Lone Alberta NDP MP says party will have challenges during rebuild, upcoming term

NDP MP for Edmonton Strathcona, Heather McPherson, discusses re-election and the future of the federal NDP with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length

Michael Higgins: This is your third go around, second time to be re-elected, but your party took quite a blow. What do you put that down to?

Heather McPherson: First of all, I want to just say how grateful I am to the people of Edmonton Strathcona for electing me again and trusting me to represent them in Ottawa. It does mean a lot to me.

But it wasn’t the results we wanted to see and I think what we saw on Monday was a bit of a fear election, a bit of people voting because they were afraid, voting for things that they didn’t want rather than things that they did want, and I understand that fear.

What Donald Trump is doing is devastating, and is dangerous. I think a lot of people were afraid of Pierre Poilievre and his, sort of, far right agenda and the things that he had threatened to cut from Canadians. So people voted in a way that wasn’t looking forward, and wasn’t optimistic, and wasn’t what they wanted to build, but rather to stop other things. I think when that happens, New Democrats sometimes suffer.

MH: How does your party leadership play into that?

HM: I think that in hindsight, when we look at Jagmeet Singh, he will be remembered as the leader that brought dental care to Canadians. He will be remembered as the leader that brought the biggest expansion of healthcare in a generation, since Tommy Douglas, the New Democrat, brought Medicare to Canada in the first place.

I think that what Jagmeet did is very clearly, put country ahead of party. We could have brought the Pierre Poilievre government into power, we could have brought the government down in the fall, Pierre Poilievre may have gotten a majority government. But you know what? Canadians would not have gotten dental care, and there would not have been a PharmaCare program in place.

Pierre Poilievre would have cut those programs. We weren’t going to do that. New Democrats have always gone to Ottawa because we’re trying to get things that will make life better for Canadians and I think that, unfortunately, Jagmeet paid a price for that.

MH: Now you’re a caucus of seven, and there’s the element of moving forward, but there’s a little bit of an elephant in the room as well. Albertans maybe will read Don Braid’s column in the Calgary Herald, referencing the possibility of NDP MPs crossing the floor to prop up the Liberals and push them over the majority mark. How do you respond to that?

HM: I can tell you that Mr. Braid never spoke to a single New Democrat. There is no one crossing the floor. We are all extraordinarily proud to be New Democrats, and there is a very big difference between a Liberal and a New Democrat. We will not have people crossing the floor.

MH: Do you have people calling you up though, post election?

HM: I have not had those calls. I think people would know better than to call me.

MH: What comes now of the NDP voice in Parliament?

HM: We’ve always been a smaller party. We were 25 at the beginning of the last Parliament, 24 at the end, and we were able to get dental care through, we were able to get PharmaCare through, sick pay, sick days, anti-scab legislation, things that are really important to Canadians.

We will continue to do that. Yeah, it’s going to be hard, there’s seven of us, and that’s a lot of work. That’s a lot of pressure on our shoulders because not only do we need to rebuild our party, but we also have to hold the government accountable. We also have to make sure that the Liberals live up to the promises they made to Canadians, and we will do that.

The six other MPs that are coming to Ottawa with me are fierce, they are smart, they are hard working, and we are going to continue to do what New Democrats always do. We’re going to fight for Canadians.

MH: How much do you have to navigate or negotiate your way through a relationship with the Liberals?

HM: I think it will be very similar to the last Parliament in that when the Liberals are doing things that help Canadians, when they are moving things forward that are on the New Democrat agenda, we will support them, and when they stop, we will stop supporting them.

I have to say, I have some concerns. We do have Mark Carney, who has not really been the prime minister ever before, who is a banker. We know that he’s had a lot of a lot of experience building wealth for other people, but I’m not sure that that he understands the reality for so many Canadians across the country who are struggling to pay their rent, struggling to pay for housing, for groceries.

So I’ve got my eye on that. I’m going to be making sure that the Liberals are remembering that they are there to fight for Canadians, not for billionaires, not for the wealthy, but for the Canadians that elected them.

MH: How do you fit into the leadership picture? Either it’s an interim capacity, or do you make a run at it?

HM: From my perspective, it’s been two days since the election. We worked really hard to get to election day. There’s been a lot of discussion, a lot of people having conversations right now, and we are figuring out what it looks like when the seven of us go back to Ottawa, and how that’s going to all work.

So I haven’t really put my mind to any of those sorts of conversations.

MH: What’s the feasibility of someone from the outside of the federal NDP fold making a run for it?

HM: There’s always interest from all sorts of people who are interested in leading a federal party. Jagmeet Singh, of course, came from the Ontario NDP, and that’s how he became the leader.

I’m sure there’ll be lots of interest once we have the leadership race underway.

MH: We had a politics panelist suggest that may be Rachel Notley could.

HM: I spent some time with Rachel Notley yesterday, and I would suggest that that doesn’t seem to be on her plate, that doesn’t seem to be on her radar.

But gosh, she’s just such a phenomenal leader. Wouldn’t we all love to see her take a take a role in public office again?