The NDP has leverage in this Parliament, and here’s how they can use it

Poilievre will still be around, but he’s a wounded animal. With his party’s second-place showing and his personal defeat, he’ll be thwarted in his quest to privatize and slash government programs and push us more deeply into the jaws of the United States.

Of course, Canada has already moved a long way toward integration with the U.S. in recent decades, by signing trade agreements that diminish our sovereignty and by adopting neo-liberal policies that prioritize the marketplace and reduce our capacity for collective action through government.

All this has left us weakened and vulnerable as U.S. President Donald Trump plays havoc with our economy in an unabashed effort to destabilize it, then annex us.

Fortunately, Prime Minister Mark Carney appreciates the need to use the resources and authority of the federal government to strengthen the country, including reviving long-discarded programs like government building affordable housing.

So, we’re clearly better off with Carney as prime minister than we would have been with Poilievre.

Still, it’s disheartening that the NDP was badly mauled in the election, reduced from 25 seats to just seven. The party has long championed often-neglected causes like labour, climate action, Palestinian rights and protecting Canada’s public programs — particularly our treasured public health-care system, which was born out of struggles led by the legendary Tommy Douglas, who became the NDP’s first leader.

The NDP can be a vital force. Unlike Conservatives and Liberals, the party doesn’t rely on financial support from wealthy donors, enabling it to hold the mainstream parties to account when they succumb to the temptation (as they so often do) of serving the interests of the powerful.

The NDP can get off track, however, when it becomes focused on jockeying for power.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh made the right move in entering into a “confidence and supply” deal with the minority Trudeau Liberals and using the NDP’s leverage to win important new dental and pharmacare benefits for Canadians. That was well played.

But then, as Poilievre increasingly made political hay with his attack-dog routine, Singh became desperate to disconnect from the sinking Liberal ship.

Fine, but he could have differentiated himself by pushing a more progressive agenda — demanding the Liberals endorse a wealth tax or support public ownership of, say, a pharmaceutical company, like the hugely successful Connaught Labs, which was publicly owned for decades before it was privatized.

Instead, pressured by the fire-breathing Poilievre, Singh joined the Conservative leader’s circus in attacking the Liberals’ carbon tax, even vowing last December to bring a non-confidence motion against the Liberals.

These moves further strengthened Poilievre, angering many progressives who saw Poilievre as a dire threat to the country — a threat only enhanced by the emergence of the Trump menace.

The decision of many progressives to abandon the NDP and support Carney in this election was based on their sense that the NDP couldn’t be trusted to do what was necessary to block Poilievre — which was, after all, Job One.

Now that it appears the Liberals will once again need the NDP to maintain power, the NDP should use that incredible leverage to make important demands, and to keep their focus on what matters, regardless of whatever hot nonsense comes out of Poilievre’s mouth.

We need a strong NDP that, in or out of power, is different than the parties subsidized by the country’s wealthy elite — that is, a party willing to give primacy to advancing progressive goals, even over its own political empowerment.

This article originally appeared in the Toronto Star.