NDP's Heather McPherson held her seat in Edmonton. But she's grieving her party's losses
McPherson says the NDP did poorly because 'this was an election of fear'
She may be hot on the heels of victory, but Heather McPherson is having a rough day.
The NDP candidate held onto her Edmonton Strathcona seat in Monday's federal election. But her success was bittersweet, coming as her party lost so many seats that it won't have official party status in Parliament, while its leader, Jagmeet Singh, lost his own seat and promised to step down.
Now McPherson is the lone New Democrat elected from Alberta, and one of only seven across the country.
Still, she says, her party isn't going anywhere. Here is part of her conversation with As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
Heather McPherson, I know people are congratulating you. How is that word — "congratulations" — sitting with you today?
It's very hard today. It was hard to see so many of my excellent colleagues not get re-elected.
Former leader Tom Mulcair, you and others will remember, wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg News back in March and said, "If you can't seriously say you're going to form a government that can take on Trump, then get out of the way." ... Do you think, ultimately, that the NDP should have gotten out of the way here?
No, absolutely not. Canadians don't want an American-style two-party system.
Our democracy is stronger and better when we have a strong NDP. The fact [is] the NDP hold the government accountable, make sure that the government of the day delivers on the promises that they make to Canadians. You just have to look at our last Parliament, where we were able to get dental care for Canadians.
There is a real reason why it's so important for our democracy, so important for our country, that we don't devolve into a two-party system. It's divisive that way. It doesn't help Canadians. It doesn't build cohesive co-operation. It just echoes what we see in the United States, and I don't think Canadians want that here.
So, to what do you attribute the results for your party, then?
This was an election of fear. Canadians were voting because they were afraid. And I understand that.
What [President] Donald Trump is doing in the United States is frightening for so many of us, for our livelihoods, for our own sovereignty of our country. And so I think people were voting out of fear.
That's not a great way for a democracy to go forward. You want people to be voting for the representative that is strongest to match their values, to fight for them at every table, and I think when we have elections that are based on, you know, sort of a misguided strategic voting idea ... I don't think that that's a strong democracy.
I think we need to look at our electoral system.... I mean, you look at me as the sole New Democrat in Alberta, despite the fact that you know a huge percentage of Albertans voted for a progressive representative.
What do you think your party, and specifically your party's soon-to-be former leader, Jagmeet Singh, could and should have done differently to seize on this moment, and convince more voters that he could be a better alternative?
I think that history will remember Jagmeet Singh as bringing forward the biggest expansion of our health-care system in a generation. And I am so proud of what he was able to achieve, so proud of what the NDP were able to achieve. And I know that Jagmeet has always put Canadians first.
Very easily, we could have brought the government down in October. But we wouldn't have had a pharmacare framework. We wouldn't have had dental care. All of these programs that we fought so hard for for Canadians wouldn't have been in place, and [Conservative Leader] Pierre Poilievre had said he would cut them. So we would have had a majority Pierre Poilievre government, and we would not have gotten the help for Canadians.
So, you know, we could have done some political shenanigans, absolutely. But that's not why New Democrats are in Ottawa.
But during the campaign, what do you think you, the party or Jagmeet Singh did not do to connect? I completely understand all of the other forces at play. They're impossible to ignore, certainly. But there has to be some assessment and post-mortem discussion, right?
It's been less than a day. And, for me, right now, I'm grieving the loss of some really remarkable members of Parliament. I'm grieving my political family, the pain that I feel for that.
So, for me, I haven't started to really dig deep into that yet. It's something that I think we're all going to have to take a look at.
You're certainly not the only person in your party or in others who have expressed concern at this stage about this two-party race, how things came out, and what it might mean for Canadian voters in the future. Are you concerned, even at this early stage, that this could have a lasting impact? Or do you see a resurgence or a re-balancing of how things were?
Congratulations to the prime minister, but he is a banker. He is somebody who has spent his career making sure that the ultra-wealthy are taken care of. And I think there may be some people in the country that realize that we need New Democrats to actually be fighting for for regular Canadians and making sure the regular Canadians can afford their groceries and afford their housing and their rent.
In the long run, I think that New Democrats will come back. We always do. We'll keep fighting.
You don't become a New Democrat in Alberta because you wanted the easy way. So I'm good at fighting. I'm happy to keep fighting for my constituency and for Canadians. And I know that the other six members of Parliament that are going to Ottawa with me are ready to do the exact same thing.
When you spoke with The Current this morning ... you said you hadn't thought about taking on the party leadership in general, or whether you would even consider it. Has that changed throughout this day?
I think you know the answer. It's too early to tell.
Frankly, Jagmeet has been such a mentor for many of us. He's the only leader that I've ever had as a member of Parliament.
I want to make sure that everybody's talking to each other, that we're sitting down at the caucus, that we're having some conversations about what the future looks like for the NDP, and will make decisions like we always do — together.
Interview produced by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes. Q&A edited for length and clarity
