Today, the NDP sits in the shadow of the Liberal government, caught between criticizing those in power while also attempting to claim agency over bills being passed. Most peculiar of all has been Singh’s retreat from online spaces. In 2023, he deactivated his TikTok account citing privacy concerns, but the shift in the tone of his content went beyond that.
His once fresh, relatable, curtain-tearing content had been replaced by generic campaign videos of Singh reading scripts word-for-word that feel like they were copied directly from the platform section of the NDP website. It became boring, uninspired and — most importantly — ineffective. Polls now project a loss of seats for the NDP in the next election.
One thing is for certain: we are closer to a Singh exit than we are from his arrival. Come October, he will have been party leader for seven years — he will certainly not be leader in seven years. So, has his choice to abandon his online roots damaged the future of his party?
Whatever the future of the NDP holds and whoever its next leader will be, it is clear that it remains a party in desperate need of reimagination — the exact same issue that Singh was brought in to solve.
With anti-democracy Lucy Watson being made national director, the party will be more and more like the Liberals from a policy standpoint. So I guess voting Liberal just skips the middle man?
If the party actually allowed itself to be ruled by its grassroots, then maybe things would be different, but it is fervently opposed to being accountable to its members - and largely even their own bylaws.