- This page is about the Canadian political party. For other parties, see New Democratic Party (disambiguation).
Template:Infobox Canada Political Party The New Democratic Party (NDP) 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, Nova Scotia and Yukon, 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 25% 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. Under McLaughlin's leadership, the NDP managed to have the first MP from Quebec elected under the NDP banner, Phil Edmonston who won a 1990 by-election.
The NDP fared very poorly 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 27% 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 voted 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 some NDP supporters.
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 harnass the discontent of Maritime voters who were upset over cuts to employment insurance and other programs.
Afterwards, McDonough tried 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 CAW head Buzz Hargrove called for her resignation.
MPs Rick Laliberté and Angela Vautour crossed the floor to other parties, 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 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 stop an Alliance government. Ending up, 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 25, 2003, defeating his nearest rival, longtime Winnipeg-area MP Bill Blaikie, on the first ballot with 53.5% of the vote. He 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 didn't enter Parliament until the 2004 election. In the inteirm, 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 the 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. There was some criticism that Layton's focus on urban issues and gay rights marginalized the NDP's traditional emphasis on the working class.
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. 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 Liberals' scaremongering tactics resulted in strategic voting, as 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.
The Liberals were re-elected, though this time as a minority government. The number of seats needed to form a majority government in the 2004 election was 155, exactly one more than the total resulting Liberal and NDP count. 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 maximum 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 rejecting the Liberal government's plan to deal with health care privatization, Layton announced that the NDP would introduce a motion on November 24 that would ask the Prime Minister to call a federal election in February. Stephen Harper's motion of no confidence was seconded by Layton and it was passed by all three opposition parties on November 28, 2005, toppling the Liberal government.
During the election, the NDP focused their attacks on the Liberal scandals, in order to counter Liberal appeals for strategic voting. This 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 NDP expelled CAW leader Buzz Hargrove for his support of the Liberals.
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.
Structure
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 expulsion by the Ontario New Democratic Party in 2006, 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, 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 wings
The New Democratic Party in the provinces and territories is directly connected to the national party. A member registering with a provincial or territorial NDP is automatically a member of the party nationally. In Nunavut, there are no political parties of any sort operating at the territorial level. In Quebec, where the provincial party no longer exists, the federal party has a separate membership list. While there are provincial "liberal" and "conservative" parties, most have little or no association with the federal parties of the same name.
| 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 | Jack Harris, MHA |
| Nova Scotia New Democratic Party | 15/52 | Darrell Dexter, MLA |
| Ontario New Democratic Party | 8/103 | Howard Hampton, MPP |
| Island New Democrats (P.E.I.) | 0/27 | vacant / James Rodd * |
| Saskatchewan New Democratic Party | 30/58 | Hon. Lorne Calvert, MLA, Premier of Saskatchewan |
| Yukon New Democratic Party | 5/18 | Todd Hardy, MLA |
* James Rodd, as President of the PEI NDP, exercises the powers of the leader. An interim leader is expected to be appointed soon
From 1963 to 1994, there was a New Democratic Party of Quebec.
| 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 | 19 - Official Opposition | 1998, Robert Chisholm |
| Ontario | 74 - Government | 1990, Bob Rae |
| Prince Edward Island | 1 | 1996, Herb Dickieson |
| Quebec | 1 | 1944, (CCF) |
| 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 are held by women. 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% |
See also
- List of political parties in Canada
- New Democratic Party leadership conventions
- NDP Socialist Caucus
- Douglas-Coldwell Foundation
- New Politics Initiative
- Regina Manifesto
- Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada
- Metro New Democratic Party - Municipal NDP in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s
- Young New Democrats
- List of celebrities with links to the New Democratic Party of Canada
- List of NDP members of provincial and territorial assemblies
- List of NDP members of parliament
- List of articles about CCF/NDP members
- List of articles about British Columbia CCF/NDP members
- List of articles about Alberta CCF/NDP members
- List of articles about Saskatchewan CCF/NDP members
- List of articles about Manitoba CCF/NDP members
- List of articles about Ontario CCF/NDP members
- List of articles about Nova Scotia CCF/NDP members
- List of articles about Yukon NDP members