Western NDP candidates focus on their ground game — and keeping their seats

When Premier Wab Kinew met federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at the legislature in Winnipeg on Tuesday night, the cameras captured a Manitoba-friendly greeting, but not a public endorsement for Singh’s national campaign.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Kinew’s party doesn’t support Singh’s team. When CBC News asked Elmwood–Transcona candidate Leila Dance at Singh’s event the next morning whether she’s supported by her provincial counterparts, she said Manitoba New Democrats have turned up and helped out.

Kinew endorsed Dance when she first ran in a byelection last September. Not a shock perhaps: the previous MP for the riding, Daniel Blaikie, left his seat to work as an adviser to the premier. So: would Kinew endorse her again?

“It’s still early days. You never know what’s going to come up!” Dance said, not literally winking and nudging, but seeming confident nevertheless.

“I’m just focused in on specifically my riding. What worked for me was door-knocking and door-knocking and door-knocking,” she said. Forty thousand homes later, she said she’s already on her second pair of campaign shoes in her rematch with the same Conservative she beat last fall.

National polls haven’t been kind to Singh’s party. Current seat projections suggest his 24-member caucus in the last Parliament could be cut in half, or worse, in this election.

New Democrats, however, sometimes put out a ground game capable of beating those expectations. In February’s Ontario election, for example, the NDP vote was efficient enough to return New Democrats as the province’s Opposition, despite trailing in not only polling but also the popular vote.

In Western Canada, the NDP governs in two provinces (British Columbia, Manitoba) and competes strongly as the Opposition party in the other two (Alberta, Saskatchewan). Singh may need some of that political muscle.

Phrases like “save the furniture” aren’t typically used until later in a campaign tour, but it was notable in Edmonton on Tuesday, for example, that even though Singh’s announcement was positioned in a riding where New Democrats hope to play offence (with candidate Trisha Estabrooks in the previously Liberal-held Edmonton Centre), the leader door-knocked to support incumbent Heather McPherson’s defence in Edmonton Strathcona.

“Liberals cannot beat Conservatives in Alberta. Right now New Democrats are the only party that can beat Conservatives — we have seen that at the provincial level, we have seen that at the federal level,” McPherson told CBC News.

She said the campaign so far in Edmonton “looks great” from her perspective, and she’s fortunate to share her part of the city with some fantastic provincial MLAs: Janis Irwin, and soon (whenever a byelection is called) — she hopes — the NDP’s new provincial leader, Naheed Nenshi.

“It’s the same volunteers that are working on the campaigns. We’re New Democrats because we have the same values, right?” McPherson said.

Nenshi, however, was not around when Singh and McPherson hit the doors in his part of town. He was in Calgary, where he used to be the mayor. He spoke to Singh on Tuesday over a Zoom call, tour staff said.

Half of Singh’s caucus in the previous Parliament represented B.C. ridings, and that’s where his tour started the week. At the leader’s announcement in Victoria on Monday, candidate Laurel Collins said she was feeling good.

“We’ve had a lot of folks that are asking for signs, that want to volunteer, who are donating,” she said. “On Vancouver Island we have had New Democrats all across the island, with a little spot of Green [current co-leader Elizabeth May and former MP Paul Manly’s seats], for almost two decades. We have a really great ground game and a really strong campaign here.”

Like McPherson, Collins said that when her constituents don’t want a Conservative government, they know what to do. Hint: it’s not voting Liberal, nevermind that party’s position atop the polls.

“[New Democrats] have beat Conservatives for decades now. We have incredible volunteers. We have amazing, dedicated people who are coming out … putting up signs and talking to their neighbours. So there’s lots of momentum here,” she said.

The risk for Collins and other B.C. candidates, however, is a resurgent Liberal vote mixing things up in ridings that used to be cleaner orange vs. blue fights. If the progressive vote splits and complicates the contest into a three- or even four-way fight, could that help elect more Conservatives?

Don Davies has represented Vancouver Kingsway for 17 years. At Singh’s campaign rally in Burnaby on Sunday, he didn’t seem too concerned about the rising Liberal fortunes turning into an issue for him personally.

“We’ve been canvassing for weeks now. We put up 1,000 signs in four days. We’ve spoken to thousands of people and I can tell you that the support this election feels as strong as it’s ever felt,” he told CBC News.

“There’s a proud history of the NDP in B.C. doing excellent governing, and delivering policies for people here in the province,” Davies said. 

But they’re not simply coasting on the provincial brand, either: “We’ve had a lot of MPs for a lot of years who have, I think, delivered excellent representation to people. So I think we have a reputation for being strong constituency MPs,” Davies said.

Can the NDP survive the next federal election?

Singh called on B.C. Premier David Eby when he was in Victoria. The legislature was busy passing 11th-hour legislation to cancel its provincial carbon tax — a decision that could cost both the federal and provincial NDP support, if voters disappointed in this backsliding on climate policy turn to the Green Party instead.

The pair’s handshake on the steps of the legislature was brisk. Their meeting lasted 15 minutes or so. When passers-by interrupted their post-meeting walking photo op to chat with Singh, Eby peeled off quickly to get back to governing.

Western premiers may be reading the room pragmatically when they decline to explicitly back their federal counterpart. First ministers have to work with the party that wins.