Host: Whoever wins the federal NDP leadership race will end up with a tough assignment, building the party back up and proving it's a clear alternative for Canadians. ♪ Kim Wright is the principal and founder of Right Strategies and a longtime NDP consultant, and Luke Savage is a journalist and author of The Dead Centre Reflections on Liberalism and Democracy After the End of History. Great to have you both on the show. Let's start before we even look at the NDP leadership convention this weekend. I want to have a look back. In the last federal election, 94% of Canadian voters said no to the NDP. So, Kim, I have to ask, does the NDP matter to Canadians?

Oh, absolutely. Because if you looked a few months before that, we were well on track for quite a number of seats. What Canadians were looking for from the New Democrats, in particular in the last minority parliament, were things like the dental care program, which has helped thousands and thousands of Canadians and have access to dental care. And it has mattered to Canadians, the voice that the New Democrats have had in minority parliaments, in majority parliaments, and frankly, in a lot of provinces where we're the government. So it absolutely does matter and will get back up there. Frankly, campaign campaigns happen sometimes, and even conservatives went down to two seats when with Jean Charest and Elsie Wayne. So there's always a bounce.

Luke, I'll get you in. There are Canadians simply no longer interested in the NDP?

Well, you know, I think it's trite to say that anything is more relevant than ever. So I'm a little self-conscious in saying that. But truly, I do think the NDP is more relevant than ever at the moment. And I say that for two reasons. One, I mean, I think that, you know, I would agree with everything that Kim said for sure. But I think, you know, the Liberals are not even really pretending to be a centre left party anymore. So clearly there's even more space than, you know, there's traditionally been for a party like the NDP and, you know, its voice and its offer, I think, is very important. But the second thing I'd say here is that, you know, when the NDP, or rather its predecessor, the CCF, was founded in 1930s, you know, it's not a 1 to 1 comparison. But, you know, I think we're living through a similar time of, you know, quite profound political and economic and geopolitical change. And I think that the moment calls for, you know, response that, you know, offers the same spirit of, of, of radical ambition. So I think in a few different senses, the NDP is certainly relevant.

And we'll talk a little bit about the opportunities a little later. But Kim, I do have to ask, there has been a lot of soul searching in the NDP leadership race about what has gone wrong over the last decade or so. What's your answer to that question?

Well, there's a lot that's. Gone, right. But ultimately, the party and this comes in every party. Are you looking to be a debate society or are you looking to govern and make real massive change to people's daily lives? And that is always the question that parties ask themselves, in particular New Democrats. And part of the pushback that we saw in places like northern Ontario and Windsor Prairies and frankly, across the country, was the New Democrats spent too much time being that debate society, that urbanists talk about all the isms versus what actually mattered and real solutions and conveyed in a way that impacted people's lives. So we needed our swagger back, but we also just needed to talk to people where they're at. And for far too long, we've been getting into that debate society mindset.

I think the interim leader of the NDP, Don Davies, would agree with that. Of course, he had said in the summer that the NDP had focused too much on identity politics, politics and Luke. He said that we're not talking about the real issues, not what most working class people are struggling with right now. What do you think of that?

Well, I'm going to, I think, respectfully disagree with Kim a little bit here, because I haven't seen the NDP be a debate society for the past 10 or 15 years. You know, I think instead, what we've seen is, is a lot of centralization. And the leader's office, we've you know, there's been, I think, a pretty fairly direct communication style from the party often, often for the better. You know, I, we keep hearing heard a lot in the context of leadership race, you know, the NDP is become very kind of academic or, you know, as Kim said, there's a lot of, you know, debating over isms and stuff. I just I just really haven't seen this. And, you know, I have criticisms of Jagmeet Singh his leadership, certainly, and lots of praise for it in other aspects as well. But I don't think that even people who are quite critical of him would ever accuse him or of the party over the last ten years or so of speaking in a, you know, in anything but quite a bread and butter way. I mean, I think that's generally what we've seen. So I think the problems go beyond problems of branding or communications or anything like that.

