New Democratic Party

This page is about the Canadian political party. For other parties, see New Democratic Party (disambiguation).

The New Democratic Party (NDP; Nouveau Parti Démocratique in French) is a political party in Canada with a social democratic philosophy and moderate democratic socialist tendencies that contests elections at both the federal and provincial levels. In the Canadian House of Commons, it represents a moderate to left-wing position in the Canadian political spectrum. The leader of the federal NDP is Jack Layton. Provincial New Democratic Parties currently form the government in two provinces—Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

Principles, policies and electoral achievement

The NDP is noted for its populist, agrarian and democratic socialist roots, its affiliation with non-governmental organizations, progressive businesses, and organized labour. While the party is secular and pluralistic, it has a longstanding relationship with the Christian left and the Social Gospel movement, particularly the United Church of Canada. However, the federal party has broadened itself to include the concerns of the New Left, which advocates progressive issues such as gay rights, peace, environmental protection, and social and economic justice.

Both the provincial and federal wings of the NDP largely support the nationalization of energy industries, and to a lesser extent, the telecommunications sector. It has been responsible for several such nationalizations in the past. New Democrats also advocate, among other things, gay rights, high quality public transport, reduced post-secondary tuition fees, fully socialized healthcare, strict gun control, more progressive taxes, greater welfare benefits, gender equality, electoral reform, environmental protection, labour and Aboriginal rights, and the elimination of child poverty. The NDP has never formed the federal government, but has wielded considerable influence during federal minority governments, such as in the recently dissolved 38th Parliament and, before, the Liberal governments of Lester B. Pearson. Provincial New Democratic Parties, technically sections of the federal party, have governed several provinces and a territory. They currently govern the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, form the Official Opposition in British Columbia and Nova Scotia and have sitting members in every provincial legislature except those of Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. They have previously formed governments in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, and in Yukon territory.

The New Democrats are also active municipally, and have been elected mayors, councillors, and school and service board members — Toronto mayor David Miller is a leading example. Like most municipal office-holders in Canada, they are usually elected as independents or with autonomous municipal parties.

History

Origins and early history

The NDP was created in 1961 as a merger of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). Tommy Douglas, the long-time CCF Premier of Saskatchewan, was elected the party's first leader. In 1960, before the NDP was officially registered, one candidate, Walter Pitman, won a by-election under the New Party banner.

The influence of organized labour on the party is still reflected in the party's conventions as labour votes are scaled to 45% of the total number of ballots cast. Until 1983, the basic statement of principles of the party was embodied in the Winnipeg Declaration, which had been passed by the CCF in 1956.

Trudeau minority

Under the leadership of David Lewis (1971-1975), the NDP supported the minority government formed by Pierre Trudeau's Liberals from 1972 to 1974, although the two parties never entered into a coalition. Together they succeeded in passing several socially progressive initiatives into law such as pension indexing and the creation of the crown corporation Petro-Canada.

In 1974, the NDP worked with the Progressive Conservatives to pass a motion of non-confidence, forcing an election. However, it backfired as Trudeau's Liberals regained a majority government, mostly at the expense of the NDP, which lost half its seats. Lewis lost his own riding and resigned as leader.

Height of popularity

Under the leadership of Ed Broadbent (1975-1989), the NDP played a critical role during Joe Clark's minority government of 1979-1980, moving the no-confidence motion on John Crosbie's budget that brought down the Progressive Conservative (PC) government, and forced the election that brought Trudeau's Liberal Party back to power. In the 1984 election, which saw the Conservatives win the most seats in Canadian history, the NDP won 30 seats, only one behind the 31 it won in 1972. The Liberals had a poor showing with only 40 seats and some pundits speculated that the NDP could supplant them as the main opposition to the ruling Conservatives. Broadbent himself consistently outpolled Liberal leader John Turner and even Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

The NDP elected a record 43 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the election of 1988. The Liberals however had reaped most of the benefits in opposing free trade to emerge as the dominant alternative to the ruling government. The Conservatives' barrage of attacks on the Liberal momentum, as well as vote-splitting between the NDP and Liberals, helped them win a second consecutive majority. In 1989, Broadbent stepped down after 15 years as federal leader of the NDP. He temporarily returned from retirement and won election to Parliament in the riding of Ottawa Centre in the 2004 election. He did not run in 2006, indicating that he wanted to care for his cancer-stricken wife.

