Saskatchewan NDP Rejecting Jagmeet Singh Could Trigger A Federal Election

Currently, Canada’s federal parliament is held together by a tentative alliance between Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau. After the Liberals invoked the Emergencies Act on a group of peaceful protestors, Justin Trudeau found his political career on faulty footing due to some internal party pushback to the increasingly needless and draconian Covid laws. To secure his power, Trudeau and Singh entered into a Faustian bargain to get them to 2025.

“The deal” as it is sold to the public gets the NDP a dental plan and the Liberals get “stability. However, the coalition government that denies it is a coalition is really a deal that helps out its leaders to the detriment of both parties. There is a reason that the media has tried so hard to avoid calling this a coalition government because a Liberal-NDP coalition has long been a boogeyman sold to the Canadian public. The NDP needs to be able to sell that they are a legitimate and distinct Left-wing anti-establishment to the Liberals. Conversely, the Liberals need to sell to the professional class that they are not the crazy socialists that compose the NDP.

The deal in place only really benefits Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh. Trudeau is facing down an inquiry for his invocation of the Emergencies Act, and as all the lies that led to the EA are debunked, Trudeau will need the support of the NDP to continue his record of getting out of major scandals with only a slap on the wrist. For Singh, it is a lot more simple. He has always been a divisive figure within the NDP and he qualifies for his pension if he makes it to 2025.

Jagmeet Singh’s divisiveness has to do with his focus on fringe Social Justice issues over traditional workers’ rights issues of the pre-Jagmeet NDP. The NDP has always relied on the working class the men and women on the assembly line. Rhetoric about healthcare and workers’ rights goes well with them. The ‘Canada is racist, ‘white people are inherently evil and we need to raise taxes to fund the scientific expedition to discover new and newer genders,’ not so much. 

This brings us to the Saskatchewan NDP deciding that Jagmeet Singh, despite being the federal NDP leader, is just so toxic within Saskatchewan that they don’t want him around. They also probably remember quite distinctly that Singh did not lift a finger for them during the last provincial election where they got absolutely clobbered.

This could be the first domino to fall which could trigger a set of circumstances that lead to an early federal election. 

The calculus here is simple. The coalition or deal is held together by the two leaders, Trudeau and Singh, against the will of a significant portion of their caucuses. If Jagmeet Singh falls or is put in a position where he must appease the NDP MPs instead of Trudeau the coalition will break and an election will follow.

It is one thing to have rumours of discontent swirling around Ottawa, it is another thing when those rumours finally manifest into the real world. This event is one province outright saying that they must distance themselves from Jagmeet Singh, it is likely with Alberta politics heating up that Rachel Notley will be forced to do the same as Federal NDP politics are not in line with Alberta politics. 

Shockingly the old guard NDP around the country does not want the socialist with the Rolex showing up to campaign events to make them appear more out-of-touch than they already are.

In order for Jagmeet Singh to save face, he will have to score some political victories sooner rather than later. However, due to the deal, he has lead his party into tightly wedging itself between a rock and a hard place.