The Grinch Who Stole Tom Mulcair's Christmas

The Liberals have already done it and it paid off handsomely but if any party is in need of a generational facelift surely it's the New Democrats who are languishing badly under 'Mulcair Heir of Layton.'

In a year-end interview with Maclean's, Mulcair's message to the party faithful is that "I'm not going anywhere without a push." With the party's mid-election collapse and worsening poll numbers since the Liberal government came to power, Mulcair might find that push waiting for him underneath the tree on Christmas morning.

According to CBC News:

Surveys conducted since the election peg the party to have between 12 and 16 per cent support. That puts the NDP back about a decade. Jack Layton's worst electoral performance was 15.7 per cent of the vote — in 2004.

And after leading both Trudeau and Stephen Harper, who held the job at the time, Tom Mulcair is now the choice as the best person to be prime minister of just 12 to 13 per cent of Canadians, the lowest the NDP leader has scored in Nanos Research's leadership polling since taking over the party in early 2012.

Support for the New Democrats has fallen in every part of the country, including Quebec. The polls put the New Democrats at between 11 and 19 per cent in that province, and only in British Columbia has any poll put the NDP above 20 per cent support. Some polls have even put the party in single digits in some parts of the country.

In calamity there often is opportunity if the beset are wise enough to reach for it. Last week I argued that it's time for generational change across the spectrum of Canadian politics. If there was ever a party in need of an evening of its political keel, in this case a return to the Left, it's the NDP and what better way to usher that in but generational renewal.