I haven't written on this blog for over 2 years. My last post, written in September 2017, was titled, How Jagmeet Singh can become Prime Minister.
And as we can see today, Jagmeet is nowhere close to that happening. Becoming Prime Minister, however, should remain his goal and it's still not entirely outside the realm of possibility. The Liberal Party ended the 2011 election with 34 seats but ended the next election with 184, a stunning turnaround, similar to the type of turnaround Jagmeet would need to bring his party into contention in time for the next election or even the election after that.
I'm not a political strategist and I've never even been involved in political circles so you can take what I say with a grain of salt. I do, however, follow the news closely. And I am certainly passionate about seeing Jagmeet do well. So even with my lack of experience and expertise, I still feel compelled to share my thoughts on how I think Jagmeet can bounce back from this result. First off, I wanted to focus on some positives. Jagmeet did a great job during the campaign period. He had great energy every single day. His social media presence was very strong. His debate performances were great. His overall "air campaign" was amazing. However, there were many areas in which I think Jagmeet can improve on for next time especially when it comes to preparation. Jagmeet needs to have that same energy and purpose that he showed in the last 2 months but more consistently over the next (potentially) 4 years in order to maximize his party's results in the next election.
So here are some thoughts on how I think Jagmeet can do better next time, in no particular order:
1) Jagmeet needs to target those voters that actually show up: Several polls showed the NDP leading among 18-34 year olds and those were the voters that propelled Jagmeet's rise in the polls during the second half of the campaign. But as is typically the case, younger voters do not show up in the same numbers as older voters. Typically, it's seniors that show up the most. What did Jagmeet offer to seniors? Not enough. While Jagmeet was often in first place with younger voters, he was way back among older voters. There was a question in the French debate asking about policies for seniors. Jagmeet mentioned some of his main campaign promises such as pharmacare (a great policy and especially beneficial to seniors that lack drug coverage) but nothing overly specific to seniors. It's unfortunate because Jagmeet actually had a sound seniors policy from his leadership campaign about boosting seniors benefits to ensure that no senior in Canada lives in poverty. It was essentially a basic income for seniors. It didn't make it into the NDP's election platform but it should have. It would have appealed to seniors or those on the verge of retirement. It would have appealed to the children of seniors who worry about whether their parents will have enough resources to make ends meet. It would have also appealed to those Canadians interested in seeing a basic income program being implemented for at least Canada's seniors, with maybe the hope that this basic income could be expanded in later years to all working age Canadians (something that might be necessary in the future). Combined with a universal pharmacare program, this pitch to seniors would have been compelling and yet I never heard Jagmeet make this specific pitch to seniors, the most reliable voting bloc in Canada. The youth vote is important but it's only one demographic among several and it can't be overly focused on at the expense of older voters. Liberals and Conservatives micro-target specific constituencies with a certain degree of efficiency, especially those voters that have a higher propensity to show up. The NDP has to be similarly effective in the types of voters that they target.
2) Appealing to moderates: Many people I know refused to vote for Jagmeet because they found his policies to be too far left. The thing is, Jagmeet has to be strongly left-wing. In 2015, the Liberals were seen to be outflanking the NDP on the left wing of Canadian politics and since then Justin Trudeau has tried to take up a lot of the oxygen on the left side of the spectrum. Jagmeet should continue espousing new social programs (pharmacare, dentalcare, childcare) and should also continue to espouse higher taxes on the rich to pay for those new social programs. However, Jagmeet should seek to make some strategic shifts in other policy areas. Free trade is one of those areas. Jagmeet had the gall to criticize Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum and urge Trudeau to fight them while maintaining his overall anti-free trade stance. Free trade is good for Canada, empirically speaking and yet Jagmeet never seems willing to speak in favour of a single trade liberalization agreement in existence because he's seemingly afraid it would offend dated NDP dogma. In summary, Jagmeet needs to maintain his overall strongly left stance while also having something to offer moderates who want something to hang their hats on especially something that demonstrates moderation on the economy. I feel that many moderates wanted to vote for Jagmeet this time around but needed an excuse to do so which wasn't really on offer. Which brings me to my next point...
