to hold their winter caucus gathering in Edmonton this week. Growing up in Ontario, Craig’s family would sometimes host notable New Democrats, like former MP Svend Robinson, when they passed through town. When it was time for him to cast his first ballot, his vote went to them.

In a province like Alberta, though, any connection to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a curse. After the NDP struck a governing deal with him, Craig’s faith faltered. And while he hasn’t written Singh off completely, he’s willing to turn to Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives to ease the country’s burdens. 

The question of how to position the NDP in such a political landscape arose at this week’s retreat, where Singh and party insiders hashed out their political priorities before Parliament’s return.

“We know people need us because our job has always been to make Ottawa work for people,” Singh said at the gathering’s close.

“We have shown that we can use our power to get people help.”

When MPs and the party’s top brass weren’t stuck behind closed doors, they were trekking across Edmonton to chat with prospective voters and meet with housing experts, union groups, health-care workers and First Nations leaders. It’s part of the NDP’s nationwide strategy to boost its seat count by planting itself as the only answer to the much-maligned Liberals and increasingly popular Conservatives.

In Edmonton — where the Liberals hold one seat, the NDP two, and the Conservatives six — the New Democrats see a perfect opening. 

“I think there’s a lot that’s unique about Alberta, and Edmonton in particular, right now,” said Anne McGrath, who recently stepped into the new role of Singh’s principal secretary.

McGrath, previously the party’s national director, moved into the position so she could play a larger role in advising Singh and overseeing the party’s governing agreement with the minority Liberals. The supply-and-confidence agreement, as it’s known, could see the NDP prop up Trudeau’s government until mid-2025 in exchange for action on progressive policies, such as national dental care and pharmacare programs. 

Serving as principal secretary is also a job title she held when she worked with Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley, when Notley ended more than four decades of Progressive Conservative rule in 2015 by becoming the first New Democratic premier of the province.

“I do think it’s very significant that every single seat in Edmonton, with no exception, is an NDP seat provincially,” McGrath said of the Alberta NDP’s 2023 showing, which failed to return Notley to power but saw her party take in its highest-ever share of the vote. 

Indeed, Notley’s successes in Edmonton have Singh’s NDP casting an optimistic eye to a city that historically tends to veer blue in federal races.

“We’re seeing the momentum change and we’re seeing the opportunity to build in Edmonton,” said Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather McPherson. 

“Even in the last election, the number of people who chose to vote for New Democrats maybe only went to two seats, but the number of people — the percentage of that vote — just increased.”

Edmonton Griesbach’s Blake Desjarlais, the province’s other NDP MP, succeeded in wresting the riding from the Conservatives in 2021. He credits the Alberta NDP both with sparking his interest in politics and with building the networks he needed to win. 

Part of that network included Notley, who campaigned with Desjarlais door to door.

McGrath said she’s “positive” Notley will similarly help NDP candidates during the next federal election, though Notley, who announced last week she intends to end her historic reign as Alberta NDP leader, said Wednesday she hadn’t given much thought as to how she might get involved. 

Despite her influence in Alberta’s New Democratic circles, her impending exit likely won’t affect the NDP’s fortunes in a province that has a less than favourable view of the federal party, said Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Calgary’s Mount Royal University.

Notley — who is adamant she will not join the federal fold — has had frosty relations with the federal party at times over differing positions on climate and energy policies. During the province’s election campaign last year, Premier Danielle Smith revelled in falsely painting Notley as a leader controlled by Trudeau and Singh in an attempt to discredit her chief rival. And in late 2023, a former Alberta NDP cabinet minister launched a call for the provincial party to change its name, arguing that too many people believe — albeit incorrectly — that Singh has high levels of influence over Notley. 

Those tensions are reflected in the numbers, said Abacus Data CEO David Coletto.

“Provincewide, 28 per cent of Albertans have a positive view of Jagmeet Singh. Forty-six per cent have a negative view. His negatives are higher than in any other region or province, and his positives are lower,” said Coletto, who drew his findings from online surveys conducted from Oct. 23, 2023 to Jan. 9, 2024 with a representative sample of 990 Albertan adults. (A comparable margin of error of a random survey with a sample of that size would be 3.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.)

“If you look at that and you’re holding your caucus retreat in Alberta, it’s the place where he’s the least popular right now.”

Sometimes, that’s not immediately obvious. 

In Edmonton Centre, a Liberal riding that has previously gone to the Conservatives but never the NDP, Singh was approached in the streets by locals eager to congratulate him on the birth of his second daughter, and he drew more than a hundred supporters to a passionate community centre town hall. 

The New Democrats have high hopes that their next candidate, former Edmonton Public School Board chair Trisha Estabrooks, will turn that energy into an electoral gain.

In exclusive seat projection data shared with the Star, Abacus’s modelling shows that if an election were held now, the New Democrats would hold onto McPherson’s seat in Edmonton Strathcona, return Edmonton Griesbach to the Conservatives, and put up a competitive fight in Edmonton Centre — but ultimately lose it to Poilievre.

(The projections, which came from data collected from October to December 2023, are based on modelling using Abacus Data’s multi-level regression and poststratification (MRP) methodology.)

“I’m not sure how the NDP’s policies are any different than the Liberals because they are operating in an agreement as a coalition,” said James Cumming, a Conservative who has faced off against the Liberal’s Randy Boissonnault in Edmonton Centre three times, won once, and is seeking the nomination again.

Those aren’t just Conservative talking points. 

Estabrooks said she hears much of the same from potential voters, prompting her to refer to the Liberal-NDP deal as “an uncomfortable alliance” when she knocks on doors.

“I say, give it time. Look at the gains that the NDP have made because of this agreement … it’s not going to last forever,” Estabrooks told the Star, though the NDP has not yet decided whether it will renew the agreement should Trudeau form another minority government.

“I find it uncomfortable because there’s so much that I disagree with with the current direction of the Liberal government. And, in politics, sometimes the nuances are lost and I hear that on the doorstep sometimes: ‘Oh, you’ve hitched your wagon to the Liberals.’ There’s great disdain for that,” Estabrooks said.

Many in the party say they just need more time for programs launched under the deal to expand — like dental care — and for other policy proposals, like a pharmacare framework, to materialize.

“I believe that as some of the benefits start to be more and more apparent, that there will be more understanding of the fact that you can extract things from a Liberal government without being tied to that Liberal government,” McGrath said of the NDP’s central challenge.

“You know, that’s not the easiest thing to communicate.”

But if the NDP wants to appeal to voters like Craig, the local tradesman who is exhausted by Trudeau’s leadership and just wishes his son could afford a place to rent, they’re going to have to convey that message as powerfully as they can.

“I know it’s hard for the NDP to have a voice in Parliament … they need to make a way of getting their voice heard,” he said.

“But at the same time, I just don’t agree with it.”