Talk:New Democratic Party/Archive 3

Political position in the infobox
An editor continues to add to the info-box that the NDP is left-wing. First, this field should not be used in the infobox because how far to the left or right of center a party lies is subjective, and varies from location to location and time to time. Also, neither of the two sources provided support the statement, and neither are reliable sources. So I will again reverse the edit. TFD (talk) 06:43, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Those aren't reliable sources, and besides the NDP is hardly a radical party.--Autospark (talk) 12:46, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Canadianfixerupper (talk) has been served notice about changes to the main page. EncyclopediaUpdaticus (talk) 14:22, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Canadianfixerupper has added back "left wing" with a new source and the notation "Added a new source from a real source." The new source is an editorial piece from rabble.ca.  Editorial pieces, even in reliable sources are not reliable sources, per "News organizations":  "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."  Furthermore, the article does not say the NDP is left-wing.  The title is "The NDP and left-wing populism."  Otherwise the term "left" is not used in the article.  It does however say, "The CCF/NDP lost its populist character decades ago."  TFD (talk) 15:11, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Greetings, I recently changed the NDP's position and ideology from being solely "centre-left" and "social democracy" to "centre-left to left of centre" and "social democracy and democratic socialism". I would ask anyone who disagrees with me to consider my arguments before automatically removing my edits.

1. The Wikipedia page on the Liberal Party of Canada describes that party's position as "centrist to centre-left," which I disagree with (particularly as the Liberal Party has long had a prominent centre-right, "Blue Liberal" element). Political spectrums are unique to each nation's context (for example, in the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton - the same Hillary Clinton who supported the Iraq War and is vociferously opposed to public health insurance, is often labelled "left-wing," whereas in Canada many of her positions are associated with the Right). Within the context of mainstream Canadian politics, it is pretty difficult to argue that the NDP does not occupy the left end of the political spectrum, even in the era of Jack Layton-Tom Mulcair moderation, which may be coming to an end regardless.

Despite the incorrect notion that Mulcair was campaigning to the "Right" of the Trudeau-led Liberals in 2015, the NDP committed to expanding the social safety net with comprehensive new, universal social programmes (childcare spaces for every working family, subsidised affordable pharmaceuticals, boosting retirement benefits for seniors and real investments in subsidised housing) and real redistributive tax hikes on both corporations and tax evaders/avoiders. By any and all conventional notions of judging the ideological spectrum, these promises were certainly to the Left of Liberal pledges to increase the Conservative child tax benefit (an ineffective cheque in the mail approach that expects citizens to barter on the market for collective rights, similar to private school vouchers) or the so-called middle class tax cut (which largely benefits affluent families). Ergo, to suggest that the NDP and Liberals are ideologically similar as "centre-left" parties is inaccurate and misleading.

The NDP may not be wild-eyed radical Jacobins, but they are unquestionably to the Left of the Liberals.

2. There remains a large proportion of New Democrats who proactively describe themselves as "socialists" (including 2012 leadership candidates Brian Topp and Peggy Nash and 2017 leadership candidate Niki Ashton, amongst others). Jack Layton and Tom Mulcair, largely adhering to a social democratic electoral strategy from the 1990s (the "Third Way") may have avoided the term but that doesn't mean that all New Democrats have by any means. In fact, despite inaccurate media claims that the NDP's Constitution had removed the word "socialism" from the preamble, it's still there. In reality, like the Tories and Liberals, the NDP is a big-tent party of the progressive Canadian Left containing moderate "third way" social democrats, more ambitious democratic socialists and even a few radical socialists (the so-called "Socialist Caucus"). As a pragmatic New Democrat, I believe that we should stop shying away from the word and re-embrace it similar to Bernie Sanders in the US. It needn't be a dangerous or marginalising word. I would wager that many New Democratic MPs, party members and voters consider themselves to be socialists.

The NDP is unquestionably a moderate social democratic party by international standards; however, it is a diverse movement that does contain elements further to the Left who are not necessarily marginal, and within mainstream Canadian context it does occupy the left end of our ideological spectrum. Ergo, I think that it is fair to label the Party's position as "centre-left to left of centre," and its ideology as "social democracy and democratic socialism".