Kim, did you want to respond? Yeah. I mean, when you start talking about things like bread and butter issues, there is a bit of a debate society aspect to that, right? I grew up in a small town in rural southern Ontario that was very much impacted over the years of, of trade policies. My mother ultimately was able to get a job in a factory making furnaces. But before that. Oh boy. It was a hard life that we had growing up. And, you know, thanks to community, you know, we were able to thrive thanks to the programs that happen in Canada and in Ontario. I now get to sit here as someone who runs a business and, you know, how do we talk to people where they're at? And, and there is this notion of too much of the placards and too much of the isms and too much of this debate society and not enough of where people are. You know, I, you know, we've, we've gotten away from that. And, and frankly, some of the election results have shown that and too much of an urbanism isn't always a great thing when we can't explain to people in the language that they're living what things are. You know, it's interesting. Jack Layton used to say, at least look to see what movies are coming out these days, understand pop culture and pop culture references. Being able to, to, to communicate with folks and, and we're not very good at that sometimes as New Democrats. So I welcome the new versions of that.

Okay. Speaking of new versions, well, let's shift our attention to the NDP leadership race right now. It is a three horse race. You have the outsider longshoremen Rob Ashton, the insider from a dynastic family, Avi Lewis, whose father, of course, was Ontario NDP leader and whose grandfather was the federal leader of the NDP. And then to round it out, you have someone who is a sitting MP, Heather McPherson, representing Edmonton-Strathcona. Luke, what do these three choices represent for the future of the NDP?

Well, I mean, I think as we've seen during the race and I think it's all the candidates have been keen to Emphasize, there's plenty on which they agree. I think there have been you know, there have been a number of things that have come out in the race that I think are at stake and over which I think there's less agreement. One, and I think you've seen it, you know, come out rather politely here in the conversation so far is perhaps competing diagnoses or different diagnoses about what exactly has gone wrong. You know, some people think it's just a communications problem. I wouldn't disagree at all with everything Kim said. I think, you know, there's can always communicate better, and sometimes the left is not very good at communicating. But I think the problem is personally go a little deeper than that. I think, secondly, one of the other big things that's come out is, you know, can the model, the electoral model used by the NDP, particularly west of Ontario, can that and should that be scaled up to the federal level? There's some, you know, disagreement about that as well. And I think just thirdly, quickly, you know, there's a there's a disagreement and very legitimate disagreement about, you know, to what extent can you mobilize people around policy? The Lewis campaign has taken one view, which is that you go for big policies. You communicate them very, very directly, big policies that are easy to explain. And, you know, they've certainly borrowed, I think, from the Zohran Mamdani example there, you know, others don't feel that way. There's, you know, feeling that you can't really, you know, voters are not as interested in policy. You don't animate them that way. So I think all of these things have really come out in the race. And people, people often disagree about them.

Kim, you have endorsed Rob Ashton. Luke, you've endorsed Avi Lewis. I'm curious, Kim, for a party with such poor electoral results, why not choose someone like Heather McPherson, a candidate who's actually won, let alone an Alberta of all places?

So look, I've looked at. All the candidates and have had conversations with some of them, most of them over the years. One of the things that I've looked at, and it turned out I was in Burnaby on election night, as dismal as that night was, and happened to have an opportunity to talk to a guy at the event turned into being Rob Ashton. And we talked at length about, you know, the dark days of the party. How do we rebuild? What does that look like? And then, as I have watched Rob Ashton's campaign unfold, there has been that swagger. There has been that move away from the cosplay politics that Pierre Poilievre and Doug Ford have definitely done around workers. This is a guy who has not only been on those lines doing the work, but also negotiating agreements and, and how do you move those things forward? How do you bring people along in the conversation, help people where you can protect them where you can and move forward? I look at other campaigns who haven't necessarily, you know, done the work. And, well, you know, Mr. Lewis is part of the of a dynasty in some of those very dark days, as we were rebuilding the party, either federally or here in Ontario, there wasn't that like, hey, how do we put the put the shoulder to the grindstone and fix this and rebuild and bring in those new candidates and bring in those new voices? So those are the things that I have looked at and looked to how do they perform in Parliament? Sure. How do they have a swagger and an energy? How can I talk to my friends and family who aren't necessarily, you know, dyed in the wool in New Democrats about their candidacies? And that is how I got to the conclusion of Rob Ashton is, is is someone that I am absolutely committed to supporting.

