The collapse of the NDP vote in the federal election: how it happened

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The New Democratic Party (NDP) was decimated in Monday’s federal election, cutting its seats in the House of Commons to just seven and losing its official party status in the process.

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Election night results were “discouraging and disappointing but really not surprising” to Cathy Sproule, based on opinion poll projections. The former Saskatchewan NDP MLA for Saskatoon Nutana (2011-2020) is retired from provincial politics but worked on nine of Saskatchewan’s 14 federal NDP campaigns and is also the chair for the province’s branch of the NDP Council of Electoral District Associations (CEDA).

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Monday’s election produced the lowest number of seats the NDP has garnered in its 90-year history, reaching from the party’s very roots back when it first formed as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF).

It was “disastrous” for the NDP, said David McGrane, a political science professor at the University of Saskatchewan who is an expert in the federal NDP’s political marketing strategies.

Preliminary results from Elections Canada on Thursday showed the party capturing 6.3 per cent of total votes in the country. That’s down significantly compared to 17.8 per cent in the 2021 election.

One of 17 seats lost by the NDP in Monday’s election was that of party leader Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby Central), who subsequently announced he was stepping down.

“I know this night is a disappointing night for New Democrats. We had really good candidates that lost tonight,” Singh said in his concession speech to all supporters before addressing the candidates themselves. “I know how hard you worked.”

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The Liberals and Conservatives dominated the popular vote for a combined 85 per cent of all ballots cast, as of Thursday, with support also collapsing for the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party.

Was a collapse inevitable?

U.S. President Donald Trump has had a polarizing effect on politics in Canada, especially for a voting group McGrane calls the “NDP switchers” who might bounce between the progressive options.

“They viewed (Pierre) Poilievre as the next Trump, and that really made them scared,” said McGrane. “And thus they kind of flocked over to the safest harbour, and that was the Liberals in order to prevent Poilievre from being prime minister.”

Another thing that may have sabotaged Singh’s campaign was his supply-and-confidence deal with the Justin Trudeau government, signed in 2022. That pact secured support for the Liberal minority government in exchange for social programs, including pharmacare and dental care.

McGrane said the junior partner in a coalition can suffer from entering into such an agreement because it blurs the lines between the parties — in this case, lumping the NDP with the Liberals.

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But this was also a way for Singh to push forward on key policies.

“The trade-off was made and the price to pay was what was paid (Monday) night,” said McGrane, who added that a new leader before the federal election could have distanced the party from the Liberals.

Singh tore up the agreement in September 2024.

Only two months later, the U.S. elected Trump, who would dominate the campaign discourse with threats of tariffs and territorial sovereignty.

“That’s something the Liberal party played up as the ballot question,” said Sproule, adding that she is still proud of the NDP’s effort on the ground in Saskatchewan.

“The campaigns were well fought (and) well managed. We had excellent candidates. I think locally and on the ground it was a valiant effort, and I think definitely a lot of pride in the work that was done, but you know external forces were so great.”

Saskatchewan roots

Federal election results placed NDP candidates third in each of Saskatchewan’s 14 ridings.

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Vote splitting in the federal election has happened in local ridings before, but it often played to the NDP’s benefit. Sproule says that since 1993 it usually had voters divided between choosing Conservative or Liberal.

“I’m pretty sure it won’t be the same the next election if history has any influence,” said Sproule. “This was a unique election in that sense.”

It was a noteworthy outcome for the federal NDP, which has roots in Saskatchewan that would typically place it first or second in at least a few ridings, says McGrane, who ran for the provincial NDP party in the 2020 election.

“That speaks to sort of some of the broader struggles that the NDP has in Canada as a whole,” McGrane said.

The social democratic party was created out of farming and labour groups on the Prairies in 1932. The precursor party, the CCF, won seven seats in Parliament during its first election in 1935. But it later merged with the Canadian Labour Congress in 1961 under leader Tommy Douglas, who had served as Saskatchewan’s premier.

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The federal NDP trailed behind the Liberals and Conservatives in subsequent decades, eventually losing official party status from 1993 to 1997.

Jack Layton revived the New Democrats in the early aughts, earning enough seats in the 2011 election to become the official Opposition to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Layton died later that year due to cancer, and the party has not regained its momentum since.

Tom Mulcair took the helm for an election before Singh grabbed the reins in 2019.

Incumbents slip

The federal party held on to a few of its incumbents across the country during Monday’s election — three in B.C. and one each in Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and Nunavut — but far from the 24 seats it had before the writ dropped.

The seven MPs going to Parliament is short of the required 12 to retain official party status, with one of the repercussions being limited access to funds.

McGrane said some names are already being thrown around to potentially replace Singh as leader, including Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather McPherson and Winnipeg Centre MP Leah Gazan.

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But with the Liberals short three seats from holding a majority, it means that Mark Carney’s government could need assistance from the handful of NDP MPs in the House of Commons.

“They still are going to have an outsized amount of power for their numbers because it’s on their votes, partly anyway, that the survival of the government’s going to depend,” said McGrane.

Any support the NDP provides to Carney’s Liberals is better to be done on a case-by-case basis than an agreement where they could find themselves absorbed by the other party, explained McGrane.

The federal NDP party will need to determine how it plans to proceed and rebuild itself at the same time.

“It’s like walking on the edge of a knife,” said Sproule, speaking about whether to enter into another coalition. “It’s very difficult to not get cut but it’s such an incredibly important place to be so we’ll see what our seven MPs decide to do.”

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