Finally, the issues facing working Canadians must be at the forefront of Singh’s approach in the run up to the election. This is not only because a strong relationship with organized labour is integral to the NDP’s success in ridings across the country, but because Trudeau has multiple weaknesses on this front, whereas Singh and his caucus have been hammering these issues over the past months and years.

First, there is the reality that this government — despite warnings from the experts and union representatives — turned on the Phoenix pay system in 2016, leading to tens of thousands of workers suffering due to inaccurate, inadequate, or delayed pay. This isn’t merely a technical issue: it speaks to the hypocrisy of this government, which speaks to the essentiality of a stable middle class, but whose administrative failures have hung out middle-class public servants. The NDP should commit to a vision for the public service where such decisions aren’t made in direct confrontation with workers’ desires, and that the accurate and timely payment of public servants is one of the government’s primary task. Likewise, the Liberals’ desire to demand real-wage decreases from public servants, at a time when the economy is supposedly strong, can and should be challenged by Singh and company

Second comes the Trudeau government’s disregard for the basic Charter Rights of federal public sector workers, namely members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). Here, Singh has a prime opportunity to underline to workers that while both the Liberals and Tories put the demands of Amazon ahead of fundamental human rights, the NDP is the only official party standing with working people here, and will be the only one that defends the Charter when it pertains to the right to strike and bargain collectively.

Finally, the issue of pensions looms large in Canada, both because young people are finding them increasingly elusive, but because many companies are using our bankruptcy processes to escape responsibility to retirees in terms of pensions and benefits. As we saw during the Sears Canada closure, pensions of retirees — which are essentially deferred wages — were gobbled up so that executives and investors could be given golden parachutes. The Liberals and Tories want to preserve a system where billions can be paid out to the corporate elite, and where stock flippers jump the cue in front of workers who have invested decades in service to the firm. Singh can and must point to the fact that the NDP — represented by the work of Scott Duvall — stands alone in a commitment to protect the dignified retirements that regular Canadians have worked so hard for.