Once an issue hits the suburbs, federal politicians tend to start paying attention—or at least they should if they have a long-term interest in staying elected. Suburbs are not only often swing ridings, but full of families, high-earning professionals, and seniors who are known to turn out to polls.

The trouble for politicians often is, by the time a historically urban crisis creeps into the suburbs, it’s festered so long, it’s now a systemic failure. This is the case with Canada’s suburban crime surge.

For years, many Canadian voters, particularly those who don’t live in cities, were willing to accept localized crime spikes in urban communities. But lately, those same crimes—from violent theft to kidnappings, homicides, gang activity, and terrorism–are making their way into quiet suburban neighbourhoods.

Municipal police forces are increasingly raising the alarm. The latest headlines out of the GTA’s York Region in particular are truly shocking. High-profile reports of home invasions, murders, and missing people, which used to be rare, are becoming more frequent.

In a recent alleged first-degree murder of a Markham realtor, the suspect successfully fled to Hong Kong in August. Border officials confirmed, “where he is after that, nobody knows.”

In July, York Region Police and the RCMP thwarted an alleged terrorist attack when they arrested two men in a Richmond Hill hotel, one of whom had previously starred in a violent ISIS propaganda film. He had recently been granted Canadian citizenship.

York Region Police also report, that since the start of this year, there’s been a 92 percent increase in shootings and a 106 percent spike in carjackings (with carjackings rising 400 per cent over five years).

York Region isn’t alone or an outlier. Last week, a small Quebec town made international headlines when a Pakistani citizen was charged by the FBI for allegedly plotting a terror attack to kill Jews in New York City on October 7, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ horrific attacks against Israel. He was found to be on a Canadian student visa.

This week, Halton Regional Police, which oversee the suburbs of Burlington, Oakville, Milton, and Halton Hills, Ont., charged and issued Canada-wide warrants for a group of Algerian nationals alleged to be part of an organized auto theft ring responsible for over 40 thefts totalling at least $3 million. Police say the suspects operated between the GTA and Quebec.

Crime is spreading across the country, including to suburbs of Calgary and even the suburbs of Halifax.

So let’s talk about the federal NDP’s recent moves in Parliament, and leader Jagmeet Singh recent “tearing up” of the two-year-old Supply and Confidence Agreement.

Let’s begin with a few opening principles, since you’re reading a piece written by a “Dipper” and that’s what we do. You have been warned.

A principle: If you can take power, you should.

That includes by winning a majority mandate in an election; or by joining a coalition government; or by negotiating a supply and confidence accord; or by attending case-by-case negotiations, with serious intent, during periods of minority government.

All of these are what former NDP leader Jack Layton would call “tools in the toolbox” to get things done—all are perfectly democratic, legitimate, and in keeping with the spirit and letter of parliamentary government.

Winning a majority in an election is the best, no doubt about it—mindful though that in our system, these are almost always “false majorities” assigning the winner far more seats than their popular vote arguably justifies. A majority helpfully puts this “efficiency” to work—in the cause of building social democracy. New Democrats know this, having governed in the Yukon, B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Nova Scotia.

But when you don’t have that luxury, then coalitions, accords, and serial parliamentary agreements are equally legitimate ways to make progress.

All of these are examples of our elected MPs doing the job they were elected to do—working together to get things done.

They are what parliamentary government is about—a majority of MPs acting together to govern, while those who don’t support their efforts  question and oppose them.

As I write, the Conservative Official Opposition complains about this. But in office, in times of need, they’d accept support from other parties after a negotiation. They did so with the Bloc Québécois for much of their last run in office, and for a time (bizarrely) worked with the Ignatieff Liberals.

So, all that said, here is my take on what the federal NDP did in the current Parliament.

They took power, because that’s what they should do.

To be more specific, they fully exercised the sliver of power the people of Canada assigned to them in two back-to-back federal elections (2019 and 2021), which involved the expenditure of hundreds of millions to persuade Prime Minister Trudeau and his minority government that if he wanted to get much done in Parliament he was going to need to talk to another party.

The result was a parliamentary accord that traded confidence and supply for policies the NDP wanted implemented.

Those included a well-functioning national dental care program that addressed a serious gap in health care, to the benefit of more than two million Canadians; an Early Learning and Child Care Act modelled on the Canada Health Act; a stronger federal labour code and better sick leave rules; an increasingly serious commitment to publicly-funded housing; a Sustainable Jobs Act angling to help workers transition to a decarbonized economy; and a $4 billion Indigenous housing program. Still percolating in Parliament was an aspirational (let’s say) tiptoe towards pharmacare; and some incrementally helpful tweaks to how elections are held to make them more accessible to more voters.

Was it worth it?

Yes it was.

These steps forward were (as Elwood Cowley, a wonderfully brilliant and sadly recently-deceased former NDP deputy premier of Saskatchewan would have put it) the “good shit we’re here to do.”

Was it the best way to do it?

We could debate that. Personally, I think the way many European parliaments do these things works better for political parties there—parties working together meet regularly throughout the term to review the “to-do” list and  keep it current, rather than expecting a negotiation to answer all questions for four years.

Then last week, it was time for the dismount. Pressure was definitely mounting on this accord.

Specifically, I can think of four pressures:

First: most of the to-do list had been done. From a governance perspective, this might have been a bit of a lost opportunity (arguably the NDP had the leverage to put even more on the table). But in the world we are in, it meant there wasn’t much left to keep the federal NDP interested in the accord.

Second: four electoral contests pressed against the accord—a provincial election in B.C.; a provincial election in Saskatchewan; a federal by-election in Winnipeg (Elmwood–Transcona); and a federal by-election in Montreal (Lasalle-Emard).

In principle, most New Democrats (and most Canadians) support the idea that MPs should work together to get things done. A recent Nanos poll showed that in principle a majority of Canadians supported this accord in particular (reported in the Globe September 5th—54 percent support, 42 percent oppose).

But voters in swing seats in B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Montreal are at least equally of a mind that it is time for a change in Ottawa.

Third: a caucus retreat was a week away.

Just a few days before the deal’s dissolution, NDP caucus was set to meet in Montreal. They would have been looking for a compelling political case to remain in the accord, given the points above. By ending the accord when they did, the federal NDP’s leadership team was instead able to lay out a plan to focus on the next election.

Which takes us to the fourth pressure: the need to focus on the next election.

Yesterday, the NDP quietly announced that Jagmeet Singh’s chief of staff, Jennifer Howard, was taking a leave from her job and would move over to the party side to get to work as national campaign director.

The next election will likely be a change election—a campaign that will require the federal NDP’s full attention, starting now.

My bet is that we’re now in for a noisier, more disorderly Parliament, and a federal election after the introduction of the Trudeau government’s next budget, this coming spring.

The clock-springs of politics will continue to turn. We’ll see what kind of government the people of Canada want next. Maybe they will be in the mood for a Tory prime minister who has never had a job outside of politics, speaks in angry nursery rhymes, and has dreamed about dismantling their public services since he was a schoolboy. Or maybe, they will prove to be in the mood for a better progressive government than they have now.

One way or another, it is never wrong to show up to Parliament looking for ways to get the good stuff done.