MENZIES: Would the NDP consider a leadership review this fall?

The federal New Democratic Party will meet in person for the first time in three years this October for a convention in Hamilton. 

While these types of “meetings of the minds” are often where party policy comes to fruition, the question that should be on their minds is: Should Jagmeet Singh still be the leader of the party? 

This conversation about New Democrats must be had – or at least, Conservatives out here certainly wish it did. 

With the NDP essentially complicit and in lockstep with every bit of legislation the Liberal party conjures up, the only thing seemingly able to trigger an election before 2025 is a change in tact for the NDP. 

Are they really getting anything for all this security they’re providing the Liberals? 

I don’t think so. 

They got their dental bill, sort of. And…and…well that’s really it. 

Then the Health Minister Mark Holland revealed yesterday that the oft-discussed in NDP circles — the pharmacare legislation — will be tabled in the fall with designs to have it passed in a year’s time.

Does that wet appetites?

Leader Jagmeet Singh has seemed to in the previous few years rally a lot of youth support for the NDP. The fancy TikToks, the warm smile. The kind and gentle approach mixed with strong rhetoric about polluters and racists. 

This week, Singh is doing a tour of western Canada. In Edmonton, he talked about one of the crises du jour – there’s so many it’s hard to keep track – which is the lack of housing and its affordability. 

In response to the news that a one-bedroom apartment in Edmonton went up nearly 13 per cent in cost in a year, Singh said this:

“Young people, people with jobs, people that have lower incomes — everyone is faced with a real struggle when it comes to housing,” Singh said. “We heard stories from people today that spent so much money on their rent, that, if you factor in rent and bills, they have so little money left over that they’re skipping meals.”

Sounds remarkably similar to what Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has said recently. 

Here’s the rub – the NDP can do something about it. 

They can end the smallest minority government in Canadian history of all time, but have chosen not to. 

Singh talks tough about the failures of this government on one hand, while shaking the other with Justin Trudeau. 

So again, the question becomes for the NDP base, is this really the person to be steering the wheel? 

Because I would suspect that this move continues to sully the name of this party, one that regularly kept government to account, and is a distant glimmer to the one Jack Layton built. 

The NDP is an opposition party, and they can be tomorrow with the political will. But I’m not sure they have the teeth to do it.