OTTAWA—Jagmeet Singh is working for free.

The federal NDP leader — who isn’t on the public payroll because he remains unelected — has never drawn a salary from his party and doesn’t intend to receive a paycheque until its finances “significantly” improve, his press secretary says.

James Smith disclosed the leader’s lack of compensation when asked about Singh’s donations to the NDP since he made the jump from Queen’s Park to federal politics last year. Financial returns to Elections Canada show Singh donated $10 on Aug. 16, 2017: $5 to his own leadership campaign and $5 to the party. They were the only contributions Singh made to the NDP since the 2015 federal election.

By contrast, Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer have donated more than $100 per month since at least the beginning of 2017, Elections Canada records show. Because of their positions in Parliament — as prime minister and opposition leader — Trudeau’s salary is $350,000 while Scheer earns about $260,000 per year. An MP will earn about $176,000 this year.

Singh, however, doesn’t have a seat in the House of Commons and has never committed to running before the 2019 election. The 39-year-old criminal defence lawyer was an Ontario MPP from 2011 to last October, when he resigned his seat after winning the federal leadership.

Discussions were held in the months since on how the party could pay its leader without a seat, and the idea was that he would receive the equivalent of an MP’s salary, Smith explained.

At least one other party would have considered a similar arrangement: the Conservative party constitution says a leader who doesn’t sit in Parliament can draw an MP-equivalent salary from the party.

But at some point this spring, Singh opted to forgo regular paycheques while the NDP strives for stronger financial footing, Smith said. The party does cover Singh’s expenses, such as when he travels for NDP business, but otherwise Singh lives off his personal finances, Smith said.

“The leader has decided to not receive a salary until the party is in a significantly improved financial situation,” Smith said.

“We are moving in that direction,” he added, without providing specific figures.

Earlier this year, at the NDP’s national convention in Ottawa, then-treasurer Tania Jarzebiak painted a dire portrait of what she called the party’s “precarious financial state.” The NDP’s annual budget had plummeted from $18 million in 2015 to just $6 million last year, she said. The party also had more than $3 million in debt left over from the 2015 election, when the NDP fell from its historic high-water mark as the official opposition and was relegated to third place in the House of Commons.

The party’s fundraising also fell sharply after the election — from $18.6 million in 2015 to $5.4 million in 2016, according to Elections Canada — and part of Singh’s strength for many observers during last year’s leadership campaign was his record of bringing in money. During the race, Singh raked in $1.04 million in donations — almost as much as his three opponents combined, according to their campaign returns filed with Elections Canada.

The party raised almost $1.4 million in the first quarter of 2018, with Singh as leader, compared with roughly $910,000 for the same time period in 2017.

As for Singh’s donation habits, Smith said they could change if he agrees to take a salary or if he runs and wins a seat — and the paycheques that come with it — before the next election.

In the meantime, Singh is urging the party rank-and-file to open their wallets.

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“There are so many people counting on us — and we owe it to them to keep up our work,” Singh wrote to supporters last Friday, during the final push of the spring fundraising season.

“Will you give $5, or whatever you can, to make sure we can spend this summer doing this critical work?”

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