Singh seeks to boost NDP’s flagging fortunes in Atlantic Canada

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This article was published 05/04/2025 (205 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. JOHN’S – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh wrapped up the second week of the federal election campaign in Atlantic Canada, a region where his party seems poised to come up empty-handed for the second time in a row. 

On Saturday, Singh targeted two ridings where New Democrats’ roots run deep. He spent the morning in St. John’s, N.L., where party stalwart Jack Harris held a seat on and off for nine years from 2008 until his retirement in 2021. 

Later in the day he met with volunteers in Halifax, a seat held for nearly two decades by former NDP leader Alexa McDonough and well-known former MP Megan Leslie. 

The two ridings may be the party’s best shot on the East Coast when Canadians go to the polls on April 28, but both went Liberal in the last election, when the NDP was entirely shut out of Atlantic Canada. Polls currently suggest they could stay that way. 

On Saturday, Singh said there’s “zero” chance New Democrats will fail to capture a single seat in the four Atlantic provinces. 

“People miss the New Democrats. People want someone who will fight for them,” he said during a campaign stop where he announced a pledge to ensure all Canadians have access to a family doctor by 2030. 

But Mary Shortall, his candidate in St. John’s East, sounded somewhat less sanguine. 

“If there’s no NDP elected … then I think Atlantic Canada is at a real disadvantage, because this is a part of the world that really needs someone to have their back,” she told reporters. 

“I think it would be a loss of representation for them, just like I believe it has been over the last four years.”

Until recently, when dissatisfaction with the Liberal government was running high, polls suggested the Conservatives could sweep much of Atlantic Canada. But Mark Carney’s election as Liberal leader and the economic threats from U.S. President Donald Trump have led to a Liberal surge in the region, as across much of the country. 

Poll aggregator 338Canada currently projects the Conservatives could take around five of the 32 Atlantic seats, with the Liberals winning the rest. 

Harris said Newfoundlanders are “afraid of what’s going to happen to the country” in the face of Trump’s hostilities. But he said strategic voting for the Liberals by those who don’t want to see a Conservative government is not the answer. 

“Is that the name of the game we’re going to play again and again and again?” he said. “The only sensible strategy for a voter is to vote for the party and the representative and the leader that’s going to fight for you in Parliament, and that’s the NDP.”

Singh was hoping to shore up votes in Atlantic Canada, a region with an aging population and an acute family doctor shortage, with a plan to fix what he described as a “crisis” in access to primary care. 

The NDP wants to add up to 7,500 family physicians across the country in the next five years to serve the estimated 6.5 million Canadians currently without a doctor. 

During his Saturday announcement, Singh said an NDP government would offer an extra one per cent in federal health transfers to provinces that develop plans to provide family doctors for all residents by 2030. 

“I believe that everyone in our country should be able to have a family doctor,” he said. “I don’t see a province that would say no to additional funding to achieve that goal.” 

The party estimates this measure would cost $10 billion over four years if all provinces participate. 

The NDP also wants to make it easier for American doctors to come to Canada, especially those working in women’s health and reproductive health. The party is pledging to create 1,000 new family medicine residencies for internationally trained doctors living in Canada. 

“The fact that there are so many physicians in our country that simply can’t see patients because they couldn’t find a residency spot is outrageous,” Singh said. 

The NDP also wants to reduce the paperwork that eats up doctors’ time, and to create a “pan-Canadian licensure” to allow medical professionals to practise anywhere in the country. 

In Halifax Saturday evening, Singh met with the son and granddaughter of the late McDonough, who led the party from 1995 through 2003. McDonough faced her share of challenges as leader, including when the NDP was reduced to just 13 seats in the 2000 election. 

“Everything ebbs and flows and obviously you have to be able to have resiliency and perseverance,” her son, Justin McDonough, told reporters. He and his daughter, Abbie, are volunteering on the local NDP campaign. 

“I think (my) mother showed those characteristics,” he said. “I think Jagmeet is doing the best he can in something that’s beyond anyone’s control.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2025.