Decline under McLaughlin

Over three election cycles, under the leadership of Audrey McLaughlin (1989-1995) — the first woman to be leader of a national political party in Parliament — in the first, and Alexa McDonough (1995-2003) over the next two, the party underwent a marked decline in popularity, a modest resurgence, and a modest decline in turn.

At the party's leadership convention, former B.C. Premier Dave Barrett and Audrey McLaughlin were the main contenders for the leadership. During the campaign, Barrett argued that the party should be concerned with Western alienation, rather than focusing its attention on Quebec. The Quebec wing of the NDP strongly opposed Barrett's candidacy, with Phil Edmonston, the party's main spokesman in Quebec, threatening to resign from the party if Barrett won. Barrett's campaign was also hurt when his back-room negotiations with leadership rival Simon De Jong were inadvertently recorded by the latter's CBC microphone. In these discussions, De Jong agreed to support Barrett in exchange for being named House Leader. McLaughlin won the leadership on the fourth ballot.

Although enjoying strong support among organized labour and rural voters in the Prairies, McLaughlin tried to expand their support into Quebec without much success. In 1989, the Quebec New Democratic Party adopted a sovereigntist platform and severed its ties with the federal NDP. Under McLaughlin, the party did manage to have the first MP from Quebec elected under the NDP banner, Phil Edmonston, who won a 1990 by-election.

In a deviation from their traditional position as staunch federalists, the NDP chose to align itself with the Conservatives and Liberals on the "yes" side of the Charlottetown Accord referendum in 1992. Barrett reluctantly endorsed it to comply with party policy (he opposed the Meech Lake Accord in 1977), but later referred to the NDP's support for the Accord as a mistake. Edmonston, a Quebec nationalist, frequently clashed with his own party over this position on Canadian federalism, since he opposed decentralization and devolving powers to Quebec, and did not run for re-election.

The NDP was routed in the 1993 election. It won only nine seats, three seats short of official party status in the House of Commons. Several factors contributed to this dramatic collapse just one election after winning a record number of seats and after being first in opinion polling at one point during the previous Parliament. One was the massive unpopularity of NDP provincial governments under Bob Rae in Ontario (which was heavily defeated in 1995) and Michael Harcourt in British Columbia. The NDP was also indirectly hampered by the collapse of the PCs, who were cut down to only two seats. Exit polls showed that 17% of NDP supporters from 1988 voted Liberal in 1993. It was obvious by the beginning of October that Liberal leader Jean Chrétien would be the next prime minister. However, the memory of 1988's vote splitting combined with the tremendous antipathy toward the PCs caused NDP supporters to vote Liberal to ensure the Conservatives would be defeated. Many voters in the NDP's traditional Western heartland also switched to the right-wing Reform Party of Canada. Despite the sharp ideological differences, Reform's populism struck a chord with many NDP supporters. Barrett's warnings about Western alienation proved to be prophetic, as the rise of the Reform Party replaced the NDP as the protest voice west of Ontario.

Temporary recovery

The party recovered somewhat in the 1997 election, in which 21 New Democrats were elected. The NDP made a breakthrough in Atlantic Canada, unseating Liberal ministers David Dingwall and Doug Young. The party was able to harness the discontent of Maritime voters, who were upset over cuts to employment insurance and other programs.

Afterwards, McDonough was widely perceived as trying to move the party toward the centre of the political spectrum, in the Third Way mode of Tony Blair. Union leaders were lukewarm in their support, often threatening to break away from the NDP, while Canadian Auto Workers head Buzz Hargrove called for her resignation.

MPs Rick Laliberté and Angela Vautour crossed the floor to other parties during this term, reducing the NDP caucus to 19 seats.

In the November 2000 election, the NDP campaigned on the issue of Medicare but lost significant support. The governing Liberals had ran an effective campaign on their economic record and managed to recapture some of the Atlantic ridings lost to the NDP in the 1997 election. The initial high electoral prospects of the Canadian Alliance under new leader Stockwell Day also hurt the NDP as many supporters strategically voted Liberal to keep the Alliance from winning. The NDP finished with 13 MPs--just barely over the threshold for official party status.

The party embarked on a renewal process starting in 2000. A general convention in Winnipeg in November 2001 made significant alterations to party structures, and reaffirmed its commitment to the left. In the May 2002 by-elections, Brian Masse won the riding of Windsor West in Windsor, Ontario, previously held for decades by a Liberal, former Deputy Prime Minister Herb Gray.

