Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Heather McPherson wants to win. The MP for Edmonton Strathcona has been splitting her time between the House of Commons and the campaign trail. At the start of December, she flew to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to speak with MLAs about health care, before heading to St. John’s to meet with labour leaders and student unions. McPherson ended the week back home in Edmonton, Alberta, where she sat down for a virtual conversation about her campaign. “We have an obligation to Canadians and to our democracy to try to win,” she said. “It’s not my goal to be the conscience of Parliament. It’s not my goal to stand in the corner yelling into the abyss. I want to get more New Democrats elected" ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Self-described "agitator" Yves Engler has been denied entry to the NDP leadership race, after the party's vetting committee said it has credible evidence of harassment ... ... NDP national president Lucy Watson said in a statement that candidates in the leadership race need to uphold values of integrity, honesty and respect for human rights. "After reviewing Mr. Engler’s full application, the leadership vote committee determined he did not meet the eligibility standards that apply to every applicant. He exercised his right to request a review, and an independent review committee upheld that decision," Watson said in the statement. "Our focus is on supporting a leadership race that strengthens our movement and advances the kind of politics our members and communities can be proud of." In a virtual press conference Wednesday, Engler said the NDP's reasoning was "sloppy" and the party is scared to have him in the race. He said it should be u...

Tanille Johnston wants to help the NDP get back in touch with the working class. She says she’s been fundraising hard to launch a grassroots campaign for NDP leadership — a campaign that promises to build the party’s relationship with unions, Indigenous leaders and working-class Canadians. “Our work needs to start by going back to the people, and as soon as possible,” Johnston said. “We weren’t showing up in the way that they needed us to, and so we need to return, own the criticisms that are going to come at us and say, ‘Let’s do it differently.’” ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Tanille Johnston officially entered the federal NDP leadership race on Wednesday (Oct. 8), telling supporters in Nanaimo she intends to lead with integrity, inclusion and inspiration.   “Like so many families across the country, I grew up in a working-class home,” Johnston said. “My dad was a mine worker, and my mom ran a small business. They taught me what perseverance looked like – that if you work hard and care for your family, act with integrity, you could lead a good life ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A British Columbia union leader entered the federal NDP leadership race on Wednesday, promoting himself as a contender who understands the concerns of workers. Rob Ashton, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada, officially announced he was running to become the next leader of the New Democratic Party, with his campaign describing him as "the first working-class labour candidate in the federal NDP leadership race." In an interview with CBC News ahead of the launch, Ashton acknowledged his reputation for being a voice within Canada's labour movement who tends to speak his mind ... CLICK HERE for the full story

If you are an NDP partisan, you have to look very deeply into the entrails of the mortal shellacking the NDP took at the polls this spring for signs of hope. The party suffered its worst-ever federal defeat, winning just seven seats. It lost official party status in the House of Commons and with it crucial funding, committee seats and parliamentary relevance. Fewer than 50 of the NDP candidates received the 10 per cent of the vote required in their ridings to get millions of dollars in campaign expenses reimbursed by Elections Canada. So disenchanted are the tattered remnants of the NDP grassroots with the direction of the party that a group called Reclaim NDP has started a campaign that encourages supporters not to send donations to the party HQ. On the bright side, they are no longer weighed down by a deeply unpopular leader. That’s about it. Jagmeet Singh is gone. That’s pretty much the bright side. But that’s not nothing. Just ask the Liberals. They rebounded from their worst-ever ...

Interim NDP Leader Don Davies says he’s positive none of his seven-member caucus will cross the floor this fall, with MPs set to return to the House of Commons next week. In an interview with CTV Question Period airing Sunday, Davies said he is “100 per cent” confident his entire caucus will stay NDP in the upcoming sitting. When asked by host Vassy Kapelos whether he has any doubts whatsoever about caucus crossing the floor, Davies said: “No, not at all”   ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Let’s see. You are a member of the NDP’s national organizing committee. Your party has just been creamed in a national election, reduced in the House of Commons to seven members out of 343 members. In fact, for the purposes of parliamentary proceedings, you’re not even a ‘recognized party’ any more. Your last leader lost his seat (if not his pension) and has gone home to BC where Conservatives hope he will reincarnate himself as an advisor to BC’s NDP government… And here you are the party's organizing committee, and today is the day you start looking for a new leader for a party that can't afford wages or rent, and above all can't repay the bank loan it took to run the election you just lost. So, how to rebuild the party’s broad appeal?  Hmm. "Well, why don’t we look at the Democrats in the US, and do what they do?" "Great idea, let’s do that." The conversation had to be something like that ... CLICK HERE for the full story

