Althia Raj: NDP-Spitzenkandidaten blicken nach innen, während ihre Partei um sie herum zusammenbricht
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/ndp-leadership-candidates-look-inward-as-their-party-crumbles-around-them/article_d8271e62-7d4b-437c-aaf0-9f33a72b7558.html
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The provincial NDP parties may need to distance themselves from the federal NDP or risk getting painted with the same brush. The BC and Manitoba parties hold government and are centre left while the Alberta NDP has an outside chance and is probably centrist. The Ontario NDP is at least holding and has good representation. They are all or try to be big tent parties.
The federal NDP seems to be on the path to double down on their recent path rather than re-evaluate why they lost so much support. They lost most of the blue collar labour vote to the CPC and the moderate left to the LPC. Most of the party is now urban leftist activist types. Avi Lewis is the front runner and seems to be all in on that part of the party.
>Politics is a business of addition but this week New Democrat leadership candidates demonstrated they’re focused on subtraction.
It was clear from the start of the race that this would be a problem from the NDP, when McPherson talked about addition, and was harshly criticized by the hard left of the party for it.
>Lewis, the fundraising front-runner, seems to be modelling his campaign on the successful New York City mayoral bid of Zohran Mamdani
I can’t overstate how damaging Mamdani has been to the overall NDP psyche. None of them seem to understand why he won, but they all talk about how they need to emulate him, which is putting the horse before the wagon. Mamdani’s 3 keys to victory were: running against a sex pest, being charismatic, and moderating his message to appeal to more people. The NDP will not even be able to fulfill a single one of those, nor will they even attempt it.
The remaining federal NDP base seem to think campaigning against every private industry which employ the vast majority of Canadians is a successful strategy. I suppose not many of the remaining base work or speak to those who work in private industry.
The problem with this narrative is it’s trying to have it both ways. The current leadership candidates ARE a departure from Singh’s era, whether people want to admit it or not. They are in the process of changing what hasn’t been working. So how can it be that the party is crashing around them? The party already crashed, that’s why they’re pivoting. This headline makes it seem like the candidates are responsible for Singh. That’s just not fair or true.
The fact of the matter is whatever the NDP looks like under the next leader may also fail to resonate, but it’s clear the approaches of all the candidates are alternatives to the tiktok pandering Singh focused on instead of good policy.
The NDP doesn’t need to form government, but they need to secure a vote share across line/con lines to influence Parliament properly and balance out the other two’s tendency to dump all the costs on working people instead of taxing the rich, the obvious thing we need to do after they’ve had a free ride without contributing (and no, they aren’t „providing“ jobs)
I will pleased to see the next version of the party embrace more economic policy, because there’s no shortage of good ideas available and we need to dispel the very wrong myth that conservatives are good with public money (they are objectively NOT responsible or ethical). It may take some time, but it’s important to start now to be back that narrative because it really is harmful to our society when any kind of public spending is looked upon as bad or not needed. To be clear, there are plenty of things the government spends money on that maybe they shouldn’t or they need to reassess, but these repeated lies about fiscal responsibility has stalled Canada and society