NDP needs a fresh start
The cameras will all be on Thomas Mulcair as New Democrats gather in Edmonton next weekend to refight their party’s disastrous 2015 election campaign and weigh his leadership. But the real question delegates must face is an existential one. The NDP is at a crossroads as it looks to rebuild after a shattering defeat. It needs a fresh start.
Whither the party of Tommy Douglas, David Lewis, Ed Broadbent, Audrey McLaughlin, Alexa McDonough and Jack Layton? The answer matters. Having two progressive federal parties, the Liberals and NDP, putting forward competing agendas has served the country well by nudging public policy in a socially just and responsible direction.
Will the New Democrats continue to pursue Layton’s centrist, fiscally conservative approach to taxation and spending, while repackaging their messaging and policies to compete with the Liberals for centre-left votes as the Liberal honeymoon gradually wears off? Or will the party stake its fortunes on boldly repositioning itself to the left of the Liberals at the risk of marginalizing itself?
Ironically, the party will be voting on Mulcair before it grapples with the bigger question. The vote in Edmonton will be the party’s judgment on whether Mulcair has the social-democratic chops, vision and energy to market the party as Canada’s genuinely progressive option, to rebuild its coffers and win back the progressive vote — and not on whether a change of direction is needed. But some rethinking is in order. While New Democrats went into the election as front-runners, the party “failed to represent the kind of change that Canadians desired,” a party post-mortem has concluded. Its campaign was sluggish and its advertising was weak and ineffective. That’s a damning combo.
Moreover, in Justin Trudeau the NDP faced its worst nightmare: A bright, young, charismatic leader who out-campaigned Mulcair, connected with voters at a personal level and outflanked the NDP by promising to build the economy through deficit spending.
Suddenly the NDP, with its aversion to personal tax increases even for the wealthy, and to deficits even when the economy sorely needed a boost, didn’t look like the torchbearer for progressives. It certainly didn’t look like the agent of change Canadians wanted. The NDP was trounced, falling from 95 seats in Parliament and official opposition status to 44 seats and third-party status — closer to the party’s more historic level of support
In Edmonton, Mulcair hopes to win 70-per-cent support or more from the1,500 delegates. He can be grateful that despite some noisy grumbling in the ranks no NDP figure of stature has come forward to contest his leadership. Moreover, the party has never dumped a leader. And major union leaders support him.
But the NDP is mired in a deep trough, according to recent polls. And some contend that it has lost its moorings, drifting too far to the right.
Mulcair will get his chance to reassure his critics that he has learned from defeat; that he does have the energy to lead the party into the next campaign; and, most importantly, that he has identified the winning path to victory. If he comes up short, the party would be well served by holding a leadership campaign in which the party’s leading figures get a chance to put forward their visions for rebuilding.
The NDP isn’t short on talent, including the likes of Megan Leslie, Nathan Cullen, Niki Ashton, Peggy Nash, Peter Julian and Paul Dewar.
The NDP now recognizes that it lacked a clear, focused message in the last campaign, offering only “cautious change” when Canadians thirsted for “real change.” Capitalizing on that demand, the Liberals deftly promised middle-class tax cuts, more family benefits and strong job-creating investment in infrastructure. Even the NDP’s promises of national child-care, pharmacare, a higher federal minimum wage and increases for health-care funding failed to move the voters.
The party was also side-swiped by Quebec’s ugly niqab-ban debate. And the NDP’s unwise policy of courting Quebec nationalist votes by acquiescing to secession on a narrow 50-per-cent-plusone vote still rankles with some voters elsewhere. Clearly, the party has room to reinvent itself. Inevitably, much of the excitement in Edmonton will centre on Mulcair’s fate. But beyond that, New Democrats have soul-searching to do. It will take more than a leadership vote to restore their fortunes.
New Democrats are at a crossroads as they look to rebuild after a shattering election defeat in 2015