The federal NDP took a hit this week with reports of a wave of defections in New Brunswick to the Greens.
The Canadian Press reported that 14 candidates who ran for the New Brunswick NDP in the last provincial election had announced Tuesday they were leaving to join the provincial and federal Green parties. CP did ask the NDP for comment at the time, and since then an NDP party spokeswoman now says some of the 14 have indicated they still support the federal NDP and its leader, Burnaby South MP Jagmeet Singh.
What dominated the headlines were comments by one of the defectors, Jonathan Richardson, the federal NDP's executive member for Atlantic Canada. He said his former party doesn't have a path to victory in any of New Brunswick's 10 ridings and said one major factor was racism aimed at Singh.
People have rightly been debating these comments and what they say about New Brunswick and the rest of Canada.
But lost in those comments were other comments by Richardson involving Singh’s perceived lack of visibility in the province.
"Jagmeet as a leader, or when he was running for leadership, has never visited New Brunswick," Richardson said.
Wait, what?
That seems pretty weird for a national party leader. I do understand that Singh was, obviously, preoccupied earlier this year running in the Burnaby South byelection. Singh and the NDP are also rightly concerned about shoring up support in Quebec, which has meant appearances in that province.
But how do you not manage to shoehorn a single campaign visit to an entire province in the entire time that Singh has been leader? Perhaps it’s because the NDP don’t think they have much of a chance in New Brunswick so they are sparing campaign dollars where they think the money will do the most good.
It’s still a bad look.
So is not having nominated any candidates so far in New Brunswick, although the federal NDP's communications director, Melanie Richer, said Tuesday the party is currently scheduling nomination meetings in six of the 10 New Brunswick ridings to be held "by the end of next week."
Singh and the NDP are hoping to turn a corner with the launch of their new slogan, “In it for you” and a new campaign video. The video looks incredible and the message is a good one. Too often, people feel like politicians are only in it for corporations or themselves.
Singh needs something to take control of the message away from this debacle in New Brunswick.
- with files from the Canadian Press