Under Layton

McDonough announced her resignation as party leader for family reasons in June 2002, and was succeeded by Jack Layton. A former Toronto city councillor, Layton was elected at the party's leadership election in Toronto on January 5, 2003, defeating his nearest rival, longtime Winnipeg-area MP Bill Blaikie, on the first ballot with 43.5% of the vote.

Blaikie opposed the prominent role given to "identity politics" in the modern Canadian left, and argued that the NDP has placed an undue emphasis on "social issues" such as abortion and same-sex marriage. While Blaikie and Layton both held socially liberal views on most issues (and, indeed, supports same-sex marriage in Canada), Blaikie's position is that the economic needs of working-class and low-income Canadians should be the party's primary concern. Layton on the other hand supported both "identity politics" and progressive economic policies.

Layton had run unsuccessfully for the Commons three times in Toronto-area ridings. In contrast to traditional but diminishing Canadian practice, where an MP for a safe seat stands down to allow a newly elected leader a chance to enter Parliament, Layton did not contest a seat in Parliament until the 2004 election. In the interim, he appointed Blaikie as deputy leader and made him parliamentary leader of the NDP.

2004 election

The 2004 election produced mixed results for the NDP. It increased its total vote by more than a million votes, an improvement of 100% from the 2000 election. It again won far fewer seats than the Conservatives, Liberals, and also the Bloc Québécois, whose somewhat smaller portion of the overall popular vote was limited to Quebec ridings. Despite Layton's optimistic predictions of reaching forty seats, the NDP only gained five seats in the election, for a total of 19. The party was bitterly disappointed to see its two Saskatchewan incumbents defeated by the Conservatives, both in close races, perhaps due to the unpopularity of the NDP provincial government. One of them was longtime MP Lorne Nystrom. Those losses caused the federal NDP to be shut out in Saskatchewan for the first time since the 1965 election, despite obtaining 23% of the vote in the province.

Some believed that the NDP would have won many more seats if not for massive vote-splitting with the Liberals. Exit polls indicated that many NDP supporters voted Liberal to keep the new Conservatives from winning. The Liberals had recruited several prominent NDP members, most notably former British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh, to run as Liberals as part of a drive to convince NDP voters that a reunited Conservative Party could sneak up the middle in the event of a split in the center-left vote.

There was some criticism that Layton's focus on "identity politics", such as urban issues and gay rights, marginalized the NDP's traditional emphasis on the working class.

Further controversy followed as Layton suggested the removal of the Clarity Act, considered by some to be vital to keeping Quebec in Canada and by others as undemocratic, and promised to recognize any declaration of independence by Quebec after a referendum. This position was not part of the NDP's official party policy, leading some high-profile party members, such as NDP House Leader Bill Blaikie and former NDP leader Alexa McDonough, to publicly indicate that they did not share Layton's views. (Layton would later reverse his position and support the Act in 2006).

Liberal Minority

The Liberals were re-elected, though this time as a minority government. Combined, the Liberals and NDP had 154 seats--one short of the total needed for a majority. As has been the case with Liberal minority governments in the past, the NDP were in a position to make gains on the party's priorities, such as fighting health care privatization, fulfilling Canada's obligation to the Kyoto Protocol, and electoral reform.

Despite the results, the party took advantage of Prime Minister Paul Martin's politically precarious position with the sponsorship scandal which prompted him to make a rare televised appeal to the electorate and the opposition to allow the Gomery Commission to make its full report on the affair before any election. The NDP reacted by offering their support for the Liberal Party, provided that some major concessions in the federal budget were ceded to in the NDP's favour. The governing Liberals agreed to support the changes in exchange for NDP support on confidence votes. On May 19, 2005, by Speaker Peter Milliken's tie-breaking vote, the House of Commons voted for second reading on major NDP amendments to the federal budget, preempting about $4.5 billion in corporate tax cuts and funding social, educational and environmental programs instead. Both NDP supporters and Conservative opponents of the measures branded it Canada's first "NDP budget". In late June, the amendments passed the final reading vote and many political pundits concluded that the NDP had gained creditability and clout on the national scene.