After some internal (and external) debates over how long the next NDP leadership race should be, the New Democrats have set a date. The successor to Jagmeet Singh will be named no later than March 29, 2026. Last week, the NDP put out a news release about the 2026 leadership contest. It will begin in September and end at the party’s national convention in Winnipeg in March. Contestants will need to raise the $100,000 entry fee to participate, a fee that has been increased from the $30,000 that was required to run in 2017. The party says the entry fee was set at this level in order to test “candidates’ organizational and fundraising capacity” and, considering the financial woes the New Democrats find themselves in, that’s a reasonable prerequisite for participation ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

“In a minority Parliament, where the minority government has 169 seats and you need three for a majority, any party that has seven seats obviously has the balance of power,” Davies told reporters. “I think we’re going to be able to play a profoundly important role in this Parliament.” Interim NDP Leader Don Davies believes his party can still be relevant in the House of Commons, even if they are not granted official party status. Only seven New Democrat MPs were elected in last month’s federal election, leaving the NDP short of the 12-seat threshold that parties must meet to qualify for official status, which determines who receives financial and organizational resources. Only officially recognized parties are able to sit on committees and receive regular speaking slots in question period. On Monday, Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon effectively shut the door on any notion that the NDP could negotiate an agreement to obtain official party status, emphasizing how the g...

Kelowna resident and former federal NDP candidate Cade Desjarlais sees the party in “disarray.” Desjarlais, who ran for the NDP in Kelowna-Lake Country in 2021 but voted for the successful Liberal candidate in the redrawn riding of Kelowna last month, said the NDP needed a working-class reset, a leader in that mould and a focus on British Columbia. “It’s almost like the final frontier for the NDP out here,” he said. “I think that realistically, that BC will play an extremely important role in forming the future of the party.”  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Of the few New Democrats left standing after the 2025 election, who are rumoured to have leadership ambitions, is Jenny Kwan W ith the announcement that Vancouver Kingsway MP Don Davies will be the interim federal NDP leader this week, you’ll likely see candidates declare their intention to run for the permanent job in the coming weeks. Whoever the next leader is, they’re going to have their work cut out for them. The NDP faced its worst-ever result in the 2025 federal election, going from 24 seats to seven — five short of official party status — with just six per cent of the popular vote. The last time the NDP lost official party status was in the 1993 election, when it was reduced from 44 seats to nine with almost seven per cent of the vote. Not quite as dismal as 2025, but the point is that the party has been here before ... CLICK HERE for the full story

I f the NDP is going to rebuild after a difficult federal election campaign, it needs to work on its messaging, according to the lone NDP candidate who held onto a Vancouver Island riding. Gord Johns, who retained his Courtenay-Alberni seat with 39.6% of the vote, defeating Conservative challenger Kris McNichol — who got 34.6 per cent — said the party’s message just didn’t seem to resonate with voters. “We saw the Conservatives with slogans they couldn’t even explain” Johns said Tuesday ... said it’s frustrating when he sees people struggling with the cost of living while big business, big oil, big banks, big grocery stores and big telecommunication companies have record profits and large real estate conglomerates are buying up residential housing ... CLICK HERE for the full story

One gets the sense that the federal New Democratic Party is being treated with kid gloves by commentators and pundits. It’s almost as if its good intentions buy it dispensation from criticism. We don’t know whether to treat it like a major political party or a fringe protest movement. For the 2011 and 2015 elections, Jack Layton and Thomas Mulcair aspired for the NDP to present itself as a major party—one that sought to form the next government. Its campaigns were sophisticated, its policies were generally well-conceived, and its overall proposition to voters was one of mainstream credibility. The NDP was running with the big boys. The first two weeks of the 2024 campaign couldn’t be more different ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

What began as a race to pick a new leader for Alberta’s Opposition NDP has triggered a broader existential debate over why being provincially orange must automatically tie you to the federal brand. According to party constitutions, members of a provincial NDP are automatically members of the federal party. It’s a linkage that caused headaches for Alberta’s NDP when it was in government from 2015 to 2019 and continues to prove politically problematic as it seeks to wrest power from Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservatives in 2027 . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story