The first ballot victory of Jagmeet Singh to lead the NDP has been heralded as a number of firsts first person of colour to lead one of the major federal parties, first person of a non-Judaeo-Christian religion to lead one of those same major federal parties, and signalling the true generation shift of Canadian politics by officially making Justin Trudeau the oldest leader of those major parties.
Singh however will not be the first leader selected without currently holding a seat in Parliament, which despite my reservations about the practice (in that it should not happen leaders should be chosen from caucus by caucus members), is not the end of the world so long as those leaders commit to getting a seat right away. Singh, however, is not committing to do so, citing that he is "comfortable" with the current situation and letting the 44 members of caucus do the heavy lifting in the House of Commons while he is there to provide leadership from in the wings, as well as touring the country in order to become better known to Canadians.
The problem of course is not whether he's comfortable with the practice I'm sure that if they had their druthers, all other leaders would be "comfortable" with not bothering to get a seat so that they didn't have to subject themselves to the various indignities associated with Question Period, or the various interminable votes that take place from time to time especially when the opposition is trying to delay or frustrate the actions of the government. Being able to skip all of that would be a great boon to party leaders, and allow them to really get out of the Ottawa bubble to connect with Canadians, and focus on the things that matter to Canadians, etcetera, etcetera.
But things don't work like that in our parliamentary system, and I'm not sure why Singh feels like he should get a free pass to avoid having to get a seat as soon as possible, and no, the fact that previous NDP leaders didn't have seats is not sufficient reason. In 1995 when Alexa McDonough became leader, it was a period when the NDP were down to nine seats and didn't even have official party status, and had no seats in Atlantic Canada, where McDonough hailed from. Likewise, in 2003, when Jack Layton assumed the reigns, the party had lost seats in their previous election and held only 13 seats, with only one of them in Ontario, where Layton hailed from.
The current situation is nothing like either of those circumstances. The NDP have 44 seats, and there are soon to be six vacant ridings looking for candidates (two by-elections have been declared currently, with more on the way). The seat vacated by the untimely passing of Liberal MP Arnold Chan is in the GTA, not far from Singh's current Brampton riding in absolute terms. It's not like he would be running for a seat in Northern or Southwestern Ontario, where the party also holds seats were someone would need to step down and let him run in their place for the remainder of the current parliament in what would be a safe seat, which is of course what has traditionally been done. Recall when Scott Brison stepped aside for Joe Clark to run in his riding in 2000 after Clark won the Progressive Conservative Party leadership. The situation only lasted for a couple of months as a general election was called soon after, but nevertheless the principle of a leader having a seat as soon as possible was respected. But we are two years from the next general election if we stick to the "fixed" date in legislation.
What is perhaps most galling is that this stance flies in the face of the very attacks that the NDP made against the Liberals in the 2011 election. Recall during that infamous leaders' debate when Jack Layton (entirely falsely) accused Michael Ignatieff of not showing up in Parliament.
"If you want to be Prime Minister, you'd better learn how to be a Member of Parliament first," Layton admonished. "Most Canadians if they don't show up for work, they don't get a promotion." Layton went on to add, "You need to understand a little bit more about how our democracy works."
While Layton was entirely off-base in his metric of Ignatieff not being there (he was, but made a policy of not voting on the vast majority of private members' bills in order to give the caucus freedom of choice rather than just looking to him on how to vote, and Layton's metric was only related to votes, as Commons attendance records are not made public), one would think that this sentiment should apply to Singh as well. After all, he wants a promotion having declared that he is now running to be Prime Minister so he should show up. He should have a voting record in the federal Parliament, and he should have a record of performing in the House of Commons when it comes to holding the government to account.
Anyone who shrugs off this particular decision as anything other than rank hypocrisy should also explain how they're not also being disrespectful of Parliament as the place where the business of the nation happens. As much as people like to pooh-pooh the Ottawa bubble and insisting that it doesn't matter to "real Canadians," it nevertheless is how our system operates and to dismiss it is to dismiss our very system of government, and it should matter. By leaders dismissing the importance of Parliament, we damage the very fabric of our democracy, and it's not something that should be shrugged off because it may be inconvenient to have to run in a by-election, whether it's for a seat that's currently vacant, or for a guaranteed safe seat that one of their current members will have to step aside in order for him to fill. In no way should it be acceptable for Singh to go without a seat for the next two years, and anyone suggesting otherwise might want to understand a bit more about how our democracy works.
