Then-NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh addresses supporters on election night in Burnaby, B.C., on April 28. The NDP lost 17 of their 24 incumbent seats in the election.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
New Democrats went into the federal election earlier this year feeling that the odds were against them, given the dynamics of a race that sidelined their party, according to a wide-ranging report on the NDP’s poor performance.
The review-and-renewal report by Ottawa lawyer Emilie Taman, a former NDP candidate, says New Democrats concluded that voters had adopted a “Trump/Carney/Poilievre” mindset before the campaign began in March and that the party was ill-equipped to deal with it.
“We heard that the NDP did not effectively counter this frame, failed to articulate its own theory of change and did not manage to assert its message on priorities like housing and affordability,” says the report, which the party released Friday.
Ms. Taman writes that New Democrats told her, during research across Canada between July and November, that the party missed opportunities to better establish its identity ahead of the election.
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Now, the report says, the NDP has ideas on how to deal with that challenge in the future.
“They urged the party to present a crisp, values-driven story months in advance, reconnect with working-class voters and articulate what differentiates the NDP on issues like affordability, public services and the environment in the months and years which precede an election,” according to the report.
New Democrats, it says, are looking for “unapologetically progressive messaging” that would motivate prospective candidates, volunteers and donors.
And it says the party has forgotten how to communicate with working-class voters.
“One of the most consistent themes was that the party’s language often feels exclusionary, academic, or moralizing,” says the report.
“People we spoke to were clear that labour is not rejecting equity as a foundational principle and priority. They are saying the party communicates in ways that obscure material issues and alienates the very people equity is meant to include.”
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In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Ms. Taman said the question among New Democrats is why they were not seen as being on the menu to deal with the issue of the United States under President Donald Trump.
“The sense was that the party wasn’t seen, it seems, and this is what people were hearing, as being a credible option to stand up to Donald Trump,” she said.
Part of the issue, she said, is that the federal NDP has never been in government.
The NDP suffered historic defeat in the April vote, losing 17 of 24 incumbent seats, and only securing 6.3 per cent of the national vote compared with 17.8 per cent in the 2021 election. At this point, there are seven NDP MPs among 343 in the Commons.
Then-party leader Jagmeet Singh lost his seat in Burnaby, B.C., resigned his post on election night and the New Democrats lost official party status in the Commons.
The report’s prescriptions for NDP recovery include an urgent move to hire a professional fundraising director.
Ms. Taman says in the report that the party inexplicably lacks a full-time fundraising program and has failed to adequately prioritize and invest in fundraising. “Fundraising was described as inefficient, outdated and under-resourced. The party is leaving substantial money on the table.”
In the interview with The Globe, Ms. Taman said the fundraising piece of the report is significant.
“It’s more important than ever to be building up a resource base to allow the party to do the work that people suggested they could be doing better,” she said.
“Fundraising is a profession. There are more and more people with lots of expertise in fundraising across a wide range of sectors, so that’s something I hope they will seriously look at,” she said.
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Her report also suggests building “limited flexibility” into the party’s equity requirements to help expedite the nomination of candidates.
As it stands, the party had goals of achieving gender parity and at least 30-per-cent racialized candidates being nominated for the spring election.
“Equity considerations should be maintained but with a reasonable degree of flexibility to ensure that nominations are timely, and the party doesn’t miss out on great candidates, particularly in the next election cycle,” Ms. Taman wrote in the report.
“To be clear, the party’s equity requirements are rarely, if ever, the cause of delays, and it is a myth that prioritizing equity reduces the quality of candidates.”
On leadership, the report says the focus of the campaign was too much on Mr. Singh and not enough on the rest of the NDP team and the ideas of the campaign.
New Democrats felt the emphasis should be on the party leader as more of a spokesperson for the values and policy priorities of the party rather than a personality.
Ms. Taman’s research included one-on-one meetings with more than 60 former and current MPs, candidates, representatives of Electoral District Associations and party executives, as well as about 30 group discussions with campaign managers, candidates and others.
She also worked through 3,500 survey responses and 500 e-mails from party members.
Ms. Taman said the ideas in the report should be the foundation for debates within the party that she expects will occur ahead of a party convention in Winnipeg next March, as well as in the continuing party leadership race that ends at the convention with the announcement of a winner.
She said she has briefed the NDP federal council and Interim Leader Don Davies on the report.
“In terms of the briefing, I got some really good questions,” she said.