3) Asserting his leadership in shaping the NDP: He's the leader but it doesn't always feel that way. Jagmeet was the only leader yesterday who discussed consulting with his caucus on how to move forward in the next Parliament. Leadership by committee (caucus) is ineffective leadership. Leadership is exercised by an individual, namely the duly elected leader of the party. The leader charts the direction of the party. Consulting with and maintaining positive relationships with caucus members is important but being overly deferential to them is a bad idea, in our system of politics. It often feels like Jagmeet fears his caucus, perhaps because he's a minority and suffers from impostor syndrome as minorities and women in power sometimes do. Fear the caucus and they will cause you problems. Lead and they will get in line. When it comes to policy, Jagmeet fights for typical NDP orthodoxy, never once seeming to have the inkling to chart the NDP into even a slightly different direction than what's come in the past. Policy wise, what is Jagmeet's stamp on the NDP? A basic income plan? No, he abandoned his basic income plan for seniors. Pharmacare, dentalcare and childcare? No, they've been in NDP platforms before as well. Moderation on trade or other issues? No hint of it. Jagmeet needs to make the NDP his party. This doesn't necessitate a huge break from the NDP's past but it does require some kind of evolution that would make the NDP more appealing to more Canadians (again, without sacrificing the overall strongly left stance which is the party's hallmark).
4) Stronger outreach to non-white Canadians. Visible minorities, along with Indigenous Canadians, make up around a quarter of voters and that number will continue to increase. As Canada's first non-white leader, Jagmeet has a unique opportunity to connect with these voters. If Jagmeet got majority government type numbers (40%) specifically with this group, that would gain him 10% of the vote, before even touching any white voters. I haven't looked at any polling data by race or ethnicity but it doesn't feel like Jagmeet performed as strongly as he needed to among non-white voters. I'd be surprised if he did that much better if at all among non-whites as he did with white voters. Jason Kenney, the current Premier of Alberta, was responsible for ethnic outreach for the Conservatives during the Harper years. He was pretty good at it. He attended thousands of events in ethnic communities, building important ties for the Conservatives that helped deliver them their majority government victory in 2011. Who's doing this for Jagmeet Singh? The leader cannot have the specific task of outreach in all of these communities. The leader needs to deputize someone to carry out and supervise this outreach and deputize many others to do outreach exclusively in specific communities, eg among Filipinos, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Chinese, Koreans, Black Canadians and the list goes on. The NDP, as a social justice based party, is uniquely positioned to listen to all of these communities, especially their experiences with discrimination as well as their concerns about oppression and state violence in some of their native countries. On a policy perspective, it was also disappointing not to see anything of substance from the NDP on immigration. A policy on making it easier to sponsor parents or even siblings for permanent residence would have been very appealing in many immigrant communities. It is something that should be considered for next time. It will take lots of outreach but as a non-white leader, there's no reason Jagmeet can't win the non-white vote in the next election which would likely propel him to over 20% of the national popular vote (assuming half of his vote is coming from non-whites (10/25%) and half from whites (10+/75%)).
