The NDP had its worst ever election result. Its decimation is the price the working class will pay for the NDP supporting the Liberals. Serious soul-searching is needed.
Some will argue that 2025 was a freak election, with NDP voters temporarily “lending” their votes to the Liberals due to the unique threats of Trump and Poilievre. In 1993 the NDP did nearly as bad and recovered over the next decade. This completely misunderstands today’s world. Poilievre or someone just as extreme will lead the Tories in the next election. The future holds in store more polarization, economic shocks and intensified inter-imperialist conflicts and wars. The working class cannot wait a decade or more for a political party that stands solidly with it.
Others will claim that the NDP has abandoned the working class and focuses too much on social issues, environment, and rights for Indigenous people, trans and women. Internationally, as a section of society has shifted to the right, centre and centre-left parties conclude they should do the same. Moving to the right only legitimizes the further right parties, who gain more support. In a polarizing world the answer to the rise of the right is a strong socialist and left response. A successful NDP would have strong policies on “bread and butter” and social and environmental issues.
In the past, the NDP and CCF won significant reforms, most notably public health, by visibly campaigning between elections. Now the party barely has a public presence, rarely seen on the streets even during elections. In office, the NDP looks for a middle ground between labour’s needs and capitalism’s desires, as it does not want to upset big business.
Many NDP members feel that the leadership has moved to embrace pro-capitalist policies. It no longer campaigns or implements working-class policies such as building publicly owned housing, strong rent control, and significantly higher taxes on the rich and corporations. The leadership and bureaucracy of the NDP have consistently resisted such policies.
Canadian workers need their party
The NDP has moved far from its socialist past. With the rise of a more aggressive Trumpish Conservative party and bosses demanding more profits, workers need a party that clearly stands for them.
An upsurge in mass political activity may turn first to the NDP and attempt to transform it into a party for workers, environmental activists, Indigenous rights, etc. Almost certainly the bureaucracy will resist and there will be a struggle. If the new energetic people win, then the NDP would be, in effect, a new party. If these new people are rejected by the bureaucracy, they may well seek to build a new party.
Building a new party will need sustained efforts and a large influx of new people into political activity. The struggle for a party that fights for working-class interests will include challenging the union leaders who are part of the NDP’s machine. For the working class to successfully defeat capitalism it needs both a new party and to transform the union leadership. The struggle to build workers’ power involves both workplace organizing and political representation.
For a campaigning democratic party
Working people need a political voice to fight the bosses, as well as unions and mass demonstrations. Establishing parties that represented the working class took huge struggles and was a historic achievement.
We would argue that the party needs democratic structures with active branches, a socialist program, to campaign energetically in communities and workplaces between elections and to reject coalitions with pro-capitalist parties. All elected representatives should receive a skilled worker’s wage, donating the rest of their salary to the party and movements of struggle.
While recognizing that a new party is unlikely to initially agree with our approach, we would still energetically participate in building it. Workers learn most through experience.
A workers’ party would change the political landscape. The experience of other countries shows that a party with bold policies and an active membership can make rapid gains. This would be a giant stride towards a socialist transformation of society.