Luca, I want to get your take. You talk about communication in the struggles for the NDP party there. Well, you know, if you have an MP that's already in the House, it makes it a lot easier to communicate what you need. Why not go for someone like Heather McPherson?

Well, I have a lot of respect for Heather McPherson, in particular. The the work she's done, the leadership she's shown on the question on the issue of Palestine in the House of Commons. She's very much been a leader there. But I think that for the NDP especially. Right. You know, the criterion for who can be considered a legitimate or a viable leadership candidate, it can't be that they have a seat in the House of Commons. Right? Because, you know, the NDP wins a lot fewer seats historically, right, than other parties. And, you know, you know, Jack Layton was defeated multiple times before he was elected. It's been true of many people who've gone on to play very important roles in the party, either as MPs or indeed as party leaders. So I don't I don't think that that, you know, you know, might be an important consideration. It's certainly not certainly not the only one.

Luke, stick with me here. You know, when we talk about progressive policies, this is in the wheelhouse of the NDP. Yet when we're talking about we can talk about, you know, the wealth tax, for example, they pull it polls really well. Yet there is a disparity when it comes to the NDP party. Help me understand where the disconnect is there.

I think there's a few things to to to be said about this. I mean, the first is that, you know, just because things pull well, you know, that does not always mean that, you know, voters don't just only look at things that, you know, look at their preferences and say, well, I'd like a wealth tax. Sure. So which party supports a wealth tax? It's obviously more complicated than that. In the case of the NDP, right. You know, the federal NDP has to deal with the, you know, madness of so-called strategic voting. So that's a real that's a real problem that it faces. Like, you know, anyone who's canvassed for the NDP knows that you will often meet voters who say, well, hey, I agree with you guys on basically everything. But, you know, I got to vote for the Liberals because I'm so, you know, afraid of Pierre Poilievre or Donald Trump, right. As the case may be. So that's one thing. The second thing I'd say here is that, you know, the NDP has to be able to convince people that the alternatives it's offering are actually possible. And I think there's kind of an overriding cynicism and a well-founded cynicism and scepticism from, you know, the broad electorate, that certain things can actually happen because people haven't experienced this, right? People haven't, you know, previous generations that may have lived through the creation of Medicare or the establishment of the welfare state. You don't have to explain to them that it's possible for the government to do these things. But I think particularly, for people of my generation, people, younger than me because I'm not that young anymore. You know, they haven't experienced this kind of this kind of, political movement. And so that is one of the obstacles that the NDP faces. It really has to be able to, demonstrate to people that, you know, this is not just wish casting. We can actually do stuff. We have real solutions that, you know, can make your rent cheaper, can make your food cheaper, can make your life better.

Kim, the Conservative Party of Canada has been able to bring in many working class votes. And in general, right right wing populism has been able to tap into those grievances of that working class. Is there an opportunity, here for the NDP and the progressive left to tap into that populist anger?

Oh, absolutely. But more importantly, it's about how do you communicate to people in a way that makes you feel, makes everything seem very authentic, and it has to be authentic. It has to be that swagger I talk about. Have you had that lived experience? So when you look at, you know, a Rob Ashton versus Pierre Poilievre cosplay where he hasn't, frankly, even taken the price tags off those work boots he bought to try to pretend he's a working guy. You know, it it it is a clear, dichotomy of the two. What is interesting to me is when we started this in a leadership campaign, there was this, oh, we're going to be in a federal election in mere moments. Maybe we won't even get to the end of the NDP leadership. That, frankly, hasn't been true in the way that the attrition has worked. The parliament version of Red Rover. Red Rover, you know, we are not going to the polls federally any time soon. So that leader, whenever they are, when they're elected this weekend, has that opportunity to go and build up those riding associations, find those star candidates, showcase their sparkle and swagger, and learn from folks like Wab Kinew, about how how to build that party to a governing stance and how to make people believe that both you should be getting towards government, but also that you have a valuable voice in the House of Commons. You know, it's never easy to build a political party, and build back a political party. But, you know, when we look at the examples like Ed Broadbent or Jack Layton, oh, boy, can it be done? And I'm excited about what the, potential of that is going forward.

