Chantal Hébert: Jagmeet Singh has lost momentum and faces a skeptical reception at the NDP´s convention
(The Star Toronto Raptors)

OTTAWA—Jagmeet Singh enters his first national convention as NDP leader this weekend having yet to put a discernible stamp on the party’s parliamentary work or to make a lasting impression on most of the country’s voters.Four months have elapsed since Singh’s first ballot victory last fall and whatever momentum attended the leadership vote has fast evaporated. Based on the lacklustre NDP showing in the polls on national voting intentions and its mediocre results in a handful of fall by-elections, the party may be looking at a long, dry electoral season.For many Canadians the most memorable post-leadership Singh sighting to date has been his public engagement last month to fashion designer Gurkiran Kaur. (A number of media organizations were on hand at the leader’s invitation.)It has never been easy — notwithstanding the Justin Trudeau exception — for a third party leader to establish a strong presence on Parliament Hill or in the national media. On that score Singh faces the extra challenge of not having a seat in the House of Commons.The fact that the rookie leader’s inner circle is made up of outsiders with uneven federal experience compounds that challenge. In both cases Singh is making a virtue of necessity. There are no obvious vacant seats he could take a potentially winning run for. And with the party in power in the two westernmost provinces and an election set for the spring in Ontario, many of the veteran strategists the federal party would normally rely on are otherwise occupied.But it also does not help that Singh has been fudging the party’s position on top-of-mind issues, such as the balance to be achieved, if any, between pipelines and a carbon-pricing climate change strategy.The NDP spent the last federal campaign making the case that it was ready to govern the country. But faced with feuding New Democrat governments in Alberta and British Columbia, he has decided the best part of valour is ob ...