TORONTO – New Democrats never so badly. In these Canadian federal elections, one of the records to be reported is certainly the negative one set by Jagmeet Singh, leader of NDP, who brought his party to its lowest historical result: 7 seats. Only in 1993, with the leadership of Audrey McLaughlin, the “Left” party (“Left” in the Canadian sense of the term: hence the quotation marks) had done so badly, with 9 seats. Well, Singh managed to do worse, going down to 7.

And among those seven, the leader is not even there, not only beaten in his own district (Burnaby Central in British Columbia), but even came in third, behind the Liberal Wade Chang and the Conservative candidate James Yan. It was therefore inevitable that he took a step back, after such a crushing defeat.

“It was an honour for me to represent the people of Burnaby Central. They have elected a new member of Parliament, I wish them the best”, said Singh. “Of course I know this is a disappointing night for the New Democrats. We had great candidates who lost. I know how hard you worked. I’ve spent time with you, you’re amazing,” he told his supporters, before announcing that he would step down once an interim leader is chosen.

The defeat came in the middle of a difficult night for the New Democrats, who saw their support collapse across the country, with voters divided between Liberals and Conservatives following the resignation of Justin Trudeau and the continuous threats of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, between tariffs and the “promises” to make Canada the 51st US state.

But the result of the NDP would probably not have been different if in place of “Donald” there had been another president. The party, in fact, paid hard for the choice of its leader to support for a long time the government of Justin Trudeau, who, let us remember, was a minority and was kept alive by the NDP and Singh. The double game of the New Democrat leader, who on the one hand attacked Trudeau and on the other supported him, did not escape the electorate who harshly punished both Singh and his party at the polls. Inconsistency does not pay.

The now former NDP leader was first elected to Parliament in 2019 in a by-election in the former Burnaby South riding. In the 2021 election, he was re-elected with over 40% of the vote, compared to just over 30% for the Liberal runner-up. The riding was then redrawn and renamed Burnaby Central for the 2025 election, with changes that made the district slightly less favorable to the New Democrats, but the outcome of the last election was so bad for Singh that the district changes probably played no role in his defeat.

After all, Singh’s party has been defeated across the country, as the numbers show: before the election, the NDP held 24 seats, today it is at 7 (according to the counting not yet finished at the time of writing) and has also officially lost its status as a party, having failed to obtain the minimum of 12 seats needed.

In 2011, those seats, under the leadership of the late and beloved Jack Layton and a few years before Singh’s arrival, were over 100. In the space of little more than a decade, the party has practically disappeared. Who knows what Layton would say today, if he were still alive and could see the photo posted on Twitter by Singh a few days before the vote… 

The photo at the top was published by Jagmeet Singh a few days before the vote: the pic portrays him on Jack Layton’s bicycle, in the homonymous square in Toronto (photo: Twitter X – @theJagmeetSingh)