Compare NDP platform and Socialist Manifesto ideas and it’ll become clear where disconnect is. All the parties shifted to the right on political spectrum, with NDP firmly planted at the centre now rather than being to the left. And since we’re voting on right-of-centre parties might as well go all out and vote cons, which is what happened. Pelple asked for off-centre solutions NDP did not have them.
Zohran Mamdani’s shown in New York that strong, left-leaning policies that benefit the working class are popular. If the Canadian NDP can learn from that, maybe they’ll make a come back – they need bolder policies, a bigger comprehensive vision, and to avoid getting mired in divisive identity politics.
My guess is that they won’t though. Instead we’ll get more of the same demographic-based stuff. The NDPs survival depends on the Liberals stuffing up enough to alienate left-leaning moderates.
The NDP’s big wins in the last parliament were pharmacare and dental care. So I disagree that they’ve gotten “mired in identity politics”.
Besides, standing up for the human rights and welfare of, say, trans people, indigenous people, or people in Gaza, this is standing up for the human rights and welfare of all of us. Maybe they just need to make that connection clearer.
they need bolder policies, a bigger comprehensive vision, and to avoid getting mired in divisive identity politics.
You focused on the second part of OPs message, when the first part is more interesting I think.
Small incremental gains, like in pharma and dental, are good to show the NDP’s usefulness but they aren’t a “bigger comprehensive vision”.
The NDP needs a bold vision of the scale of the Leap Manifesto or the Green New Deal.
That would be great too!
However, to be clear, Mamdani’s proposals are things like publicly-owned grocery stores and free buses—these are tangible cost-of-living benefits that also happen to align with a greater socialist project.
It is great and necessary to have that broader vision, of course. But being able to articulate tangible, easy-to-understand benefits is also important. The right is very good at making up spooky campfire stories about ‘eating the bugs’ or ‘you will all lose your jobs’ or ‘everything will cost more’.
We need both things. Anyway, I was mostly responding to the notion that identity politics is a) divisive and b) not part of a comprehensive vision.
they need bolder policies, a bigger comprehensive vision, and to avoid getting mired in divisive identity politics
Exactly this. It feels like they’ve fallen into the trap of trying to appeal to a bunch of small demographics with targeted policies and actions. The Liberals and Conservatives can make that work because they just want to win, and they have a brand.
The NDP seems to be more about moving the Overton window. If they want to do that, they need to speak to a much wider swath of the Canadian population.
What do you mean by identity politics?
Not the OP but I kinda agree, the conservatives constantly drive wedge issues based on people’s identity: racial, gender, religious, immigrant…
The answer to all of these isn’t to get caught up in individual debates but to say that we are all together in this and everyone is entitled to live their lives how they wish in Canada, then we continue talking about the real issue: class warfare.
Gay, straight, Hindu, we’re all working class vs. the capitalist ruling class. We have more in common with each other than we’ll ever have with the economic lords ruling over the fiefdoms that control every aspect of our lives.
So the Conservatives were doing identity politics, not the NDP.
The NDP are well aware of the wealth gap and the class divide. They’ve been fighting for not only eliminating the gaps in the rights and freedoms of certain groups, as it should, but also fighting to make sure the wealthiest Canadians pay their fair share. That companies that profited from the pandemic pay a windfall tax, that we tackle the housing crisis with new ideas, and they introduced bills to improve on the coverage of healthcare. But these ideas were not popular with the Liberals or especially the Conservatives. They only managed to pass a couple by making compromises with the Liberals since they were a minority government.
I do agree and support the NDP but sadly there are a lot of working class people that turn to the conservatives because of social issues, and are turned off from the NDP for “virtue signaling” etc.
Being more neutral (but firm about human rights) and not dwelling on those topics (i.e. not allowing the conservatives to drive the political narrative), would help
So we’re supposed to cater to bigots now to get their votes ?
Those bigots are affected by the negatives of neoliberalism and they’re on the same team as us, we’re not enabling or supporting their bigotry we’re just not allowing bigoted conversations to dominate the political landscape.
Bigoted opinions need to stop being the core political issues we’re discussing. Why does everyone care that trans kids are allowed to play sports? Reframe politics to focus on cost of living, wealth inequality, and the active destruction of the environment by capitalism. Those are the big issues of today, as long as you don’t let conservatives make it about something else to distract you
Imo it’s messaging. I know NDP will do better things cause of their philosophy, but when I went to their website last election, they didn’t have a good platform.
The most noticeable thing on their website was their donation section, which was so uninspiring.
I want them to talk about aggressive wealth taxes and taking on privatization, whatever they had last election wasn’t that at all.
