Upcoming federal byelections will put Singh and the NDP brand to the test
NDP looking to both hold a Winnipeg seat and pull another away from the Liberals in Montreal
While an upcoming byelection in Montreal is being viewed as a test of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's leadership, the same could be said for NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh — whose party is trying to hang on to one seat while fighting to take another away from the Liberals.
The NDP is holding a caucus meeting in Montreal on Tuesday. New Democrats likely will use the opportunity to discuss plans for the upcoming parliamentary session in the wake of the party's move to pull out of its confidence-and-supply agreement with the Liberals last week.
The NDP pulled the plug on its pact with the Liberals just over a week ahead of two byelections in Winnipeg and Montreal.
The Winnipeg riding of Elmwood–Transcona is considered an NDP stronghold. The party has won 10 of the 11 general election votes in the riding since 1988.
Former NDP MP Françoise Boivin said that if the party can't hold Elmwood–Transcona, it might trigger questions about whether Singh waited too long to end the pact with the Liberals.
"It would be devastating, in my book. If they lose this [riding] it's going to be a hard, hard hit and very hard for Jagmeet to assert his leadership," Boivin told CBC News.
The Conservatives are making a strong push to take the riding away from the NDP. Part of their strategy has been to tie Singh to the fading popularity of the Trudeau Liberals.
Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds has erected signs around the riding featuring photos of Singh and Trudeau together and dismissing the NDP leader as "sellout Singh" — a reference to the NDP's previous arrangement with the federal Liberals.
The NDP lacks an incumbent candidate in the riding; Daniel Blaikie resigned his seat earlier this year to work with the provincial NDP government. Blaikie had held the seat since 2015 and his father Bill Blaikie was the MP for the riding from 1988 to 2008.
In fact, only two people not named Blaikie have held the seat over the past two-and-half decades: New Democrat Jim Maloway from 2008 to 2011 and Conservative Lawrence Toet from 2011 to 2015.
Andrew Thomson, a former federal NDP candidate who once served as Saskatchewan's finance minister, said the lack of a Blaikie on the ballot may turn the byelection into a test of Singh's leadership.
"It's more of an open seat, but it's also a seat that the NDP needs to prove that they can not only hold but can win," Thomson told CBC News.
"That is, I think, the test of leadership here, is that it's beyond Blaikie now. It is about the NDP brand and partly about Singh's leadership."
The Winnipeg byelection is being held on the same day as the byelection in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun.
The NDP is aiming to take the Montreal seat away from the Liberals. On Friday, just days after he announced the death of the confidence-and-supply deal with the government, Singh was campaigning in the riding with local NDP candidate Craig Sauvé.
The communities that make up this seat have been represented by Liberals — including former prime minister Paul Martin — for most of the past century. Two notable exceptions were the period in the 1980s when Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives dominated, and a brief interlude after the Orange Wave swept a number of Quebec NDP candidates into office in 2011.
While some polling suggests LaSalle–Émard–Verdun could be a three-way race between the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois, the NDP has failed to recreate its 2011 momentum in Quebec. The federal NDP has only ever held one Quebec seat since Singh became leader.
Eric Grenier, a polls analyst with TheWrit.ca, said that if the NDP wins the Montreal seat, Sauvé might get more credit than Singh.
"They have a candidate who has some local profile and if there is going to be an anti-Liberal, anti-Trudeau movement, it could go to the NDP," he said.
"[The riding] has a profile that is a little bit more friendly to the NDP than other parts of Montreal. So they do have an opportunity there. But if they do win the riding… a lot of the credit will go to their local candidate because the party is not doing particularly well in Quebec."
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Boivin — who was herself elected in the NDP's 2011 breakthrough in Quebec — agreed that if the NDP wins in Montreal, it'll have more to do with Sauvé than Singh. But she said the "cards are put in place" for the NDP to do well.
"I'm sure if they finish third it's going to be a big disappointment because they have to be very close to the winner or win it themselves to feel that it bodes well for a general election," she said.
Singh told reporters in Toronto last week that he'll stay on as leader even if his party loses both byelections.
"I will be leading the party into the next election," he said.
Thomson said he thinks party members will cut Singh some slack if the party loses both races, given that the agreement with the Liberals just ended.
"The change in the supply and confidence agreement, I think, is trying to reposition the NDP. We'll see whether that's successful and I expect that the party will give him sufficient runway to move in that direction," he said.
Voters will head to the polls in both ridings on Monday.
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With files from Bartley Kives and Raffy Boudjikanian