NDP hopes Brosseau’s return boosts Quebec campaign

YAMACHICHE, Que. — Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh looked to one of his party’s   former success stories on Sunday in  bid to give his Quebec campaign a boost, even as his party faces an uphill battle to regain seats in the province.

Singh campaigned in Yamachiche, Que. alongside Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who became a symbol of the so-called “orange wave” that swept the party to 59 seats in the province in 2011 when she was elected as a paper candidate in the riding of Berthier—Maskinongé.

Brosseau was criticized at the time for her lack of French-language skills, connection to the riding and the fact that she spent part of the campaign in Las Vegas, but later rose through party ranks to become the NDP’s House Leader and agriculture critic. 

She was re-elected in 2015 but lost her seat to the Bloc Québéçois’ Yves Perron in 2019 in a disastrous result that saw the party lose all but one seat in Quebec.

Despite his tough position in the province, Singh pointed to Brosseau’s past success as a sign that fortunes can shift.

“Things change quickly in a campaign,” said Singh, who drew a laugh when he said he hopes to win every seat in the province this time around.

The NDP leader also refused to speculate on whether he’d support either the Conservatives or Liberals in a minority scenario, saying its his goal to win the election and become prime minister.

“I’m in this election to win it, so I don’t accept defeat,” he said. “I want to become the next prime minister.”

Speaking at the event in a local café, Brosseau reminded the crowd that her story is proof that anything can happen. 

“When I decided to jump in as a candidate, I was a paper candidate because I couldn’t campaign,” the 37-year-old said. “I worked full time, I was a single mother. Things change really quickly.”

On Sunday, Brosseau appeared relaxed in front of the microphone as she rattled off what she saw as the priorities for her riding: river protection, erosion, infrastructure, wastewater treatment, high-speed Internet, and agricultural self-sufficiency. 

She’s no longer a stranger in the rural French-speaking region, where she’s spent the two years since her defeat helping her partner on his farm.

At one point she stumbled over her words and laughed, apologizing that she’s no longer used to speaking English.

Brosseau said she feels voters are frustrated with previous Liberal and Conservative governments and are ready for a change.

“I have an amazing feeling that this is going to be different this time around,” she said. 

But André Lamoureux, a political science professor at the Université du Québec à Montreal, believes the party is not fighting for victory in the province, but rather to avoid being wiped off the map altogether.

“I believe that right now the NDP is fighting for its survival, in the sense of trying to win a single seat,” said Lamoureux, whose research focuses on the party. 

He notes that NDP members have publicly opposed Quebec’s secularism bill, which bans certain public servants from wearing religious symbols at work. He said many Quebecers don’t subscribe to the idea that there is systemic racism in the province, which he calls a “theory of the left” which the NDP espouses.

Lamoureux said the party in general represents a centralized approach to governance that runs counter to the province’s nationalist ambitions. 

“Mr. Singh, all his public interventions go in the sense of interfering in provincial jurisdiction whether we’re talking about social housing, education, health, nurses,” he said.

Last week, Quebec Premier François Legault criticized both the Liberals and the NDP for proposing policies he said amounted to interfering in provincial jurisdiction, such as the imposition of national standards for long-term care.

“What’s being proposed, especially by two parties, is more arguments, more complicated things that won’t help anything, more centralization, more bureaucracy, when it’s exactly the opposite that is needed to help our health system work better,” Legault said.

The NDP has said it is running a ‘targeted’ campaign in Quebec, focusing on six to 10 ridings where it believes it can win. Those include four in Montreal, the cities of Trois-Rivieres and Sherbrooke, and a handful of rural ridings. 

But Lamoureux not only believes that a breakthrough is unlikely, but even the party’s lone MP, Alexandre Boulerice, risks losing his seat in the Montreal riding he’s held since 2011.

Meanwhile, Singh and Brosseau also unveiled a website that they said was designed to help encourage people to vote. The site, called howyouvote.ca, is designed to explain the voting process and help people overcome reluctance to cast a ballot, Singh said.

This report from the Canadian Press was first published Aug. 29, 2021.

— By Morgan Lowrie in Montreal

The Canadian Press