In the final debate of the campaign to finally replace Tom Mulcair as leader of the NDP there were, perhaps predictably,\u00a0attempts to quibble with the presumed front-runner.<\/p>\n
Niki Ashton\u00a0suggested the 47,000 party members that Jagmeet Singh\u00a0claims to have signed up\u00a0\u2014 a figure that would account for more than a third of the party’s current membership<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 were from a “handful” of ridings.<\/p>\n Charlie Angus ventured that the money Singh has raised\u00a0\u2014\u00a0$356,784 in the second quarter of this year<\/a>, more than all other candidates combined\u00a0\u2014 was mostly from Brampton,\u00a0the Toronto suburb that Singh calls home.<\/p>\n The suggestion might have been that Singh’s support is deep, but not wide.<\/p>\n Angus, who is second in fundraising, also took every opportunity to note that he would be ready to stand up in the House of Commons this fall, a barely disguised challenge to the seat-less Singh<\/a>, who\u00a0is a member of the Ontario legislature.<\/p>\n The mere presence of Guy Caron\u00a0on stage might have served as a reminder of another challenge: How would Singh approach Quebec, hallowed home to 16 of the NDP’s 44 MPs and a distinct society with a particular history of secularism?<\/p>\n Of course, if\u00a0Singh’s candidacy can be quibbled with,\u00a0questions can also surely be asked of the candidates who have raised less money, attracted fewer supporters\u00a0or received fewer endorsements from NDP MPs. (Singh, a newcomer to the federal party,\u00a0leads on the last metric too with eight, followed by\u00a0Caron\u00a0with seven,\u00a0Ashton\u00a0with five and Angus with two.)<\/p>\n So the choice confronting New Democrats might not be\u00a0perfectly\u00a0easy. That much befits\u00a0a party that is not in an easy spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is not a party that has made it easy on itself<\/p>\n After the crushing collapse of 2015, New Democrats took six months to decide\u00a0they were done with Mulcair. It has taken them another year and a half to choose his successor. In the meantime, there has not even been a new interim leader to make things vaguely interesting.<\/p>\n With voting to commence after a final showcase of the candidates on Sunday, the NDP could be a mere two weeks away from choosing the eighth leader in the party’s history. In the event of multiple ballots, it will be another three or four weeks.<\/p>\n Singh is likely to be leading after the first ballot. But if he falls short of a first-round knockout, things could get tense.<\/p>\n Regardless of who it is and when he or she gets here, the NDP’s situation will be roughly the same.<\/p>\n While New Democrats will quibble with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s right to call himself a progressive, the next NDP leader will find himself or herself contending with the most left-leaning government since Pierre Trudeau’s, or perhaps even Lester B. Pearson’s.<\/p>\n Their room to manoeuvre will, to some degree, depend on what gaps and openings the Liberals leave unaddressed.<\/p>\n Regardless,\u00a0there will be\u00a0the small matter of Quebec\u00a0\u2014 the province that swept the NDP to 103 seats in 2011 and then seemed to precipitate the party’s\u00a0fall in 2015.<\/p>\n In August, Caron\u00a0stepped forward with a plan to win the province again. Included was an attempt to finesse the issue of Bill 62, legislation proposed by Quebec’s Liberal government that would, among other things, ban the wearing of the niqab by those delivering government services.<\/p>\n Caron’s position is that, while he personally believes the state has no business dictating attire, New Democrats should respect the National Assembly’s right to make its own decisions, deferring to Quebec’s national character and its history of secularism.<\/p>\n Singh has been less nuanced in his opposition to Bill 62. And one MP, Pierre Nantel, is already suggesting he might depart the caucus if the next NDP leader does not respect Quebec’s distinctiveness.<\/p>\n\n
Finally getting to a new leader<\/h2>\n
What the leader will face<\/h2>\n
Quebec’s distinctiveness<\/h2>\n