For Canadians desperate for a national alternative to pipeline politics and general corporate stoogery, the NDP’s calamitous showing in last year’s federal election was devastating. The conditions were nearly perfect for victory: Stephen Harper’s detested dictatorship was headed for the dumpster, and NDP leader Thomas Mulcair had consistently upstaged the feckless Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. Once the smoke had cleared, however, Trudeau’s Liberals had a whopping majority and the NDP ended up losing seats. We got rid of Harper alright, only to end up with the continuation of Harperism by other, gentler means.

Putting the blame for the NDP‘s shellacking on Canada’s undemocratic electoral system assuages the grief somewhat, but it’s also a form of denial. It papers over internal problems that should have been addressed long ago. In short, the NDP is uninspiring, inept and obsolete. If it couldn't pull off a win against the loathsome Harper, what chance does it have now against the shallow but charming “Harper lite?” The answer: “none,” which is why the party needs to reinvent itself if it ever hopes to form government.

1. Rebrand

After 55 years, there cannot be much “New” left in New Democratic Party. and “Democratic” is an empty vessel that progressives and regressives alike fill with their own self-interest. “NDP” might as well stand for “No Definable Party” since it doesn’t say what it stands for. Furthermore, “NDP” is freighted with decades of trade-unionist baggage, identity politics, and parochial Marxist/socialist verbiage that it alienates more than it unifies.

When labour/management conflict was a major issue in this country, a labour-based party had some measure of relevance. Now, in the age of neo-fascist, metastasizing corporatism, when Canada’s management and labour are political allies more than they are enemies, “NDP” is an anachronism that depicts a party fighting yesterday’s war.

The party needs a new name, one that serves as a clear rallying standard to voters who want their government to stop the corporatist betrayal of Canada’s sovereignty. A good choice would be the National Party of Canada. Although such a party contested the 1993 election, the name was deregistered in 1997.

Under its new banner, the former NDP could give voters across the country a genuine political option that stands for national interests like environmental protection, well-funded public services, respect for the rule of law and the supremacy of persons over artificial persons. Unlike the NDP, the NPC would differentiate itself in the political marketplace from the leading brands, which have distinctly non-national (foreign) priorities.

2. Commit to a set of principles

Every party has internal fights, but progressive parties have a habit of taking theirs public. As these factions contend against each other, the establishment parties appear to offer voters a more stable option by default. Respecting differing views is healthy, but allowing these views to undermine party unity and voter confidence is a self-inflicted blunder. We saw such a blunder at the recent leadership convention in Edmonton.

In advance of a leadership review, a motion was put forward to debate The Leap Manifesto, a document issued last September that proposes, inter alia, to adopt aggressive economic, political reforms, particularly abandoning fossil fuels for nation-wide renewable energy. The manifesto is promoted chiefly by the husband-and-wife team of Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, two of Canada’s best-known and respected economic and environmental activists. Inasmuch as the document contains a couple of sound ideas, the decision to entertain it at a leadership convention was monumentally stupid.

The manifesto should not have been debated because the only purpose of the convention was to deliver a vote of confidence or non-confidence in Mulcair’s leadership. In the end, he received only 48% support. The decision was harsh, but Mulcair was damaged goods and needed to be replaced. Now, however, wrangling over the manifesto could easily overshadow the next leadership convention and leave the party hopelessly divided.

It’s unfortunate that Lewis and Klein didn’t learn from President Woodrow Wilson’s inappropriate idealism at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. As with all such conferences, this one’s sole purpose was to deal with practical matters of post-war reparations and compensation. This is what the governments of Great Britain and France expected; Wilson, though, had no interest in such real-world matters. He believed that any peace had to be based on his idea of a “League of Nations,” which he said would put an end to war by doing away with the practice of alliances and secret treaties.

Leaving aside the fact that history showed Wilson’s scheme to be dangerously naïve, a peace conference was neither the time nor the place to discuss reinventing world government. Wilson’s pet project was counterproductive, divisive and time wasting. In the end, Wilson had to sacrifice his precious but undefined principle of “self-determination” to meet tangible territorial and financial demands. Any discussion of a new world government should have been brought up after the conference.

The Leap Manifesto is a similar example of idealistic posturing at the wrong place and at the wrong time. Most obviously, it put Alberta’s NDP government in an impossible position. Since Alberta is Canada’s greatest polluter and source of fossil fuels, Premier Rachel Notley could not endorse the manifesto without committing political suicide. Given the national party’s crowing over the province’s first NDP government, it’s hard to believe that the manifesto’s advocates would bring the issue up right under Notley’s nose!

Ostensibly, its authors thought it was necessary to pull Mulcair back from the liberal centre, but who asked them to? Who gave them permission? Who do they speak for? Reaction from within the party’s ranks was, predictably, far from respectful:

• Alberta Federation of Labour president and former NDP candidate Gil McGowan denounced Lewis and Klein as “downtown Toronto dilettantes.”
• The NDP’s sole Alberta MP Linda Duncan called the manifesto “a faulty document.”
• B.C. NDP leader John Horgan said the manifesto does not (ugh!) “reflect the values of British Columbians.”

Lewis expressed incredulity at the manifesto’s hostile reception. Woodrow Wilson would have been proud.