Building back, let's talk on that, Luke. Does the NDP need to return, to its populist roots?

I think so, I mean, I think, you know, you know, we don't need a literal return. I think, you know, if the NDP were to sort of re-adopt the Regina manifesto or something like that or, or communicate and campaign in the way they did in the 1930s. Clearly that wouldn't make sense. But I think the roots of the NDP very much are, you know, socialist and radical and populist. And I think, I think that's where it, it should remain, grounded. And I think we really just need to do the, the modern version of that. You know, I also think, broadly speaking, you know, I hear I think Kim and I would agree and I certainly agree with Rob Ashton. The NDP needs to be a, a working class party. I mean, its roots are working class as well. I also think though today the working class is a lot more heterogeneous than it it used to be. It's changed a lot since the 1930s. So it includes not only, industrial workers. Though of course, they're hugely important part of its coalition. And again, I agree with what Rob Ashton has argued there. But the working class, right, also includes, lots of other unionized workers. It includes, white collar workers. It includes a huge majority of workers who are not members of unions, are not members of political organizations. And, you know, may not even be voting, come election time. So the NDP needs to be able to speak to those people, as well. And, and channels came up earlier in the conversation. The, legitimate sense of grievance. People have, speak to that, speak to that grievance, speak to that anxiety chat channel anger constructively where, it's possible to do that. And I think, I think, left populism is what we need in order to do that.

I think when we talk about when we use phrases like manifestos, it tends to, make people not want to come along for the ride with New Democrats. That is that urbanism, debate, society, language I talked about earlier. And when we need to talk about things like even, even changing the language from, social justice to community building that allows people to come, come away and come with us without feeling like the the New Democrats are talking down to them once again. And that's the real that's the real schism that we continue to have within the party, those who want to be the debate society and talking in very large language versus those the language that we hear when we're at Canadian Tire. And that doesn't mean you dumbed down policies, but you talk to people in a way that matters. And the moment we we start talking as New Democrats of Regina manifestos or leap manifestos or any other manifestos, you have lost the plot and you've lost Canadians. And that's what we've seen.

Okay, sorry, can I can I can I say, can I say two things very, very quickly? I mean, to be fair, Kim, when I, when I said manifesto, I was precisely bringing it up to say we shouldn't we shouldn't do that. Right? We shouldn't be talking in the way that we did in the 1930s. That's the first thing. Secondly, I mean, you know, we're not a Canadian Tire right now, right? We're having out we're having a discussion on, on TVO. So I don't think we we need to always be communicating in that, you know, very direct way. And if the two of us were canvasing together right now, I would not be suggesting, you know, I would, I would, I would be speaking differently, let's put it that way.

All right. I need to shift gears here a little bit. Looking ahead by, the end of next week, of course, the NDP will have chosen a new leader. Kim, what does success look like for the NDP going forward?

Oh, fantastic candidates, electoral success. And being able to bring those things like the dental care program that benefit Canadians back and back into the house, I'm excited for what the future of the New Democrats holds. I've seen what we've what we look like in places like Manitoba, where in the canoe government, where people are like, oh, hey, baby. You know, Democrats have got some things going on. Let's let's expand that out across the, across the country federally and in, with at our provincial factions. So really excited about the future.

Luke, I get the last word here. What does success look like for the NDP?

I think in the short term it means doing really basic work of rebuilding. It means, fundraising a lot. It means, energizing, lots and lots of members and winning back party status in the next election, I think in the hopefully not too long term, you know, it means, it means a deeper kind of renewal. It means, you know, becoming, you know, our, or becoming, again, a really significant, electoral force in Canada. And implementing, you know, the kind of, the kind of populist left agenda that we've been speaking about, throughout this conversation.

All right. We are going to have to leave it there. Luca, Kim, really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your insights.

Thank you. Cheers.