2006 election

On November 9, 2005, after the findings of the Gomery Inquiry were released, Layton notified the Liberal government that continued NDP support would require a ban on private health care. When the Liberals refused, Layton announced that he would introduce a motion on November 24 that would ask Martin to call a federal election in February to allow for several pieces of legislation to be passed. The Liberals turned down this offer. The Canadian Auto Workers and the Canadian Labour Congress demanded that the NDP not to topple the Liberal government but the NDP rejected the unions' demands. On November 28, 2005, Conservative leader Stephen Harper's motion of no confidence was seconded by Layton and it was passed by all three opposition parties, forcing an election.

During the election, the NDP focused their attacks on the Liberal party, in order to counter Liberal appeals for strategic voting. A key point in the campaign was when Judy Wasylycia-Leis had tipped off the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to launch a criminal investigation into the leaking of the income trust announcment^*. The criminal probe seriously damaged the Liberal campaign and preventing them from making their key policy announcements, as well as bringing alleged Liberal corruption back into the spotlight.

The NDP campaign strategy put them at odds with Canadian Auto Workers which had supported a NDP-backed Liberal minority government and which was only backing NDP candidates that had a chance of winning. After the campaign, the Ontario wing of the party expelled CAW leader Buzz Hargrove for his support of the Liberals. In addition, his federal membership in the party was suspended.

On January 23, the NDP won 29 seats, a significant increase of 10 seats from the 19 won in 2004. It was the fourth-best performance in party history, approaching the level of popular support enjoyed in the 1980s. The NDP kept all of the seats it held at the dissolution of Parliament, re-elected 17 incumbents, and Paul Dewar retained the riding of Ottawa Centre vacated by Broadbent. Bev Desjarlais, a longtime NDP MP, left the party after losing the nomination and was defeated as an independent. While it made no gains in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, and the Prairie Provinces, it gained five seats in British Columbia, five in Ontario, and the Western Arctic riding of the Northwest Territories.

Provincial and territorial wings

Unlike most other Canadian parties, the NDP is integrated with its provincial and territorial parties, such that a member of a provincial or territorial NDP is automatically a member of the federal NDP. This precludes a person from supporting different parties at the federal and provincial levels. A key example of this was Buzz Hargrove's expulsion by the Ontario New Democratic Party after he backed Paul Martin in the 2006 election, which automatically terminated his membership in the federal party as well.

There are three exceptions. In Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, whose territorial legislatures have no parties, the federal NDP is promoted by its riding associations, since each territory is composed of only one federal riding.

In Quebec, the Quebec New Democratic Party and the federal NDP agreed in 1989 to sever their structural ties after the Quebec party adopted a sovereigntist platform. Since then, the federal NDP is not integrated with a provincial party in that province; instead, it has a section, the Nouveau Parti démocratique-Section Québec/New Democratic Party Quebec Section, whose activities in the province are limited to the federal level, whereas on the provincial level its members are individually free to support or adhere to any party.

**Provincial and territorial parties, current seats, and leaders**
Party	Seats/Total	Leader
Alberta New Democratic Party	4/83	Brian Mason, MLA
New Democratic Party of British Columbia	33/79	Carole James, MLA
New Democratic Party of Manitoba	35/57	Hon. Gary Doer, MLA, Premier of Manitoba
New Brunswick New Democratic Party	0/55	Allison Brewer
New Democratic Party of Newfoundland and Labrador	2/48	Lorraine Michael
Nova Scotia New Democratic Party	20/52	Darrell Dexter, MLA
Ontario New Democratic Party	8/103	Howard Hampton, MPP
Island New Democrats (P.E.I.)	0/27	Dean Constable
Saskatchewan New Democratic Party	30/58	Hon. Lorne Calvert, MLA, Premier of Saskatchewan
Yukon New Democratic Party	3/18	Todd Hardy, MLA

(Those forming government in bold)

From 1963 to 1994, there was a New Democratic Party of Quebec.

