NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is making a plea to Canadians today to give his party an influential role in Parliament and not reward either the Conservatives or Liberals with a majority government where they hold all the power.
“Ottawa works best when there’s someone there to hold the powerful to account,” Singh said Friday at the Broadbent Institute’s annual conference.
The institute is a social democratic think tank formed by former federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent and its annual Progress Summit is falling this year in the third week of the federal election campaign.
Singh’s speech reflects the pivot he began earlier this week away from insisting he is running to be prime minister of the next government toward a message asking to give the NDP enough seats to ensure neither the Liberals nor Conservatives wield all the power.
Without using the term “minority government” in his speech, Singh alluded to the idea in saying the NDP is needed to ensure progressive policies are on the table to protect workers and stand up for public health care.
Support for the NDP has fallen dramatically since the start of the year, and nationally the party is in a distant third place in most polls, well behind the Liberals and the Conservatives.
The website 338Canada.com, which aggregates and analyzes polling data, suggests current support would put the NDP at just eight seats after election day, compared to the 25 seats it won in 2021.
With that weak polling data persisting, Singh would not say whether he expects this to be his last election. He also refused to say when he decided to stop positioning himself as prime minister, when asked twice by reporters.
Singh also would not say whether the party’s costed platform is coming before the first leaders’ debate on Wednesday.
He said national programs on dental care and pharmacare only moved forward under the Liberals because of the NDP, and the same happened decades ago for health-care access.
“The things Canadians are most proud of — the things that make us believe in this country — only happened because New Democrats fought for them,” he said.
“We don’t waste the power you give us; we wield it for people.”
Singh’s speech followed a video the party posted Thursday night, in which Singh said the NDP would not support a Conservative government, but has not ruled out supporting a Liberal minority — so long as the NDP could once again advance its priorities.
“It’s not that the Liberals don’t talk a good game. They do; I admit it,” he said in his Friday speech. “And some (Liberals) may genuinely believe in the things we fight for. But they only deliver when New Democrats have had the power to make them deliver.”
Singh says he will fight for what “makes us Canadian” when the House of Commons returns after the election, starting with the federal budget.
The speech was well received by the crowd, with a standing ovation and chants of “NDP” at the end.
Kathryn LeBlanc was among them. She travelled to the conference from Winnipeg and is a former NDP Parliament Hill staffer.
LeBlanc said it was a “strong speech” and said it makes sense to have to shift electoral objectives.
“I can see that it may make sense to shift. Maybe that means being a little bit realistic, but also really showing how you can push for progress when you have that 20, 30, etc. seats in the House,” LeBlanc said.
Fellow convention attendee Lawrence Lewis said he’s hopeful that the French and English language debates on April 16 and 17 respectively can put some wind in the NDP sails.
He described Singh’s messaging as a “necessary pivot”
“I think that, unfortunately, the only alternative at the moment is to basically continue what happened in the (supply and confidence agreement), except perhaps reverting to supporting Liberals on a case-by-case basis.”
While current polling looks bad for the NDP, Lewis said he’s seen worse and remains optimistic about the party’s long-term future.
“The NDP has always been counted out — six per cent in 1993 — which is worse than what’s happening now, and they always come back — at least to be that solid block,” he said.
Priorities for the NDP include pushing for more health care funding to hire additional family doctors and nurses, a cap on prices for grocery staples, national rent control and a crackdown on offshore tax havens among other measures.
The New Democrat leader also said he supports civil-servant unions advocating for the right to work from home.
— With files from Dylan Robertson.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2025.
