Tom, We Hardly Knew Ye

Tom Mulcair

A friend who has voted NDP his entire life says he cannot vote this time for Jagmeet Singh.

Perhaps this gives some insight into why the NDP’s support has sagged.

My friend feels that Singh lacks gravitas. “I can't imagine him representing Canada abroad.”

He did not say how he would vote; he did say Scheer and May both also lacked gravitas. Of course, I feel the same way about Justin Trudeau, only much more so. He did not mention Trudeau, but surely because in this case the matter was obvious. I got the impression he was just going to stay home.

Then he mentioned Tom Mulcair—how wrong the NDP was to vote him out.

I think that may be important. Singh is being compared to Mulcair as much as to Trudeau. Mulcair had gravitas. Next to him, Singh looks and sounds like a student body president.

I think this is a fatal error indulged in by both the Tories and the NDP. Seeing Trudeau’s success, they did the boneheaded typical politico thing and voted in new leaders who were as similar as possible to Trudeau; young, good-looking, inexperienced. Giving the voters no alternative once they saw the problem with youth, inexperience, and lack of seriousness. (May may not have youth, but she surely lacks gravitas.) Mulcair could have torn up this field and left only embers.

On top of that, there is a festering sense that Mulcair was treated badly by the party. I think my friend resented that as a Quebecker—and NDP support in Quebec has collapsed.

If the NDP is decimated this election, Singh will almost certainly be obliged to resign. If that happens, intelligent NDPers not fond of extinction of their species should organize a Draft Mulcair movement as soon as possible.