NDP leadership candidates (left to right) Rob Ashton, Tanille Johnston, Avi Lewis, Heather McPherson and Tony McQuail in Montreal in November, 2025.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
The NDP should have a singular focus for the short- and medium-term: finding a way back to official party status. Everything else can come later. In fact, everything else will only come later if the NDP is once again a party with at least 12 seats in the House of Commons. That official party status will unlock desperately needed funds for a starving party: more than $1.1-million, for example, for a party leader’s office budget. There’s another million and change for research. Money for technology, printing and travel. Plus dedicated spots on parliamentary committees, and daily questions during Question Period. A political party needs those things to get its message out, to fundraise, and to grow.
Without official party status, the NDP will continue to languish as a fringe voice in Parliament, and even more so if and when Prime Minister Mark Carney gets his majority government. In that scenario, not only will the NDP be a broke bystander with a very perfunctory role in Parliament, but one that no longer holds the balance of power.
That’s why, in considering its next leader, the party membership would be wise to think first and foremost of who can get them those extra five seats, and from where. How can the party win back the longtime NDP stronghold of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski in northern Manitoba, but also progressive Burnaby Central in B.C., industrial Windsor West in Ontario, and at the same time try to reclaim any presence in Quebec? (That latter effort will be even more difficult if the party’s last remaining Quebec MP, Alexandre Boulerice, makes the move to Québec Solidaire to run in the upcoming provincial election.) Is there anyone in the running who can appeal to both blue-collar workers and white-collar progressives – in both French and English – espousing the kind of policy pragmatism that has earned the NDP electoral success provincially?
NDP leadership candidates to pitch plans for rebuilding party at second debate
There were clues during last week’s only English language debate before the leadership vote (that is, the only official English language debate; the previous French language debate was more of an English debate with a French vocabulary cheat sheet). The frontrunner, Avi Lewis, used his time there to accuse Mr. Carney of wanting to turn Canada into “a militarized petro state, a junior arms dealer on the world stage.” He also suggested Canada should create “a public option for groceries, cellphones, internet connection, [and] a public bank through Canada Post.”
Tanille Johnston, a social worker running to lead the party, expressed bewilderment that the Prime Minister wants to invest in “freaking pipelines and mines and things that aren’t going to bring money to our economy now.” Farmer Tony McQuail said he probably will never be able to speak French fluently, but added that he does “speak better with Mother Nature than a good many people.”
Heather McPherson, the only candidate with a seat in Parliament, was more grounded in her remarks (though she rather baselessly accused Mr. Carney of failing to defend Canada’s public health care system), but she was unable to mount a meaningful defence of her party’s unpopular decision to sign a supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals, and her support for that agreement under the leadership of Jagmeet Singh. She also struggled to explain why she is not more fluent in French despite years in Parliament.
Rob Ashton, a former dockworker and union leader from B.C., probably has the most mainstream appeal. He can speak the language of both progressives and of blue-collar workers, often marrying them in a single sentence (“Climate action needs to be centred on workers and Indigenous people,” he said during the debate, in reference to his support of expanding the Port of Churchill in Manitoba.) But he doesn’t speak the language of roughly 21 per cent of the population, most of whom are of course in Quebec. And what kind of shot would the NDP have at revival if it has little, or no, support in Quebec?
That leaves the NDP with … not great options (which is terrible news for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, along with the NDP). An ideal candidate would be able to pull back some of the more centrist NDP voters who lent their support to Mr. Carney during the last election (the ones who believe Canada is becoming a militarized petro state likely never left) and earn back support from young people and union workers who switched over to the Conservatives during the last campaign. But someone who can do that – and also speak French – isn’t on the ballot to become the next leader of the NDP. That means the road back to official party status will be a treacherous one for the NDP, regardless of who takes the helm. That said, some paths are filled with more obstacles – cluster-munitions, perhaps; the kind found in militarized states – than others.