EDITORIAL: NDP could be on road to extinction
· Toronto Sun
The federal NDP has just been reduced to five seats in the House of Commons after capturing a mere seven seats and just 6.29% of the popular vote in last year’s election, losing official party status.
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Since then, former NDP MP Lori Idlout has defected to the Liberals and on Monday, Alexandre Boulerice, the party’s lone Quebec MP, is expected to announce his resignation to run in Quebec’s provincial election this fall for Quebec Solidaire.
When that happens the NDP will not have a single seat in the House of Commons east of Manitoba.
Statistically speaking, and granted the numbers are small, the NDP has lost 28% of its caucus in just under a year, with Boulerice bolting for Quebec politics despite having been urged to stay by newly elected leader Avi Lewis .
This latest defection marks the dramatic decline of the NDP in federal politics ever since its best showing under the late Jack Layton in the 2011 election when it captured 103 seats, 30.6% of the popular vote and official opposition status, during a Conservative majority government led by Stephen Harper.
Since then it’s been downhill, leading to last year’s election debacle, including the two-year period under former leader Jagmeet Singh when it propped up Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government from 2022 to 2024.
Ironically, the collapse of the NDP may help the Mark Carney Liberal government in the next election.
The Conservatives need a viable NDP to take away votes from the Liberals in order to win federally.
Indeed, the last time the Conservatives won an election was in 2011, when the NDP was at the height of its power as the official opposition.
Conversely, a weak and indeed near dead NDP works to the advantage of the Liberals.
Having elected a new leader without a seat in the Commons and no federal election pending, this would be a good time for the party to critically and humbly examine the reasons why it has become an afterthought to most voters in federal elections.
Lewis has said he wants to take the party to the left – presumably meaning further to the left than it already was prior to his election as leader – in the wake of Carney moving the Liberals to the right.