**Chart of the best showings for provincial parties, and the election that provided the results**
Province/Territory	Seats - Status	Election years and party leaders at the time
Alberta	16 - Official Opposition	1986, Ray Martin; 1989, Ray Martin
British Columbia	51 - Government	1991, Michael Harcourt
Canada	43	1988, Ed Broadbent
Manitoba	35 - Government	2003, Gary Doer
New Brunswick	2	New Brunswick 1984 by-election, George Little
Newfoundland and Labrador	2	1987 by election Peter Fenwick ; 1999, 2003, Jack Harris
Nova Scotia	20 - Official Opposition	2006, Darrell Dexter
Ontario	74 - Government	1990, Bob Rae
Prince Edward Island	1	1996, Herb Dickieson
Quebec	1	1944, (CCF, David Côté)
Saskatchewan	55 - Government	1991, Roy Romanow
Yukon	11 - Government	1996, Piers McDonald

The most successful provincial section of the party has been the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party, which first came to power in 1944 as the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation under Tommy Douglas and has won most of the province's elections since then. In Canada, Tommy Douglas is often cited as the Father of Medicare since, as Saskatchewan Premier, he introduced Canada's first publicly-funded, universal healthcare system there. Despite the continued success of the Saskatchewan branch of the party, the NDP was shut out of Saskatchewan in the 2004 federal election for the first time in recent history. This is a trend that has been continued in the 2006 federal election.

Current members of Parliament

The election of January 23, 2006, gave the NDP 29 seats, 12 of which (41%) are held by women. This is a higher proportion of women than has ever existed in a parliamentary caucus with official party status. For a list of NDP MPs in the previous parliament, and their critic portfolios, see New Democratic Party Shadow Cabinet.

One senator, Lillian Dyck, chooses to associate herself with the NDP. However the party does not allow her to be part of the parliamentary caucus, as the NDP favours the abolition of the Senate. She therefore sits in the Senate as an Independent New Democrat.

39th Parliament

Charlie Angus, Timmins—James Bay (ON)
Alex Atamanenko, British Columbia Southern Interior (BC)
Catherine Bell, Vancouver Island North (BC)
Dennis Bevington, Western Arctic (NT)
Dawn Black, New Westminster—Coquitlam (BC)
Bill Blaikie, Elmwood—Transcona (MB)
Chris Charlton, Hamilton Mountain (ON)
Olivia Chow, Trinity—Spadina (ON)
David Christopherson, Hamilton Centre (ON)
Joe Comartin, Windsor—Tecumseh (ON)
Jean Crowder, Nanaimo—Cowichan (BC)
Nathan Cullen, Skeena—Bulkley Valley (BC)
Libby Davies, Vancouver East (BC)
Paul Dewar, Ottawa Centre (ON)
Yvon Godin, Acadie—Bathurst (NB)
Peter Julian, Burnaby—New Westminster (BC)
Jack Layton, Toronto—Danforth (ON)
Wayne Marston, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek (ON)
Pat Martin, Winnipeg Centre (MB)
Tony Martin, Sault Ste. Marie (ON)
Brian Masse, Windsor West (ON)
Irene Mathyssen, London—Fanshawe (ON)
Alexa McDonough, Halifax (NS)
Peggy Nash, Parkdale—High Park (ON)
Penny Priddy, Surrey North (BC)
Denise Savoie, Victoria (BC)
Bill Siksay, Burnaby—Douglas (BC)
Peter Stoffer, Sackville—Eastern Shore (NS)
Judy Wasylycia-Leis, Winnipeg North (MB)

Federal leaders

Tommy Douglas (August 3, 1961 - April 23, 1971)
David Lewis (April 24, 1971 - July 6, 1975)
Ed Broadbent (July 7, 1975 - December 4, 1989)
Audrey McLaughlin (December 5, 1989 - October 13, 1995)
Alexa McDonough (October 14, 1995 - January 24, 2003)
Jack Layton (January 25, 2003 - present)

Federal election results 1962–2006

Election	# of candidates	# of seats won	# of total votes	% of popular vote
1962	217	19	1,044,754	13.57%
1963	232	17	1,044,701	13.24%
1965	255	21	1,381,658	17.91%
1968	263	22	1,378,263	16.96%
1972	252	31	1,725,719	17.83%
1974	262	16	1,467,748	15.44%
1979	282	26	2,048,988	17.88%
1980	280	32	2,150,368	19.67%
1984	282	30	2,359,915	18.81%
1988	295	43	2,685,263	20.38%
1993	294	9	933,688	6.88%
1997	301	21	1,434,509	11.05%
2000	298	13	1,093,748	8.51%
2004	308	19	2,116,536	15.7%
2006	308	29	2,588,200	17.5%

External links

Canadian socialists | New Democratic Party of Canada | Socialist International | 1961 establishments

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