Over the past months I have been sharply critical of the Federal NDP for undermining a minority Liberal government that was about to act on Aboriginal justice, environmental policy, and child care, and for the New Democrats’s subsequent support of the Harper Tories. It appears I’m not alone in this concern.

James Travers of The Toronto Star is talking about the “death spiral� of the NDP as we move into 2007. At stake is a move toward a two-party system in Canada.

I’m convinced that a two-party system wouldn’t be an improvement to the quality of democracy in Canada, though it would produce majority governments and displace some of the sense of injustice that our “first past the post� electoral system induces. How can the NDP, in this light, protect not only itself, but also continue to secure our party system?

The errors of the Federal and Ontario wings of the NDP are not, in my view, new. Despite these, many Canadians have high regard for those who successfully and more often than not unsuccessfully carry the standard for the party.

Indeed, while not always, or indeed in some cases ever, voting for them, the majority of Canadians respect the progressive legislation they have spawned, which is envied around the world. The party has considerable political capital upon which to draw, though it’s in danger these days of draining it. To see why they’re in difficulty, it’s useful to review the roots of the party and the manner in which it has managed to shed its strengths.



Shooting at the wrong goal

The CCF/NDP was built on an alliance of farmers, labourers, and academics. In the attempt, however, to seek a profile that they believed would win majority governments in Ontario and Canada, it first shed some of its brightest lights with a purge of the Waffle, those more left leaning nationalist intellectuals that animated universities across the country 35 years ago.

Then, through three leadership contests, while electing some fine individuals, it left the progressive farming community behind. Most recently, it has begun to sever its ties with labour.

These moves were, in my view, grounded in the mistaken belief that being the conscience of the nation and the source of some of its best policies was simply not enough. The Federal and Ontario party wings believe, it appears, that appealing to the electorate required the view that the party was just a step away from taking power.

Instead, the truth is that many Canadians vote NDP simply because they wished progressively to influence the direction of the country and understood that they could do so more effectively voting NDP than by supporting other parties, even when this meant not forming government.

How to recover from its current malaise is fairly clear to see, though not easy to achieve. The party must continue to stand for green policies and for an independent foreign policy, with a peacekeeping core. But these should no longer be the mainstay of its approach in the House or its appeal to the electorate.

These issues no longer have the ability to rally people under the NDP banner. Instead, the party needs to go back to its roots: to standing up for the abjectly poor; for progressive international economic development; for Western farmers (though they have effectively been beaten on the Wheat Board issue by the Liberals); for cooperative models of development; for working women and men, both in and outside of unions; for the various communities of the marginalized; for an independent economic and trade policy; and, as a centering umbrella, championing the need of municipalities for a significantly larger share of the pie.

The NDP’s current attempt to win government at the Federal level or, worse still, to collaborate with the Conservatives in the hope of “making a difference�, is inauthentic. Canadians know this and appealing to them on this basis simply undermines what should be the party’s core message.

The federal party needs to concentrate on winning progressive, competitive seats on the grounds of its traditional message of being Canada’s voice for economic justice. The future of our party system and the quality of democracy in Canada may depend on them doing so.