You know, sometimes I think I'm being too hard on Canadian journalists. Oppressed so hard they can barely stand by ancient media bosses who treat them like indentured servants, or forced to barely eke out a freelance living like a band of Dickensian orphans, they are naturally more prone than most to make oopsy-doodles or leave some stones unturned, and they are thus deserving of sympathy, not contempt.
But then you have a story, or lack thereof, like Jagmeet Singh's leadership, or lack thereof, of the NDP.
Details are scant- despite, or because of, the efforts of our heroic Journalists but we are expected to believe the following:
That after absolutely annihilating three other longtime MP's in the October 2017 leadership race, Singh has managed to accomplish absolutely nothing of note since then.
That despite being a marquee name in Andrea Horwath's then-third party for years, Singh's political acumen is actually so low that after waiting on the sidelines for what seems like forever, he would rather run what looks to be an uphill battle against the other two parties in a completely different province instead of the city in which he made his bones.
That the NDP is not OK with this state of affairs as shown by the large number of ex-elected members from that party who have run off all but screaming but nobody's really calling for any serious challenge to Singh's leadership.
And that's it. Nobody is able to produce any more details that might explain the ridiculous situation the NDP finds itself in. Singh turned out to be all flash and no substance, which is nobody's fault but possibly his own, and that's the whole story, and everyone's sticking to it.
Now, even if it were not part of Received Canadian Political Wisdom that the Conservatives Need The NDP To Do Well and they can't do that if they have the Wrong Leader, the fact remains that there are serious red flags here that are worthy of investigation. Does Singh really have the political instincts of a turnip, or is he being undermined somehow? If he does have the political instincts of a turnip, then what does that say about the 53.8% of the voting members of the NDP that elected him? Does the Russian mafia have nothing on the NDP when it comes to making sure that there are no loose lips that could sink the ship, or is everybody this dumb and easily fooled?
If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the NDP thought they could capture the imaginations of Canadians by making a brown guy their leader, and when that didn't work out because everyone was and is still obsessed with Trudeau and his socks (to say nothing of whatever their real feelings about having a brown guy as party leader or even PM may be), they threw up their hands and said "Welp, we tried" and are now just standing around looking sheepish because they don't want to appear racist by complaining. That may not be true. There may be a much more reasonable explanation. But we don't know BECAUSE OUR POLITICAL JOURNALISTS WHO GET PAID TO WRITE ABOUT THIS SORT OF THING AREN'T TELLING US.
I can abide dumb and cowardly behaviour from a political party that's what they do. Taking virtue signalling to a new level by electing a man leader of your party just because his name is Jagmeet Singh is within the realm of possibility, just as is electing a man leader, and Prime Minister to boot, just because his name is Justin Trudeau. But if the media are the ones who are saying, "Yep, nothing more to see here", then we are absolutely justified in proclaiming them to be biased and unworthy of trust.
I mean, if they can all but ignore the oncoming train wreck that is the NDP's performance in next year's election, then there's absolutely no reason why they should be as microscope-focused as they currently are on how Trump-adjacent and Rebel-Media-compromised Andrew Scheer is. I mean, there's no way Scheer is ever going to be PM, any more than Singh is, right?
Written by Josh Lieblein