In the wake of the English language debate, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is suddenly getting more of the kind of attention I thought he’d get from the media after he became party leader. Back in January, while he was campaigning for a seat in Parliament in a BC byelection, I wrote:
When Jagmeet Singh was elected NDP leader, I really did think he’d be a significant challenge to Justin Trudeau due to the media’s apparent fascination with Singh (a love affair that appeared to be as deep and lasting as that of Justin’s teeny-bopper [media] fan club for their darling), but it faded very quickly indeed. I guess as far as the Canadian media is concerned, there can only be one …
Now it appears that the Liberal Party backroom braintrust has suddenly woken up to the threat that Singh and the NDP are going to retain and even increase their support among left-leaning voters the Liberals had been taking for granted:
An even bigger risk for Trudeau is if lots of so-called low-information voters — who make their decisions late in a campaign — decide to cast a ballot for the charming Singh’s New Democrats.
But the biggest risk of all to the Liberals and Conservatives is if lots and lots of citizens give the finger to both parties and decide to vote NDP or Green to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo.
It looks like a long shot now with the economy humming along and a low unemployment rate.
But the same circumstances existed in B.C. in 2017. And plenty of voters decided that these were the right conditions for bringing the NDP back to power.
Nobody is expecting that Jagmeet Singh will be prime minister after the October 21 election.
But if he captures far more seats than the CBC poll tracker is projecting, it will be because of his genial nature and his ability to speak like a human being.
Surely, the Liberals realize that. The class differences between Trudeau and Singh are profound — and there are far fewer voters in Trudeau’s realm than Singh’s.
