Is Jagmeet Singh a poor fit, or is politics a shabby job?

CHELSEA, QUE.—Try though he may, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been unable to elbow his way to the centre of the national political stage in his six years as party leader. If that doesn’t change soon, he risks being eclipsed altogether. This summer, especially, the federal New Democratic Party leader resembles a ringside observer, as two veteran pugilists—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and, of course, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre—slam, block, knife, and occasionally pummel one another at every available microphone. Meanwhile, Singh—interestingly, the only leader who is actually adept at martial arts, in his case jiu jitsu—trails along behind, drawing smaller crowds, less media interest, and delivering his pre-baked lines less vigorously than his rivals, but with seemingly infinite patience (which can sometimes look like detachment). In any other world, this could be a good thing. Singh is, by nature, mild-mannered, even gentle. He never stoops to personal attacks, he doesn’t trade in conspiracy theories, and his policy critiques are not based on shameless distortions of the truth, as with you-know-who. He also has a fascinating back story, compellingly told in his unusually intimate political memoir, Love and Courage: My Story of Family, Resilience and Overcoming the Unexpected. Singh recounts his efforts to rescue his family as his father, a doctor, spiralled into alcoholism and the Singhs faced financial ruin. He worked in a shoe store to pay for his education, helped support his younger brother and sister, and eventually graduated with degrees in biology at the University of Western Ontario and law at Osgoode Hall. He also survived sexual abuse at the hands of a martial arts instructor when he was a boy. His parents immigrated to Canada from Punjab and he grew up in St. John’s and Grand Falls-Windsor, N.L., Windsor, Ont., and later lived in the Toronto area. He now represents a riding in Burnaby, B.C. In short, he has as much right to identify with the “common people” as Poilievre, and faced the additional challenge of being the first turbaned Sikh MPP in the Ontario legislature, and the first to lead a national political party. But even when confronted by hecklers, including racist ones, he tends to react with calm, even empathy, rather than anger. Earlier this month in St. John’s, for instance, someone drove close to a press conference Singh was giving, and shouted homophobic insults. “If you’re homophobic, you know, keep it to yourself,” Singh replied. The man then called him a “piece of shit,” and continued to drive on. “You’re driving away…I’m right here. We can have a conversation if you like,” Singh called. Then, without interruption, he resumed his press conference. It is very much his way, and he has demonstrated the same poise and kindness, for want of a better word, throughout his career in both federal and Ontario politics. He told reporters later that the heckler may be dealing with something in his own life that is making him lash out, an observation also offered by Trudeau more recently about particularly extreme protests. Trudeau was a little late to the insight, however, having stepped into a hornet’s nest last winter by disparaging the convoy crowd as a “fringe element" peddling hate and anger. It raises the question: is Singh failing to register because he isn’t a so-called "alpha male"—even less so than Trudeau, whose manliness is constantly questioned by angry, deluded armies of the far right? If that is so, then let’s stop all the pious laments about how coarse and circus-like national politics has become and admit that it takes a good slug-fest to get voters’ attention. But Singh’s problem may run deeper than his lack of killer instinct. It could be his inability (so far) to muster real passion, and offer tangible remedies—or even memorable slogans—for immediate problems facing the country: climate change, the shortage of affordable housing, and inexcusably high food prices. Arguably, these problems are biting the NDP’s traditional constituencies especially hard. He does have those issues on constant rotation as he travels the country this summer. He empathizes, he describes the dilemma facing so many families, he reminisces about buying a $350,000 home in Mississauga as a young lawyer making $70,000 a year. Then he advances ideas already embraced—if not yet enacted—by the Liberals, along with some others imported from Europe, to increase the supply of rental housing, in particular. If none stick in the mind, it is partly because fixing the housing shortage will require many players and much co-operation, and no one—not even Poilievre—has much in the way of simple, immediate remedies. But Singh is further handicapped because everyone knows he will not be prime minister and won’t have a chance to implement his ideas. Even as junior partner in the current non-aggression pact with the Liberals, his gains have been slight, and tenuous, apart from federal support for child dental care for low-income families. Unfortunately for him, his one housing proposal that did capture attention—a federal subsidy to help homeowners cover suddenly increasing mortgage costs—earned universal disapproval. Why, critics on the left asked, require taxpayers to help people who already own homes and have seen property values skyrocket? Why, said critics on the right, should government be bailing out homeowners who made unwise, unaffordable investments? But it is on climate change that Singh is most absent. It's an issue with a wide-open runway, given the Liberals’ timorous approach and Poilievre’s refusal to address an issue currently consuming so much forest, and so many homes. Singh has long been reluctant to call for an immediate freeze on expansion in the oil patch, never mind an expedited ban on all fossil fuel production. Instead, he chides the Liberals for not moving fast enough, but remains vague about what his party would do differently. If he is seized of the issue at all, he doesn’t show it, and is unlikely to before the next election, given a newly announced campaign to win NDP federal seats in urban Alberta. Singh would like to replicate the provincial party’s success in that province, but he is no Rachel Notley. As for environmental policy, even Notley, despite her widespread popularity, is loath to tackle the province’s most powerful industry head-on. So Singh focuses on mitigation and adaptation to climate change rather than addressing the root cause. He published a column in the National Observer last week calling for more federal support for front-line firefighters, for rural and northern communities in the path of destructive blazes, and for mental health counselling for those traumatized. All reasonable ideas, but missing the elephant by a wide mark. Being the federal NDP leader is never easy. The party is often caught in a squeeze between Liberals and Conservatives. Even Jack Layton, the most successful leader in modern NDP history, walked a careful line between his green, urban Ontario and Quebec supporters, and blue-collar unionized oil workers out West. A simplification, true, but still salient. Singh doesn’t seem to be winning either contingent, and that is not good for him, and not good for a country that needs an energetic and engaged progressive voice at the heart of our politics. Now more than ever. Susan Riley is a veteran political columnist who writes regularly for The Hill Times. The Hill Times

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Is Jagmeet Singh a poor fit, or is politics a shabby job?

The federal NDP leader resembles a ringside observer as two veteran pugilists pummel one another at every available microphone.

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