Hamish Telford doesn’t envy whoever is elected next leader of the federal NDP. Read More
Douglas Todd: Debate within the battered left-wing NDP is over whether to go all out to attract disparate groups or focus on winning back blue-collar workers
Douglas Todd: Debate within the battered left-wing NDP is over whether to go all out to attract disparate groups or focus on winning back blue-collar workers
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Hamish Telford doesn’t envy whoever is elected next leader of the federal NDP.
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The University of Fraser Valley political scientist is likely not the only one who feels for the next person to head the flagging left-wing party.
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The two front-running candidates, Telford said, are “idealistic” former journalist Avi Lewis, who is based in Metro Vancouver, and “pragmatic” Edmonton MP Heather McPherson. Montreal activist Yves Engler and Rob Ashton, a Vancouver union leader, are also throwing in their hats.
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The NDP, which under Jagmeet Singh propped up former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal minority government, was pummelled in the April 28 election — reduced to seven seats and losing official party status.
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The NDP increasingly lacks a core identity and a reliable constituency, say Telford and political scientist Shinder Purewal of Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
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So battle lines are being drawn. Some NDP executives aim to rejuvenate the party through new leadership nomination rules, trying to appeal to disparate groups.
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In contrast, the NDP’s interim leader, Don Davies (MP Vancouver Kingsway), believes the party has lost touch with working-class voters by focusing on symbolic debates over “identity politics,” rather than everyday financial challenges.
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“When we’re talking about drag reading in libraries or trans women in sports, I don’t think we’re talking about the real issues most working people are struggling with. Can they pay their rent? Can they buy a house? Can they buy groceries?” Davies said.
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Purewal is skeptical about the way some in the party of Prairie populist Tommy Douglas — who was steeped in the principles of social democracy, organized labour and class fairness — are trying to build its future.
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Too many within the NDP are “now catering to a coalition of psychological identities,” said Purewal. “For the NDP, artificially constructed ethnic boundaries are more important than the bread-and-butter issues of the people.”
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With its nomination rules, the party is mandating that candidates have to show that, of the 500-member signatures required for their nomination, at least 100 are from “equity-seeking groups, including but not limited to racialized members, Indigenous members, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community and persons living with disabilities.”
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Meanwhile, the NDP nomination committee specifies that “at least 50 per cent of the total required signatures must be from members who do not identify as a cis man.” The term “cis man” refers to people assigned male at birth based on their biological sex who as adults continue to identify as men.