Thoughts on Canada's Unprecedented Election

"Trump is the first American president to lose a Canadian election."
– online post, the morning after

I've been through many elections, and nobody outside Canada ever seemed to notice.

This one was different.

When Prime Minister Carney called a snap election amidst the rising threats posed by the Trump administration, the world held its breath.

For the last month, I have been flooded with messages from across the United States, Europe and Australia — pleading with Canada to get this right.

British historian Timothy Garton Ash wrote in The Guardian that the Canadian voters could be a "strong mounted brigade" to lead the world against the rise of authoritarianism and fascism.

So, how do we make sense of what went down?

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First things first: Trump lost.

Canadians saw chaos and cruelty south of the border and chose a different path. The Maple MAGA threat — so confident only a few months ago, arrogantly measuring the drapes — was met and pushed back by a united front of Canadians who stood together to say no.

Mark Carney showed Canadians that he was a stable leader during this time of national crisis. I have no doubt that Carney will be a very credible player on the global stage in dealing with the Trump threat.

On the other hand, it was a bittersweet night.

Many of my friends in the New Democratic Party lost across the country. It’s hard to write about as I am feeling the sting of election losses — so many good colleagues and staff who worked like hell for their regions. Their voices will be missed in Parliament and across Canada.

Two opposition leaders — Conservative Pierre Poilievre and New Democrat Jagmeet Singh — lost their seats. I can't remember anything like this ever happening before.

You would think this was the sign of an unprecedented Liberal wave, but that's not what happened.

The Conservative vote went up. And in vote-rich Ontario, where the provincial and federal Conservatives were in open civil war, the Conservatives did particularly well.

People will be reading everything into these tea leaves.

I will limit my early review of a wild and confusing night to two points.

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What Another Minority Government Means

First, Canadians gave Carney a mandate, but not a big one. This will be a third minority parliament in a row. It speaks to a lack of national consensus but also to the possibilities of compromise.

The downside is that with the loss of so many NDP seats, the separatist Bloc Quebecois will have a larger influence. Their politics are both anti-immigrant and against a more unified Canada. I worry about what deals will need to be negotiated.

Prime Minister Carney faces a complicated road.

But my other thoughts are on the unprecedented collapse of the New Democratic Party — their legislative experience could have played a critical role in steering Canada forward in the coming year. Instead, we are on a dangerous path towards a two-party state — something that many progressive Canadians have long wanted to avoid.

The polarity of the Republican/Democrat dynamic has not been the best for the American people. Whereas the multi-party dynamic has worked for Canadians. The negotiating power of the NDP led to hard-won victories such as public health care and pensions and even more recently, New Democrats pushed for establishing national dental care and the beginning of universal pharmacare.

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So Why The Collapse?

Many thought this election would see a massive bleed-off of NDP voters to the centrist Liberals to stop Poilievre and the Conservatives. But that's not how it played out. Of the 17 NDP losses, 13 went to the Conservatives. In numerous races “strategic voting” led to Conservative wins.

In other ridings however, a good chunk of the traditional New Democrat vote went Conservative. Here we mirror the troublesome facts of the MAGA 2.0 victory. Trump succeeded because key working class regions turned against the Democrats. That same sense of disaffection flipped some traditional NDP strongholds here in Canada.

So how is it possible that we gave up traditional working-class constituencies to the politics of frustration, rage, and disinformation? And why did so many young people vote for Trump and Poilievre's message?

The NDP and Democrats assumed that working-class and youth voters naturally belonged in our tent.

But if they no longer saw us as their voice, it was because we lost touch with our base.

We took them for granted.

Over the last decades, the NDP has become much more defined by leader-driven politics, spin and the need to focus on the voter as a series of "data" points.

I get it. That's how modern campaigns are fought.

In modernizing the party, we thought we could move on from the "simpler" days when the movement was rooted in union halls and church basements.

