Canada’s social democratic party, the NDP, is grappling with Conservative inroads into its voter base, declining support, and internal divisions. As the party confronts the phenomenon of class dealignment, its future is an open question.
Jagmeet Singh, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party during a news conference at the House of Commons in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on February 29, 2024. (David Kawai / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Not very long ago, the Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP) was on the doorstep of power in Ottawa. However, over the past decade, their seats have dwindled from 103 to 24. If an election was held today, they could lose even more seats. It’s difficult to see how the party will be able to reverse its downward trend.
“Things need to change,” is the key message that the NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, will hammer home this summer. Singh will visit several cities and districts across the country to convince voters dissatisfied with the Liberals that his party is a credible alternative. The tour will serve as sort of preelection campaign ahead of the next federal election, which must be called before October 2025.
Election Blues
Whenever it is called, the election will very likely bring big changes to Canada. The Conservatives, headed by Pierre Poilievre, are now leading in all polls and could even win a majority. They are currently credited with nearly 42 percent of voting intentions, compared to just 24 percent for the Liberals, if the elections took place today. After nearly ten years in power, Justin Trudeau’s political viability is in question, especially following the loss of the thirty-year-old historically Liberal riding of Toronto–St. Paul’s, to the Conservatives last month. Trudeau described this as “a difficult moment” for the Liberals, but made assurances that he will remain in power, despite criticism from his party and calls for his resignation.
The NDP intends to take advantage of this moment of weakness in public opinion for Trudeau’s party. However, the challenge is immense, as they currently hold only 17 percent of voter support. Times have been tough for the party lately, with only 24 MPs out of the 338 in the Canadian Parliament.
In 2015, before the enthusiasm grew around Trudeau, the NDP was favored to win the election. However, in the 2019 federal election, the party had its worst result since 2004. Now the fourth-largest party in parliament, the NDP was on the rise thirteen years ago, with 103 elected MPs and held the position of official opposition.
Despite only receiving less than 20 percent of the votes in the 2021 snap election, the party has exerted considerable influence on the latest Trudeau government. This is because the NDP agreed to a confidence and supply deal to support the minority liberal government. According to the agreement, the NDP supports the government on key votes in the Commons to avoid triggering an election and, in return, the Liberals pass initiatives important to the NDP. In effect until June 2025, the deal ostensibly facilitates collaboration between both parties on key policy areas like health care spending, climate change, reconciliation with indigenous peoples, economic growth, and efforts to make life more affordable.
Thanks to this agreement, the NDP was able to push the Liberal government to make significant advances in Canadian health care. They introduced a new national dental care program for low-income Canadians, with an annual family income of less than CAD $90,000 a year. Detractors point out that the program’s income cap will leave 4.4 million Canadians uninsured. Undeterred by the critics, Singh hailed the program as “life-changing.”
New Democrats and Liberals are at odds over the rollout of the new federal dental plan after the government announced it will not be fully implemented until 2025, contrary to the agreement it signed with the NDP. The program has also faced criticism from provinces like Quebec, which denounce interference from Ottawa, since health care is a provincial jurisdiction.
Although not without its drawbacks, the NDP can also congratulate itself on having pushed the universal pharmacare plan. The plan lays the foundations for universal, single-payer drug insurance and will also cover contraceptives and medications for the treatment of diabetes.
During the pandemic, the NDP also wielded its influence by pushing the Liberals to be more generous in their financial aid to Canadians. This included advocating for extensions to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) in an attempt to improve a program fraught with design flaws, like its sister program, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS).
Class Dealignment
Although the agreement allowed the NDP to implement its dental and drug insurance projects, two social projects dear to the party, it still does not appear to be a viable alternative for many Canadians. By failing to differentiate itself from the Liberals, the NDP is often seen as too closely aligned with them, which could partially explain its poor polling numbers. According to an Angus Reid Institute poll, 36 percent of NDP voters said they’d be likely to switch to the Liberals.
Poilievre’s Conservative Party is also attracting traditional NDP bases, such as working-class voters and unions. Recent data from Abacus, shows that 10 percent of those who voted for the NDP in 2021 now support Poilievre’s party. The difference in party leader popularity is also stark, with working-class impressions of Poilievre being very positive at 18 percent, compared to Singh’s 7 percent.
This phenomenon of vote-switching, called class dealignment, is currently evident worldwide. While it seems new to Canada, it is already well-established in other countries. Working-class voters, historically aligned with the Left, feel abandoned and disappointed by broken promises, similar to trends in Europe and the United States. This dissatisfaction pushes them to vote for parties that do not share their class interests.
In recent months, several NDP MPs have announced that they will not run again in the next federal elections, further weakening the party. The situation is exacerbated by Naheed Nenshi, the former NDP mayor of Calgary and the new leader of the Alberta provincial NDP, who has announced his desire to distance himself from the federal NDP.
Nenshi reports that many members in Alberta want to separate themselves from Singh, who is heavily criticized for propping up the Liberal government through their confidence and supply agreement. The situation is also difficult in Quebec, where the party has only one elected MP.
The next federal elections will be decisive for the future of the party and its leader. When Singh took over as NDP leader in 2017, he had the winds of hope and change in his sails as the first federal party leader from a visible minority. He gained considerable popularity, especially among young people, through social media savvy. However, seven years later, he is now the most unpopular NDP leader since 1974, with a rating of negative 14.
Getting Back to Basics
The NDP has struggled to translate their political victories with Trudeau’s minority Liberals into increased support in the polls. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have seized the opportunity to target NDP seats in British Columbia and northern Ontario, focusing their “common sense” campaigns on cost-of-living issues. This resonates strongly with Canadians, especially after the country experienced a forty-year high in inflation in 2022, peaking at 8.1 percent.
The Conservatives blame the liberals and the NDP for the rising cost of living and, because of the supply and confidence agreement, the NDP suffers from being seen as part of the incumbent government.
In a surprising move, the NDP withdrew their support for the Trudeau carbon tax. The party, which campaigned in favor of the tax in 2019 as a measure to combat climate change, has now softened its stance. The Conservatives have criticized this shift, stating, “It is clear that Jagmeet Singh is a weak leader who is desperately trying to flee his own record.”
While elections could be called in the coming months, the NDP faces a critical decision about how to regain control of its political fortunes. Should they break the deal with the Liberals or change their leader? All options are on the table.
Only three elements remain to implement out of the twenty-four included in the agreement: the adoption of a law on long-term care, defining affordable housing as 80 percent or less of market value, and creating a permanent federal-provincial-territorial table on missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, and LGBTQ people.
We can expect Singh to be more demanding when parliamentary work resumes after the summer. He will probably try to extract other measures from his agreement with the Liberals before eventually filing for divorce. But to really make any change in the party’s success, the NDP must have a reproachment with its working-class constituents and commit to ambitious social democratic initiatives such as public housing, industrial policy, and climate change actions. The possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House in the United States and potentially bolstering the Canadian right underscores the urgency for Canada’s social democrats to get their act together.