It should be noted that the NDP leadership election isn’t till Mar.29 2026. The party seems extra directionless till then.
Jagmeet had some merits as a politician, but they really need to pick a leader as a leader.
I don’t like how they reduced Zohran success to being a populist. Politicians are inherently populist to some large degree it’s their approach that separates them.
Populist positions typically bear fruit when it comes to fundraising, Grenier said, nodding to democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary.
they reduced Zohran success to being a populist
Which perfectly encapsulates why NDP is losing popularity. Zohran isn’t popular… his policies are.
NDP is LPC-lite. No calories. No flavour. No fucking point in voting for them.
Why do people keep saying this?
Just because they had to work with the Liberals and make compromises to pass their programs doesn’t mean they’re LPC lite. They had no choice but to play nice with them.
Give’em a majority and see what happens. You won’t get LPC lite. You’ll get the real NDP.
Just because they had to work with the Liberals and make compromises to pass their programs doesn’t mean they’re LPC lite
That’s not at at all what I think they’re LPC-lite. It’s their culture.
They’ll get a majority when they run on policies that deserves one. Dental care and first time home buyers credits are tepid. Run on massive infrastructure investments in public transit, guaranteed housing, comprehensive healthcare, food security, and upskilling.
NDP may be it’s own party but it’s current leadership has an LPC aftertaste.
I just replied to acargitz in this same comment thread. Please go read my comment. It also answers yours at the same time.
will do
They had no choice but to play nice with them.
They could have stood up for their principles. But they didn’t, so they voted for strike breaking instead.
“Oh but then the Conservatives would win!”
Yes, and they’d have an effective fundraising foil instead of being seen as the little brother to the LPC. They chose to win the battle and lose the war.
Give’em a majority and see what happens.
They’ve done nothing to earn it, nor given me any confidence they’d know what to do with one.
They’ve done nothing to earn it, nor given me any confidence they’d know what to do with one.
Exactly. Like Jagmeet’s solution to housing was a low interest mortgage for first time home buyers… which does nothing to make down payments cheaper or rentals more affordable.
Give’em a majority and see what happens
The point of a “big comprehensive vision” is to not have to say that phrase. No “vote and you’ll see” but “vote for this to make it happen”.
I feel like they weren’t given enough attention by the media which concentrated on Poilievre, Carney and Trump because it brings in clicks and views. Jagmeet should have been more aggressive, though, to get more attention. That didn’t help them either.
During the debates, they didn’t have a lot of time to express themselves but I felt Jagmeet hit the nail on the head every time he was allowed to speak. They denounced the genocide in Gaza and called for Canada to put pressure to stop it, they brought forward new ideas to tackle the housing crisis, they wanted to tackle the increasing costs of living, improve on universal healthcare, etc. And also during the last government, near the end of the pandemic and the sudden double digit inflation and grocery store record profits, the NDP were the only ones to talk about a windfall tax. They also were the only ones that talked about having a tax for the wealthiest of Canadians.
But either nobody listens, or people forget, or maybe it’s this fucking constant bombardment of crazy news that makes people have short attention spans or something. I dunno.
I feel like they weren’t given enough attention by the media which concentrated on Poilievre, Carney and Trump.
I agree with this but IMO NDP bears some responsibility for this. Besides Jagmeet and Charlie there was hardly anyone succeeding in the “attention economy”.
NDP out west rarely has the same candidate running 2 elections in a row. NDP needs to find people who are willing to make a 10 year commitment to party participation.
The also need to shake up their events and communication campaigns. Their candidates are barely tangible people with sparse public engagement at best.
I agree that the NDP were the only party calling out the genocide in Palestine; but AFAIK they tabled no legislation to prevent Canadian participation in such things.
I want the NDP to form a government. But I don’t think that will ever happen if we don’t hold the party to a higher standard.
Cratered is relative.
They’ve stayed pretty low since 2015. The end of the Layton legacy. Their fundraising in the 2025 federal election was $3,736k, while the 2021 election had $3,994. Similarly, their Q1 and Q2 total fundraising going back five years is growing slightly.
But the following tracks with my biases:
McGrane said Canada’s National Observer’s analysis indicates the NDPs base is stagnant and it hasn’t been able to grow or expand that base since the Jack Layton and Tom Mulcair years.
“There’s a solid base of Canadians that, basically, come hell or high water, is always going to give to the federal NDP,” McGrane said. “It’s part of their identity. It’s part of how the federal NDP has become entrenched in Canadian politics. And this is, I think, part of the reason why the federal NDP isn’t going anywhere.”