But folks trusted the NDP because they knew that taking out party memberships gave them a voice to debate ideas and participate in local, regional and national meetings. Their membership wasn't just a pathway for the central machine to hit them up for donations. They saw themselves as part of a movement.

For social democracy to be meaningful, it must be both social and democratic.

This connection to the grassroots gave us the credible reputation as the party that "always stood up for the little guy."

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My first sense of this came when I was ten years old. Ontario NDP firebrand Stephen Lewis was on my granny’s black-and-white television delivering a passionate speech in the legislature about the injustice facing northern mining widows whose husbands had died from industrial diseases.

"That man speaks up for us wee wifies," my Granny said in her thick Scottish brogue. (“Wee wifies” being her term for the many mining widows in our town).

My Granny made me sit with her and listen to the powerful and mesmerizing words of Stephen Lewis.

"Nobody ever spoke up for us but the NDP," she said declaratively.

And every month, when her old age pension cheque came in, she used to wave it in our faces and say, "The NDP got that for me."

Flash forward to election night 2011 when I was in a national caucus that came breathtakingly close to forming government. NDP leader Jack Layton brought us to that moment.

I loved Jack.

He encouraged me to run for public office when I didn't even own a suit.

Jack believed that the job of a leader was to encourage and inspire other leaders to step up. He told me it was possible to do politics with integrity and that my job was to get out there and win.

On election night 2011, everyone knew that Jack was suffering from cancer, but he made us believe that he was unstoppable. He waved his cane in the air like a battle sword. Soon after, he was dead.

I have never gotten over the death of Jack Layton. Politically, the NDP has never been able to move beyond his loss.

Jack left behind a powerful letter to Canadians that spoke of his great love for our nation. He believed that Canadians would come together as a model for the world.

Jack concluded his letter with these lines:

"Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world."

They were beautiful last words from a man who wanted to comfort the people who had put so much faith in him.

In the years following, that expression has become the stock phrase for the New Democratic Party. I must say, its constant invocation has made me more and more uncomfortable because it has glossed over the real lessons that Jack could teach us.

Jack was an idealist. But he was also an organizer and one helluva fighter.

When our caucus got burdened down fighting over points of ideology or the correct way to find a policy solution, Jack would remind us that our number one job was getting more "bums in seats." The only way we could turn our idealism into reality was by focusing on the task of electing more MPs — “bums in seats.”

Jack believed in data and online activism, but he knew that the movement was truly built at kitchen table meetings and in community town halls. He was always on the phone with activists and party members across the country.

I admit that when it comes to the legacy of Jack Layton "bums in seats" as a slogan doesn't read that well on a coffee cup or t-shirt. But by the same token, the love, hope, and optimism thing doesn't speak to those sleeping on a friend's couch because they can't afford an apartment. It doesn't offer solutions to those burdened with student loans, credit card debt or unable to retire because they have insufficient or nonexistent pensions.

The left allowed the faux populism of MAGA and Maple MAGA to usurp our role as a voice for those on the margins. That gang replaced love with rage, hope with blame and optimism with grievance.

"Bums in seats" isn't about the purity of our ideas or figuring out the correct hierarchy of righteous grievance. It is about building a table that is big enough so that everyone can sit comfortably.

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The fundamental challenge to the Democrats and the NDP is this:

What is our offer to bring people who feel alienated into a political realm where it is possible to believe in a better future?

This will be a discussion for the days and months ahead.

But right now, I congratulate Prime Minister Carney. I wish him well.

And I will do whatever I can to push for a strong and unified Canadian response in the face of tyranny.

TEAM MAGA was stopped in Canada. Unlike November 5th, the wrong person didn't get elected.

In thinking of where we need to go as a nation, I leave you with more of Jack Layton's final words:

"To all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity… As my time in political life draws to a close, I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world."

His belief in our power to make change.

Thank you, Jack. I carry those words with me in everything I try to do.

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Thank you for reading.