0:00
/
0:00
Transcript

S2E9 - The NDP Is Polling in Single Digits With Former NDP insider Julien Newman

In Week One of Canada’s federal election, former NDP insider Julien Newman joins the show to expose a party that’s abandoned workers, bowed to identity politics, and handed the fight to the Tories

It’s week one of the federal election in Canada.

If you want to understand just how broken Canada’s political system has become, don’t watch the campaign ads. Ignore the choreographed photo ops and the teleprompter declarations about “fighting for you.” Instead, listen to the people who’ve actually been inside the machine and have the courage to tell the truth.

This week, I spoke with one of them.

Julien Newman is a former NDP staffer. He worked alongside Jack Layton. He knows how the party used to function—when it still stood for something—and he’s not afraid to say what we all know to be true: the NDP is collapsing, and it’s collapsing fast.

That’s not speculation. That’s a fact. Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair recently went on national television and said, without flinching, that this federal election is a “two-horse race”—Conservatives or Liberals. That wasn’t just a throwaway line. That was a funeral announcement for his own party.

And here’s the remarkable part: no one in the NDP even pushed back. Because they know it’s true.

According to Julien, who still canvasses in competitive ridings, support for the NDP has flatlined. “I go door to door,” he told us. “I’ve found two people who say they’re going to vote NDP.” Two. In a country of 40 million. But Jagmeet Singh’s campaign is still running ads with dramatic music and the slogan “I’m fighting for you,” as if Canadians have forgotten the past three years of him holding up the most corrupt Liberal government in modern history.

Let’s not forget: the NDP’s original sin wasn’t just propping up Trudeau—it was abandoning the working class. That was Julien’s central thesis, and he’s dead right. Somewhere around a decade ago, the NDP stopped being a labor party and started playing marketing games with vague language about the “middle class.” Who is the middle class, exactly? It’s a term pollsters love and strategists abuse, but nobody can define it. It sure as hell doesn’t mean the welder in Sudbury or the grocery clerk in Saskatoon. But that’s who the NDP used to represent. Now? They’re too busy tweeting about Gaza and Ukraine to even remember those people exist.

That disconnect is exactly what’s driven working-class voters to the Conservatives. And yes, Julien admits it. Not because Pierre Poilievre is some savior—but because at least he’s talking about housing, wages, and inflation in plain English. That’s more than you can say for the NDP, whose messaging, according to Julien, sounds like it was written by ChatGPT and signed off by a comms intern with a master's in equity studies.

Meanwhile, Mark Carney—the unelected technocrat now pretending to be Prime Minister—spent the week attacking Poilievre for refusing to submit to a government security clearance. Carney framed it as irresponsible. But here’s what he didn’t say: if Poilievre accepts that clearance, he’s legally prohibited from speaking about the very thing Canadians deserve answers on—foreign interference.

Think about that. The official opposition would be gagged during an election.

And it gets worse. Under Carney’s leadership, Brookfield Asset Management secured a $276 million loan from the Bank of China. That’s not some conspiracy theory. That was reported by the Western Standard, and it’s backed up by public filings. So while Carney lectures Canadians on integrity, he still won’t disclose his financial holdings, still won’t reveal the full scope of his potential conflicts of interest, and yes—his name was even listed in Jeffrey Epstein’s private calendar, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

And you’re supposed to believe this man is the moral authority on national security?

What this interview with Julien Newman exposed wasn’t just the rot inside the NDP. It revealed something deeper—the extent to which Canada’s entire political class has become performative. Julien called them “small-time TV stars.” And he’s right. They don’t want to lead. They want airtime. They want Instagram reels and viral moments. They want to go viral at the House of Commons podium, not fix potholes in Oshawa.

That’s the real tragedy. Canada has real problems—housing, inflation, job losses, industrial collapse—and no one in the political establishment is interested in solving them. They're too busy posing.

But here’s where I’ll leave you—with a note of hope.

The Conservatives, for all their flaws, are going to open the doors. They’ll cut taxes, they’ll bring jobs back, they’ll make it easier to do business in Canada. Good. That’s what we need right now. But then what?

Who’s going to fight for the working man in those jobs? The guy on the line. The woman in the warehouse. The family trying to put groceries on the table. Is it going to be the Conservatives—who still need the corporate class happy and investing in Canada? Or the NDP—if there's anything left of it?

And I’ll tell you what I see coming. I see the problem down the road.

We need the Conservatives to drain the swamp, yes. But when they’re done, someone’s got to stand guard at the gates—and right now, the NDP isn’t up to it.

So let me be absolutely clear: I will run for the leadership of the NDP if I have to. I’ll wear plaid. I’ll speak like a human being. I’ll talk about wages, housing, and jobs. And if I have to trudge over the political corpse of Jagmeet Singh to do it—through a leadership race, of course—so be it.

I will be Jack Layton resurrected, and I will take back that party for the working class.

No more identity politics. No more virtue signaling. Because pretending to care about Twitter causes doesn't put food on the table, and it doesn’t pay the bills. Real people are hurting. And I’m done watching the party that was built for them waste time trying to impress college activists and media consultants.

It’s time to fight. It’s time to build. And if no one else will do it?

I will.

Julien Newman:

📍 Twitter: @juliennewman

📍 YouTube: youtube.com/@blitzscaling

Discussion about this video