New Democratic Party

The Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation, or CCF, was not a labor party in the sense that we think of the NDP as a labor party, or the Labour Party in England.

The founders, among them J.S. Wordsworth, and Tommy Douglas were Presbyterian ministers. More to the point, the preached a social gospel, were called social gospellers.

It is the alliance with the Canadian Labour Congress that turned the CCF into a labor party, the NDP.

The connection at the top of the labor movement in Canada with the top of the NDP is intimate. Although labor is generally unable to bring out workers to vote for the NDP in numbers any greater than the general population. The one exception seems to be women in public sector jobs.

My own experience in the NDP leads me to believe that a party more like the CCF would stand a better chance of connecting with ordinary people than the labor party it became.

The NDP is currently at an important crossroads. Reduced to ~10% of public support (most of it being gobbled up by the Liberals, who have done the same thing to the Conservatives and Alliance on the right) and just barely hanging on to official party status in Ottawa, it faces one of two possibilities.

The first, as championed by Svend Robinson and the unions, is to move farther to the left in an attempt to cement solid minority support and remain the 'conscience of parliament'. The danger with this is becoming so marginalized that they can't win any seats and are essentially reduced to what the Green Party is now.

The second is to move more in the direction of social-democratic parties in other countries, dumping the unions and radicals and developing boarder, mainstream support, with the aim of eventually coming to power. The danger with this is becoming like Labour in the UK, moving so far to the center that they're just another liberal party (however, the Liberal Party of Canada is not likely to let this happen).

It's my belief that the second option would be best. There is strong support for social democracy in Canada, and most of what Canadians value most about their country (multiculturalism, open immigration, welfare, universal healthcare, etc.) were NDP ideas implemented nationally by leftist Liberal governments, usually in coalition with the NDP.

Currently, all the major parties but the NDP, even the Liberals, are obsessed with tax cuts and slashing social programs. There is strong public support against this trend (Canadians consistently list healthcare and social programs much higher in their list of priorities than tax cuts) but the NDP has become so marginalized in most of English Canada, and a non-entity in Quebec, that people continue to vote for the Liberals (who currently have over 50% of public support, which is unprecedented in recent Canadaian history) out of lack of a better choice.

I believe what the party needs more than anything is a facelift. A new name ('Social Democratic Party' party has been suggested many times), a new structure (minus the unions), some real leadership, and a national standing (including Quebec) could once again make the party a strong force for equality and social reform.