5) Better and Faster Candidate Recruitment: This is something Jagmeet's team probably already knows but it didn't feel like the NDP's slate of candidates this election was the best it could possibly be. I want to contrast this with Justin Trudeau's efforts at candidate recruitment in 2015. They were in a distant third place and yet Trudeau was able to recruit some exceptional candidates that very much contributed to their meteoric rise that year. I understand that the terrorism kerfuffle (collectively racist act by the Canadian media) at the beginning of Jagmeet's leadership followed by Jagmeet's marriage and then his by-election campaign might have made it hard to focus totally on preparations for the campaign including candidate recruitment. But this time, there's no excuses. There must be a very strong field of candidates in the next election especially in the 40-50 or so seats that the NDP does not currently hold in which it has a history of electing candidates in the past. Those ridings should be specifically identified. There's about 8 of them in BC, 1 of them in Alberta, 3-4 of them in Saskatchewan, 1-2 of them in Manitoba, about 25 in Ontario and maybe another 3-4 in Atlantic Canada. While the NDP won around 60 seats in Quebec in 2011, I would focus on just 5-10 ridings for the next election where a left-wing option would be especially appealing. Finding 40-50 terrific candidates is very doable. It requires persistence and it requires convincing people to run who would otherwise not be inclined to do so. Many of these candidates will need to be personally convinced by Jagmeet sometimes over multiple meetings. Candidate recruitment should start sooner rather than later, especially in a minority parliament. The NDP is always the latest in nominating candidates as compared to the Liberals and Conservatives. This gives NDP candidates less time for campaigning and building important links in the community. The NDP should begin the process of targeting strong candidates in every riding in which they got at least 20% of the vote this election and should also target having active and functioning EDAs (electoral district associations) in more ridings. The NDP needs to better build its grassroots organization to identify voters and create the conditions for winning a growing number of seats.
6) Fundraising: As has been well-documented by the media, the NDP has been lagging considerably in fundraising for the past 4 years. This election, while not meeting expectations in terms of popular vote and seat count, still allowed many thousands of Canadians to become passionate about Jagmeet Singh. This passion needs to be channeled into fundraising. The NDP needs to find a way to double their fundraising from $5M a year to $10M a year. The Sikh community can be utilized for fundraising, even members of the community who otherwise vote Liberal come election time. Small dollar donors need to be better channeled by the NDP on social media into donating. I see Democratic Candidates in the US regularly ask for donations on Twitter. I don't see Jagmeet doing the same. He needs to start doing so. The NDP should also use their presence in the minority parliament to try and bring back the "per vote subsidy". A per vote yearly subsidy of $1.50 would bring over $4M into the NDP's bank account every single year which would likely wipe out their debt and instantly make them more financially competitive.
7) Re-think your approach in Quebec, especially Bill 21. As is probably now obvious in hindsight, the NDP's strategy on Bill 21 was a mistake, not just morally but also politically. It did nothing to win seats in Quebec. The party ended with 10.7% of the vote and 1 seat. Polls show 35% of Quebecers disapprove of Bill 21. Being the only party with a strong anti Bill 21 stance would have almost certainly resulted in winning more than 10.7% of the vote in Quebec, regardless of what Jagmeet's Quebec caucus might have unwisely told him before the election. Opposing Bill 21 would have helped in Quebec and it would have helped in the rest of Canada as well, especially among visible minorities. Jagmeet needs to find a way to outflank the Liberals on Bill 21 which would likely involve explicitly admitting that his prior stance was wrong and that it was a letdown to many people. He needs to commit to a stance that the federal government will use every tool in its toolkit to fight the law as it would do so any time that a provincial government uses the notwithstanding clause to trample human rights. A left-wing provincial party, Quebec Solidaire, vehemently opposes Bill 21. They have 10 seats in the Quebec National Assembly. The NDP should build stronger ties with them. The NDP will not suddenly shoot up to 30 or 40% in Quebec in the next election. Steady and slow growth and coalition-building with left-wing Quebecers is the only approach available right now. A 15% showing in Quebec in the next election could increase the NDP's Quebec caucus from 1 to 5 or more. The NDP needs to focus in on Quebec-specific issues. I remember Stephen Harper campaigning about keeping an airport open in Quebec when he was Opposition Leader. Jagmeet should go to Quebec often and champion local issues in those 5-10 ridings that could potentially swing back to the NDP next time under more favourable conditions. As he's done in the past, he needs to continually define himself as the only true progressive option for left-wing Quebecers (of which there are many).
Everything Jagmeet does from now until 2023 (when I expect the next election to be) has to be about doubling (or better) the size of his caucus. With the right preparation combined with Jagmeet's ability as an excellent campaigner, he would certainly put himself in a better position to accomplish that next time.
