Is this really the end of the federal NDP? Reports of its demise may be greatly exaggerated
[The following piece was originally published in Canada’s National Observer here.]
The eulogies for the federal NDP have come fast and furious since the April 28 election. “It’s not too soon to start gathering notes for an obituary,” opined a sneering Globe and Mail editorial the following weekend, with numerous other mainstream pundits offering similar assessments. With the Liberals and Conservatives both securing more than 40 per cent of the popular vote this election for the first time in decades, and the NDP reduced to just seven MPs and losing official party status, many are suggesting that Canada may now be moving to a two-party system, much like our American neighbours.
Not so fast.
We will not stand up to the US by becoming more like the US, least of all by replicating their two-party system. Indeed, it is our multi-party system – particularly when the federal NDP was in a position of strength – that has won us some of the key programs, policies and institutions that differentiate us from the US, not least public health care, equality rights, labour rights, paid parental leave, medical assistance in dying, or decisions to stay out of foreign wars like Vietnam and Iraq.
As the new Carney-led government takes shape, it is quickly becoming apparent that Carney will govern to the right of the Trudeau Liberals, which potentially opens up political terrain for a revived NDP.
Either by ideological orientation and/or in a political attempt to peel support from the Conservatives, the new Liberal government is rapidly implementing what have until now been Conservative policies: restoring the 50 per cent exclusion rate for capital gains taxes and an across-the-board tax cut that will bestow the greatest benefit to the wealthiest; ending the consumer carbon tax; tightening up immigration levels and reversing promises to regularize migrant workers; and increasing spending on the military and law enforcement.
The Carney government surprised many when it recently confirmed it was in discussions with the US administration about Trump’s idea for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system. Writing in the Globe and Mail, former Liberal foreign policy minister Llyod Axworthy rightly called the plan a “cockamamie idea… that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars, turbocharge a dangerous arms race in space, and entangle us in a sprawling and speculative technological morass.” Axworthy decried engagement with the Trump administration on the scheme as “a betrayal of the vision Canadians [just] voted for.”
For those of us in the climate movement, it’s already feeling like this defining fight of our lives is getting short shrift from the new Carney government, having received only scant mention – “We will fight climate change” – at the end of the Prime Minister’s single mandate letter to his new cabinet.
Listening to Tim Hodgson, the new federal minister of energy and natural resources – and arguably the cabinet minister with the closest relationship to the prime minister – does not bode well. Last week, echoing long-standing talking points from the oil sands, Hodgson told a business audience in Calgary, “Energy is Canada's power. … Every barrel of responsibly produced Canadian oil and every kilowatt of clean Canadian power can displace less clean, riskier energy elsewhere in the world. Our exports can help our allies break dependence on authoritarian regimes and help the world reduce our emissions.” Uh oh. If this view holds sway, the Carney government is about to take us backwards on climate policy.
In an era in which the economic and political might of oligarchic corporations is defining our lives, is this new Liberal government prepared to actually take on corporate power, from the fossil fuel corporations to corporate landlords and mega grocery chains? Will it truly do what it takes to confront the climate crisis? I’d say the odds are slim. And if not, the political space to do so will be vacant.
That’s a gift for the federal NDP, but only if it is prepared to audaciously claim the space.
The forthcoming NDP leadership race will be a battle for the soul and rebirth of the party. Will it see the party continue its long march towards centrist “respectability” and “pragmatism,” or will it see the re-emergence of a proudly left party that seeks to confront corporate power and build public wealth? Will it see a move towards restored grassroots democracy, less centralization, and a casting out of the corporate and fossil fuel lobbyists who have long dominated the party’s backrooms, or will it see these interests reassert and consolidate their grip?
Some of those fossil fuel-connected insiders and pundits blame the NDP’s poor outcome, at least in part, on a purported abandonment of working people by becoming too green and opposing fossil fuel projects. Nonsense. The NDP should absolutely re-assert itself as the defender of working people. But in a world in which declining fossil fuels is inevitable, the party will most fruitfully defend fossil fuel workers and communities by refusing to consign them to the scrapheap of history – by pressing for robust just transition plans that genuinely leave no one behind.
The NDP’s curse hasn’t been that it’s too radical, but rather, that it hasn’t been radical enough; it has not brashly and unabashedly defended its views in nearly the way we have seen from the new Conservatives and far right. Having failed to truly distinguish themselves from the Liberals, it wasn’t too hard a stretch for many of the NDP’s traditional voters – desperate to avoid a Poilievre win – to line up behind Carney in April. Ironically, for many, it was a frantic act to protect and preserve many of the very policies and programs for which the NDP deserve historic credit.
For now, what the NDP most needs is a truly robust race with many contenders, and a long enough timeline that those contenders are encouraged to sign up tens of thousands of new members. At this stage, however, it’s not at all clear that’s in the cards.
If we’ve learned anything in recent months, it is that politics in Canada is fantastically unpredictable. If we can get an exciting leadership race — and an exciting new leader — the NDP epitaphs will prove premature.