The federal New Democrats are confronting what they are, and what they are not.
Former Vancouver MP Peter Julian, a 20-year veteran of the House of Commons, believes he can play an important role in the reckoning.
“The loss of official party status is something that requires a rebuilding from the bottom up,” said Julian, referencing his NDP Renewal project to set the party on a new course.
In the aftermath of their worst election performance in recent history, the NDP is the subject of not one but two renewal processes.
One is an official party review, led by lawyer and long-time party member Emilie Taman. The other is an external, grassroots push, led by Julian and fellow ex-MP Matthew Green.
Taken together, the dual tracks reflect deep anxiety within the party — about its viability, identity and path forward through to the March 2026 leadership convention, where the party’s interim leader Don Davies will be replaced.
“The question of how to address the loss of working-class votes and how to address party viability and competition for government, to me, those are really the core questions that reviews should be looking at,” said Jordan Leichnitz, who was a special advisor to former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh from 2017 to 2019.
Leichnitz noted that about a third of former NDP voters cast their ballots for the Conservatives this election.
“Leadership contenders should be talking about their plan and their strategies … to address those questions if the party wants to learn some hard lessons from what happened in the last election,” she said.
Two tracks, one imperative
Taman, who ran unsuccessfully as a federal NDP candidate in three different Ottawa ridings in 2015, 2017 and 2019, describes her review as independent and transparent.
“There’s no particular constraints in terms of what my findings might be or what my recommendations can or should be,” said Taman, who is not being paid to conduct the review.
Since July, Taman has been conducting interviews and “listening sessions” with party members. She aims to deliver a final report to the party before the end of 2025.
Julian and Green’s renewal process is not formally associated with the party. But Julian says thousands of people have responded to their national survey since launching it on Sept. 25.
Julian frames the difference between his work and Taman’s bluntly.
“Ours is exclusively moving forward … [asking] what we need to do as a party to re-establish ourselves as a political force,” he said.
“I don’t have rose-coloured glasses. We’ve gone over a cliff. This is the worst result we’ve ever had,” he said about the election, where the party was reduced to seven seats and stripped of official party status.
“So we need to rebuild, and that’s why we’re willing to put so much energy into this — because that rebuilding process will take a hell of a lot of work.”
Julian says Taman’s mandate, by contrast, includes a retrospective examination of key failures from the elections.
He also notes that he — and the party — have been here before.
“It’s in keeping with past precedent,” he said, referencing his work on the NDP’s 1995 renewal committee, which examined the party’s loss of official status in the 1993 election. The party bounced back in 1997, more than doubling its seat count.
Vibe shift
Taman describes 2025 as a political anomaly, a campaign in which voters were not especially interested in policy.
“It just wasn’t the type of campaign … focused on policy at all,” she said.
In her view, voters acknowledged marquee NDP policy issues such as dental care and pharmacare, but seldom voted on the basis of them.
“ It was a very difficult election,” she said. “Most people I’ve spoken to … found that voters were not engaging in a serious way with policy. [Their focus] was really [on] Trump, Poilievre and Carney.”
Taman saw this firsthand on voters’ doorsteps.
“I was volunteering in the Ottawa Centre riding,” she said. “It’s a riding where people work for the government. Many of them have really detailed knowledge and expertise in policy areas, and they like to talk about them and ask questions about them, and [this election] just was not like that.
“The very first day I went knocking on doors, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is a totally different vibe on the doorstep … I think people agree that we have to be careful not to draw direct lines between what was or wasn’t in our platform, for example, and how people cast their votes.”
Leichnitz, who was previously deputy chief of staff to Singh’s predecessor, Tom Mulcair, agrees that “unpredictable external factors” shaped the election.
But she also notes some of the party’s steps before the election were controversial.
For example, Singh’s decision to enter a supply-and-confidence agreement with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals enabled the party to secure some key policy wins, she says. But it also tied the party to Trudeau at precisely the moment his popularity began collapsing.
“The NDP could have triggered an election in the fall and probably won Official Opposition,” said Leichnitz.
“ But then we would have Pierre Poilievre as a prime minister. There’d be no dental care. There’d be no pharmacare. There’d be no anti-scab legislation. I think for a lot of New Democrats, that probably wouldn’t be an acceptable trade off.”
Picking battles
Leichnitz also highlights another challenge for the NDP: the left’s habit of alienating potential supporters who do not speak activist shorthand.
“ Across the Western world, … it is a challenge for parties of the social democratic left … to present a vision that is accessible, that resonates with working class voters — but stays true to values of diversity and inclusion, because those are the right values.
“I think in the past, the emphasis maybe has been incorrect. The emphasis has been on having exactly the right language, or falling into conversations that can feel really exclusionary and foreign to people who aren’t fluent in a pretty specialized kind of activist language,” she said.
Leichnitz says the party’s focus on the worker also needs to move past just talking about economic equality.
“For most working people, it’s not just about the idea of having good redistribution policies … it’s also about the idea that jobs are dignity, jobs are part of our identity.”
Julian echoes this view.
“Taxation is a means, not the end … the end is making sure younger Canadians can keep a roof over their head,” he said.
Like Taman, Julian says he is neutral on who becomes the next leader. His aim is to leave whoever wins in March with an energized base and clear mandate.
And based on Carney’s governance record so far, he expects an energized base.
“I received hundreds and hundreds of emails right after the election, many of them expressing regret that they voted in a panic for the Liberal Party,” he said.
“Since then, my team … we’ve been canvassing over the last few months, and we’re seeing more and more voter remorse.
“People who normally voted NDP who voted Liberal this time, and who say, ‘Look, we didn’t think Carney would be acting like a conservative. We didn’t think we’d see the service cuts in the end, the home delivery, the pushing aside of labour rights and Indigenous rights, the refusal to follow economic environmental legislation’.”
At the time of publication, four candidates have entered the race: Avi Lewis, a former CBC personality; Heather McPherson, the incumbent MP for Edmonton Strathcona; Rob Ashton, a labour union leader; and Tanille Johnson, a city councillor in Campbell River, B.C.
Julian expressed confidence that whoever wins in March will be well-positioned to lead the party.
“ What we believe in is equipping the new leader, whoever that person is, with the tools to take it a dramatic step forward,” he said.
The NDP is never going to make progress unless we change voting in Canada to some form of proportional or ranked-choice voting. NDP should work with the Green Party to make this happen. There are so many Canadians out there who do not feel represented by the present first-past-the-post system, including some conservative groups. I think proportional representation would lead to more NDP and Green MP’s and allow for some modest power sharing agreements. No matter what the NDP does it will never win a parliamentary majority, so its future is in coalitions. Otherwise it faces political oblivion.
I suspect many readers won’t want to hear this (from someone who generally doesn’t vote NDP federally), but the exclusionary language and focus on identity politics will doom the federal party’s chances to ‘connect with blue collar voters’ and moderately progressive voters of all types. What we’re seeing in the U.S. is at least partly due to a backlash against identity politics. Many of people targeted by the NDP fear losing their social position, not just their jobs. They worry about their children’s future, especially white young males. Also: typecasting Carney as a Conservative in sheep’s clothing is an unhelpful characterization. Our economy is in desperate need of an overhaul, and that’s what many of us voted for. Does anyone seriously think CUPW will ‘win’ the postal strike or even should? The strike is deeply unpopular with many postal workers, that should give you pause. Until the NDP removes its blinkers, don’t expect a different result in the next election.
As a committed socialist, I feel the NDP in every sense lost touch with its roots. Pick a lane, make a strong platform and knock on doors. Show up to community events. Host a hotdog feed. DO SOMETHING!