NDP focused on broken Liberal promises

In his second federal campaign as Leader, Singh touted a message of positive change, while also directing sharp attacks toward Trudeau

Jagmeet Singh visited 51 ridings across the country over the course of the 36-day federal election campaign – his second as NDP Leader – with a clear focus on picking up new seats and chipping away at the Liberal Party’s base of support.

Speaking briefly to the media in the B.C. riding of Burnaby North-Seymour on Monday before polls closed, Mr. Singh said he was proud of the campaign and his team. “We’re feeling really good,” he said. “I’m feeling excited but a little bit nervous because I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen.

“We’ve shown Canadians a choice, and now that choice is in the hands of voters,” Mr. Singh said.

Early results would have been disappointing for the NDP, as the party appeared to have been shut out in Atlantic Canada. The party had won the Newfoundland and Labrador riding of St. John’s East in 2019, but retiring MP Jack Harris opted not to seek re-election.

Mr. Singh campaigned nationally on a message of positive change and fighting for Canadians, while also directing sharp attacks toward Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.

On major issues such as child care, housing and climate policy, Mr. Singh consistently stated that while the Liberals “say nice things” and are making similar promises to the NDP, Mr. Trudeau’s six years in power show he can’t be trusted to deliver.

The added experience of having one national campaign as Leader under his belt showed in terms of appearing more comfortable in the national spotlight. Though Mr. Singh won the party leadership in 2017, the former Ontario MPP didn’t have a seat in the federal Parliament until February, 2019, when he won a byelection in the B.C. riding of Burnaby South. Just a few months later, he was representing the party in the fall election of 2019.

Since then, the NDP has focused on fundraising and paying down debts, which allowed the party to enter this campaign with extra money to spend. The party’s paid advertising has been more visible this time around. The colourful ads contrasted pointed critiques of Mr. Trudeau with positive images of Mr. Singh, and the party rarely focused its attention on the Conservatives.

The NDP dropped to 24 seats in the 2019 election, placing fourth behind the Bloc Québécois’ 32 seats, the Conservatives’ 121 seats and the Liberals’ 157 seats. The Green Party won three seats in 2019, and one independent was elected – former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, who did not run for reelection in this campaign. Ms. Wilson-Raybould has made positive comments online about Anjali Appadurai, the NDP candidate in her former riding of Vancouver Granville.

The party campaigned heavily to win more seats in B.C., where riding results come in much later than the rest of the country.

Mr. Singh was scheduled to speak at 1:30 a.m. EST on Tuesday morning from his election night headquarters in Vancouver.

One clear strategy for Mr. Singh in this campaign – and throughout his leadership of the party – has been a concerted effort to win over younger voters on social-media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. At his campaign rallies, he encouraged supporters to jump and dance along to his upbeat campaign song, and join him in the refrain he repeats at each stop: “When we lift each other up, we all rise.”

Young voters are a key demographic for the party, but since they’re less likely to show up to the polls, the NDP has made efforts to share messages of voter empowerment and educational resources on how to vote. Many of the ridings that the NDP hope to turn orange will hinge on whether they can get people to come out to the polls, which was made more difficult by the cancellation of Elections Canada voting on campuses because of complications related to a snap election during a pandemic.

Throughout his campaign, Mr. Singh stuck to his message of taxing the wealthy in order to pay for the party’s proposed programs. At his final campaign press conference on Sunday, Mr. Singh said the NDP’s proposed wealth tax is the key issue for him in supporting a minority government.

Those simple, consistent pitches to voters were a strength of the campaign, according to NDP strategist Sally Housser. “The NDP has been really, really good at staying on message,” she said, “and that is often a large part of the battle.”

She also said she thinks that the typical Liberal tactic of scaring people into strategic voting hasn’t resonated the same way this election.

“The NDP has been able to counter it quite well this time,” Ms. Housser said, citing Mr. Singh’s emphasis on where he sees the Liberal record falling short.

Ms. Housser also emphasized the party’s offensive strategy in the final stretch of the campaign, visiting ridings that the New Democrats have the potential to flip orange. The previous ridings the party held need to be seen as safe, she said, for Mr. Singh to not have spent time in those areas and instead target new seats.

In the last weekend of the campaign, the party visited Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton and Cranbrook, B.C., all locations where the New Democrats were trying to pick up seats. They also added a stop in Halifax at the last minute, and then spent Sunday campaigning in Vancouver’s Lower Mainland, targeting Liberaland Conservative-held ridings.

In 2019, the NDP won just a single seat in Alberta and none in Saskatchewan. The party’s late-campaign effort on the Prairies shows they think they have a shot at changing that.

Mr. Singh inherited a party that had fallen considerably from its 2011 peak, when the “orange wave” election under party leader Jack Layton saw the NDP win a record 103 seats. That result was driven by dramatic gains for the party in Quebec, where it won 59 seats. Mr. Layton died later that year and his successor, Tom Mulcair, was unable to maintain the party’s popularity in Quebec or nationally in 2015, when the NDP was reduced to 44 seats, including 16 in Quebec. By 2019, the NDP was down to just one seat in Quebec.