» Trump may have trampled Tories, but he obliterated NDP

Article content

HAMILTON — For the NDP, the writing has been on the wall since January.

Article content

Article content

Article content

And the news has been very bad indeed: Canada’s democratic socialist party was poised to be obliterated in the federal election.

Over the last 36 days, that’s exactly what has happened.

“Blame the orange man down south,” a longtime party member told the Toronto Sun, referring to sabre-rattling U.S. President Donald Trump. “The same thing happened to the Tories, but it’s worse for the NDP.”

In January, the party stood less than one percentage point behind the Liberals at 19.6% and a wildly unpopular prime minister Justin Trudeau, whom Singh had propped up.

The party’s vote was hovering around 4.8% late Monday night with results still trickling in.

However, a funny thing happened on the way to election day: The Liberals under Mark Carney were able to cleanse much of the Trudeau stench and the NDP was the fall guy for their political partner’s woke excesses and spendthrift ways.

Article content

Article content

But the NDP insider said the death blow was Trump’s threats, blustering and hammering Canada with a slew of brutal tariffs.

Progressive voters decided to hold their noses and vote for Carney.

“For some reason, voters thought that a central banker would have their best interests at heart,” the NDPer said. “We know who’s going to come out, OK? It’s going to be the same crowd as the last 10 years.”

In Hamilton Centre, NDP incumbent Matthew Green was one of the few expected to keep their seat and he too was behind the Liberal juggernaut as well as the Conservative candidate. Although the fate of party Leader Jagmeet Singh remained hazy with results in his Burnaby Central riding in B.C. yet to be announced.

It is doubtful the party of Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent and Jack Layton, who won a record number of seats in 2011 and formed the official Opposition, will even retain party status (12 seats).

Article content

Breakthroughs in the Maritimes and Quebec have petered out.

Green himself told Postmedia last week that the party needed some serious “soul searching.” He alluded to the party’s embrace of the faculty lounge and the necessity of winning back the working class.

“The risk of not pivoting and soul-searching would, in my estimation, be absolutely the beginning to the end of the party. We cannot continue on this path, recognizing where we’re at right now,” Green said.

He added that the NDP needs to be a “labour-centred party for the working class in order to recapture people who we’ve lost to right-wing populism or to political estrangement or the absolute despair of having to vote, hold their nose and vote Liberal one more time.”

Article content

The NDP has long been accused of abandoning its working-class roots and meat-and-potatoes issues in favour of faddish social justice causes.

In the wake of George Floyd, Gaza and a litany of other causes, the party seems to embrace the ethos of the faculty lounge over the factory floor.

“I think in the end, the NDP and the Tories were both caught in the orange squeeze,” the NDP insider said.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Play Video

But is this the end of the NDP? Not so fast, the party insider said.

After all, Audrey McLaughlin and the NDP were routed in the 1993 election, winning just nine seats, three seats short of official party status.

“This has happened before, never this bad, but it has happened. We’ll bounce back, we’re the conscience of the country and we have three provincial governments,” the longtime party member said.

As for Singh, he added: “He’s done like dinner.”

bhunter@postmedia.com

X: @HunterTOSun

Article content