‘Painful to be where we’re at’: NDP campaign director takes responsibility for party’s worst showing

The campaign manager of outgoing NDP leader Jennifer Howard has taken responsibility for the party’s worst election performance in its history in the 2025 federal election.

“It’s a painful situation,” Howard said. “It’s painful to know that this was a campaign that I led and I’m responsible for the outcome.”

She said, however, that she still believes the support and confidence agreement that Jagmeet Singh signed with Justin Trudeau in 2022 was the best thing the NDP could have done in the minority parliament at the time, which led to the introduction of a national dental care program and the first phase of pharmacare.

“I think it was the best decision that could have been made at the time. There’s a rebuilding coming… but getting dental care for children and seniors, and now hopefully all adults, if Mr. Carney keeps his promise, would have been worth it,” Howard added.

He also admitted that the deal with the Liberal government made it difficult for the party to criticize them and made people not see the NDP as an option for change.

After a tough campaign in which Singh was constantly under pressure from polls that predicted bad results for his party — and those predictions were confirmed on election day — Jagmeet Singh announced that he would step down as party leader after naming an interim successor.

The NDP lost more than half of its 24 seats in the election, including Singh’s own seat, which came in third with just 9,000 votes. The party now has just seven seats in four provinces and one territory.

“It was a tough night for a lot of people,” Howard said.

He also said that while the NDP had seen internal polls last fall showing a path to 40 to 50 seats and even the possibility of becoming the official opposition, Singh decided at that point not to increase the chances of a majority Conservative government by helping Pierre Pulievre call an early election, as that would have jeopardized the newly launched health and dental insurance programs.

Howard continued:

“We saw a path to 40 to 50 seats last fall and that was a possibility… but we raised that question with Jagmeet and said that was the path.”

He said that ultimately, that decision led Singh to step down as leader, but at the time, he was not willing to jeopardize health and pharmacare for 20 or 30 more seats.

Howard also cited unforeseen events during the campaign, including Donald Trump’s attempt to annex Canada (!) and Chrystia Freeland’s resignation as finance minister on the same day she was supposed to present a mini-budget.

Finally, he said he was not worried about the seven remaining NDP MPs leaving the party and joining the Liberal government.

“I know these seven people. I’ve worked with them. They are true New Democrats,” he said. “In this country, MPs who switch parties are punished. Anyone who voted NDP in this election expects their MP to stay NDP.”

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