No orange wave: the NDP is hoping for five seats in Quebec

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OTTAWA — The NDP’s campaign launch, held in the eastern Montreal riding of Hochelaga-Rosemont-Est Sunday night, was as modest as its chances in the province.

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The local NDP candidate, Julie Girard-Lemay, a spunky human rights lawyer and activist, was busy shaking hands with her fellow candidates and dozens of supporters huddled in her campaign office — a Mexican restaurant that recently closed — on Ontario Street.

Lucky for her, the walls of the restaurant were already painted orange.

Shortly before NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s arrival, volunteers proceeded to tell the young crowd — of which many were wearing round glasses, some wearing red and white keffiyehs and few wearing suits — to rally neatly in rows behind the candidate.

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Girard-Lemay spoke first, proceeding with a First Nations land acknowledgement.

A first-time candidate, she was nominated last December and has been knocking on doors, holding fundraisers and meeting local associations in the months since.

“One little piece at a time, one little stone at a time, we built this campaign in our riding.”

Girard-Lemay then gave the microphone to Safia Nolin, a queer singer-songwriter and darling of Quebec leftists who was sporting a crop top that read “Protect trans kids.”

Nolin introduced Singh as her “good pal” and they both exchanged a hug.

“I went into politics to make people’s lives better,” said Singh in French to the cheering crowd. “I was inspired by Jack Layton. And I want to pursue Jack Layton’s dream. Jack wanted us to not just be Parliament’s conscience, but to form government.”

In 2025, however, Singh is instead fighting to keep the NDP’s party status in Parliament.

At the start of the campaign, poll aggregator website 338Canada is currently estimating that the NDP could be looking at electing between two and 12 MPs across the country in the next election — down from the 25 MPs they managed to get elected back in 2021.

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In Quebec, the NDP will realistically keep Alexandre Boulerice, the lone MP who has managed to stick around since the 2011 “orange wave” that saw Layton’s party sweep 59 seats in la Belle Province and form the Official Opposition for the first time in its history.

Boulerice admits he gets quite lonely as the only representative in Quebec. “I’d like to have a few colleagues,” he said.

The fact that Singh held his first rally in Montreal, according to NDP organizers, is sending the signal that the NDP has not lost hope on gaining some traction again in the province.

“Jagmeet and the whole team understand that if we want to form government, Quebec is a province where we definitely need to do better,” said Jonathan Gauvin, the party’s campaign deputy director, in a recent pre-campaign briefing to media.

In Quebec, as is the case across the country, the New Democrats will be targeting its efforts on specific ridings where they think they can elect more MPs.

According to a senior NDP organizer who was speaking on background, the idea for the party in this campaign is to remain efficient with time and money, and to give the candidates the support they need to make it over the top.

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The organizer added that Montreal is a progressive city that may be more receptive to the party’s messaging of social justice and fighting against inequalities.

That is especially true in Hochelaga-Rosemont-Est where, according to the latest census before the riding boundaries were redrawn, most of the population are renters.

Singh, in his short address to supporters on Sunday evening, made it clear that people like Liberal Leader Mark Carney would not be welcome in the riding.

If we want to form government, Quebec is a province where we definitely need to do better

Singh made mention of Carney’s ties to Brookfield Asset Management and the role the corporation played in “renovictions,” which is when a landlord evicts a tenant by claiming they will complete major renovations to then usually rent the unit out at a higher price.

The idea, said Gauvin, is to prove that Carney is too far to the right of Quebecers, and to question why cuts and balanced operating budgets are a priority in a possible recession.

The NDP is also determined to showcase Singh’s personality to Quebecers.

“Compared to all the other leaders, he is the most charming, he is the most relatable, and I think that will help a lot,” said Gauvin.

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The NDP is also the only one of the main national parties to have a completely different slogan in Quebec: “Du coeur au ventre,” which would be translated to “guts in heart.”

“It’s an expression that is typically used in Quebec, that people understand well and that represents Quebecers who have guts in heart and who have had to use it during their history to protect their culture and the French language,” said Gauvin.

Elsewhere in Canada, the NDP’s slogan is “In It For You.”

In total, Boulerice said five Montreal ridings are on the NDP’s radar this election: Hochelaga—Rosemont-Est, Lasalle—Émard—Verdun, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, Outremont and his own, Rosemont—La-Petite-Patrie.

338Canada is currently showing that all ridings, except Boulerice’s, are poised to be safe Liberal seats but they do not take into consideration local factors at play.

The reason why the NDP is holding so much hope for Girard-Lemay is because the party held that seat from 2011 to 2019.

Furthermore, the outgoing Liberal MP, former minister Soraya Martinez-Ferrada, is not running again and Simon Marchand, the Bloc Québécois candidate who finished second in the riding in 2019 and 2021, has also decided to skip his turn.

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“People want us to stand up and fight for them, and that is something that I’m hearing every day. I’m also hearing lots of unsatisfaction about the Liberals,” said Girard-Lemay.

“In the riding, right now, we have the wind in our sails,” she added.

As for Lasalle—Émard—Verdun, NDP candidate Craig Sauvé finished a close third in a nail-biting byelection last September that saw the Bloc make its way to the top. Sauvé is running again, and he said he has not stopped knocking on doors since then.

“Hopefully we’ll come triumphant this time,” he said. “I’m just going to dutifully knock every door that I can, and we have me going out very, very, very frequently.”

In Laurier—Sainte-Marie, NDP candidate Nimâ Machouf is trying to unseat Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault for the third time. In 2021, she finished in second place with less than 2,300 votes.

Outremont, the riding that former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair held for 12 years, is a bit more of a long shot for today’s New Democrats.

Ève Péclet, who was elected during the 2011 “orange wave,” is attempting another comeback by soliciting a new mandate in Mulcair’s old riding.

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And if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, Péclet gave birth to her first child just before the writ dropped, said Boulerice.

“We’ll see her in the next few weeks with a baby in her arms,” said Boulerice.

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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