Locked out International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 port workers and supporters at a rally in Vancouver in 2024. Recent Pollara data found that nearly half of the electorate – 46 per cent – would consider voting for the party today.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
David Moscrop is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Since its inception, the New Democratic Party – and the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation before it – has been the party of the working class. You can take issue with how the NDP has undertaken that duty, particularly in recent years, but in the federal parliamentary firmament, the NDP shines when it stands up for workers.
In the aftermath of the April election that decimated the caucus and cost the party official status, the NDP faces an existential question about how to move forward. What should it be: a progressive voice in the modern sense seeking to expand its reach in Canada’s cities, or a champion of class-based politics? Can it be both?
As the NDP prepares to choose its next leader in March, supporters appear enthused by the prospect of a return to party roots. Recent data from Pollara found that Rob Ashton, the 30-year longshoreman and president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada whose leadership campaign has made him the avatar of the country’s working class, is exciting Canadians who are tuned in to the race. According to the polling firm, his campaign launch video connected with working-class voters who “saw him as a candidate speaking directly to frustration with political elites,” particularly with those who are open to joining the party.
Connecting with the working class is especially crucial for the NDP now, but also in the years to come. For too many Canadians, the economic and social order feels like a game whose rules are known only by a privileged few. These are the same folks who may indeed wonder if the game – the system itself – is rigged outright. As Pollara’s Matt Smith writes, Mr. Ashton “channels the populist, working-class current that still wants the party to fight the system, not join it.”
Canada is plagued by poor productivity, as well as by a private market full of oligopolies and corporate rent-seekers that would apparently prefer to coast in captured industries than compete and innovate. And if, in the process, these corporations are able to keep labour power at bay, well, all the better for them.
Rob Ashton is leveraging his organized labour background in the NDP’s leadership race.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
For those who feel that they’re getting a raw deal, particularly those in the electorally crucial federal ridings dominated by working-class Canadians who’ve drifted from the NDP to the Conservative Party in recent years – think of Southwestern Ontario – Mr. Ashton’s approach represents a breath of fresh air. Last week, he shared his “Worker Power Plan” in which he promised spots on corporate boards for employees, something former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole ran on in 2021. The five-point plan also includes pledges to make it easier to join a union, to repeal section 107 of the Labour Code, to introduce sectoral bargaining, and to end the temporary foreign worker program.
With a roving trailer of tools, toys and tires, this program introduces kids to skilled trades
Pollara found that while the NDP received a mere 6 per cent of the vote share in April’s election, nearly half the country – 46 per cent – would consider voting for the party today. The 2025 race was polarized between the Liberals and Conservatives; it was a contest in which, from pillar to post, a plurality of the electorate was focused on returning a parliament and government that could manage the moment, particularly the menacing Donald Trump.
It was a shocking time. But after the shock comes the plan, and after that, the pushback. Under Mark Carney, Canada is pursuing a diversified international trade strategy, greater internal trade, and a surge in domestic major projects. Workers and consumers will be at the forefront of overlapping structural changes, for better or worse. When you tack on the rise of AI and the uncertainties accompanying climate change and an evolving but uncertain global geopolitical order, those same workers and consumers will quite reasonably worry about their long-term well-being. The NDP would do well to thoroughly position itself as the party that has their back.
There’s a long four months to go before the NDP chooses a new leader. Mr. Ashton is a political newcomer and isn’t well known – but then, none of the candidates are. Each has room to grow, but their reach and success will depend upon how their energy, tone, and message square with the moment and what follows. For Canadians who feel the pressures of the affordability crisis amid uncertainties around AI and the U.S.’s trade warfare with the world, a sledgehammer-carrying candidate like Mr. Ashton is likely to be more appealing than one who shows up with a scalpel.
The NDP should grow its support among the working class, even if it comes at the cost of chasing urban elites. That’s where Mr. Ashton – and the party – can shine.