The party atmosphere for the federal NDP only lasted about a day.
Jagmeet Singh won Burnaby South on Monday night and the NDP leader was seeing rapping and whopping it up late into the night – as he should.
Winning a seat in the House of Commons was a big deal, but that party feeling has been drained away in the past few days.
On Friday, Nathan Cullen, one of the NDP's best known and most effective MPs, announced he won't seek re-election this fall.
This follows Thursday’s announcement that Murray Rankin was not going to run for the NDP this fall either.
That makes a stunning 13 of the 44 New Democrats elected in 2015 who won't be running again.
Make no mistake, these are devastating blows to Singh’s leadership.
Sure, the MPs who are quitting all say it has nothing to do with Singh, but I’m not buying that.
The NDP is sitting at around 14 per cent support – less than half of what the Conservatives and Liberals are polling at. Fairly or not, Singh has to take responsibility for the unpopularity of the party, which is especially felt in the pocketbook as the party struggles to raise much-needed cash to wage an effective campaign.
Now, the NDP’s support in the polls could see a bump with the latest scandal the Liberals are mired in, but that bump better be significant or you’ll see more MPs jumping ship.
Cullen has been an MP since 2004 and brought a lot of experience to the party.
Singh, let’s be honest, is a rookie. Having people like Cullen and Fin Donnelly – a popular NDP vet who is also not running again – by Singh’s side would have been a big boost.
The good news is that Singh will still have Svend Robinson running next to him in Burnaby North-Seymour. Robinson is a campaign warrior who can provide solid advice. Then again, considering that Robinson is actively campaigning against Singh’s support for the LNG Canada project, that might also be a liability for Singh.
How many more NDP MPs quitting can the party take? People underestimate how time consuming it is to come up with excellent candidates. A party has to find candidates in every riding in Canada – now the NDP has to find even more to fill the spots of those who are leaving.
It’s just another giant hurdle for Singh to climb. We’ll see how he does.
- With files from the Canadian Press