Thank you. Chris-Gilmore77 (talk) 15:15, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Monarchy x Republic
What is the NDP's position on the momarchy ? Is the NDP a republican party like the Australian Labor Party for example ?191.184.72.248 (talk) 10:47, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

It's never been prioritised by the Party as an issue, largely because it would A. be so difficult to amend the Constitution (unanimous consent from the provinces) and B. we have bigger constitutional fish to fry (Quebec, First Nations, the Senate). However, I am sure that most New Democrats individually are probably republicans (I am). Some prominent Liberals have been too. Overall, however, I don't expect abolition of the monarchy to become a serious issue anytime soon, even after the passing of Elizabeth II, so I don't blame the Party for not taking an official stance. Chris-Gilmore77 (talk) 11:45, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Vote share in Quebec 2015
The section in this article erroneously claimed that the NDP only received 20.5% of the popular vote in Quebec. Wikipedia's article on that election clearly shows that they received 25.4%. 115.186.160.8 (talk) 08:19, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Thomas Mulcair: Is he still the leader, or is he now interim leader
For goodness sake, even though Mulcair has lost the review vote, he is still the party leader & will continue as such until his successor is chosen. So, please stop adding interim. GoodDay (talk) 13:06, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a pretty obvious one. His title and position are still exactly the same. All the Sunday vote does is set up a path for electing a new NDP leader. This is not at all like Rona Ambrose; it's like Stephen Harper after losing the election - he was still prime minister. FuriouslySerene (talk) 14:52, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 * An interim leader is one who is selected by the party caucus to serve as party leader after a vacancy in the office — an incumbent leader who loses a leadership review, but remains in the post pending the scheduling and holding of a convention, is not "interim" in any sense of the word. If some sources have described him that way, as claimed in the edit dispute, then those sources were using the word incorrectly. The term does not automatically denote any leader whose resignation or retirement from the position has been announced but not yet taken formal effect — it has a very specific meaning which this situation does not fit. Bearcat (talk) 17:15, 15 April 2016 (UTC)


 * The NDP is different from the other parties in that there is no provision for interim leaders. Hence David Lewis remained leader of the NDP after his 1974 electoral defeat, even though Ed Broadbent became parliamentary leader.  TFD (talk) 22:29, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Provincial governments
An unregistered editor has added graphics to the infobox for a provincial governments formed. The focus of this article is the federal wing of the party. While the NDP is a unitary party with federal and provincial wings, the other parties are not. does it make sense to have that graphic in the NDP article only when it should not appear in the articles of other parties? Ground Zero &#124; t 13:10, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Not really. And the provincial NDPs are still essentially separate parties with separate leaderships despite the affiliation with the federal NDP. Also, IMO, the articles on Canadian federal parties need to be informative for readers who are not as well informed about Canadian politics, where it essential to know that political parties are split on federal/provincial lines.--Autospark (talk) 16:12, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * There is no rule for what goes in the info-box. But I do not think it provides useful information.  Generally the value is it shows how well a party is doing.  Labour Party (UK) info-box for example says how many local councilors there are.  But I do not think it is meaningful here where in practice the federal and provincial parties act independantly.  Furthermore, the provinces and territories are not comparable in population, and most Canadians live in one of two provinces.  TFD (talk) 19:00, 22 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I removed the provincial/territorial graphics. It serve little use knowing how many provincial/territorial seats are held by NDP, when those numbers are combined. GoodDay (talk) 19:01, 19 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The lead section mentions the "federal wing" along with the provincial wings and also mentions that the party holds government in Alberta. In other words this article is not only about the federal wing of the party, but the party as a whole. The infobox should reflect the information in the text, until changes to the text are made. Charles lindberg (talk) 04:00, 23 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I might endorse changing the text to make this article only about the federal party because after all Canada is a federation with different levels of gov't and thus different parties at each level. However the NDP appears to be an exception to this rule, since it's a structured as national party with a federal and provincial wings unlike the Conservative and Liberals which are solely federal parties. NDP yearly conventions also include all the provincial (and Yukon) parties, not just the federal party, which is unique to the NDP. Charles lindberg (talk) 04:06, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
 * But, no NDP Member of Parliament is a member of any of the provincial or territorial legislatures. Also the federal NDP leader can't become premier of any of the provinces or territories. The only way your edits can be acceptable, would be if provincial & territorial NDP articles, were merged into this article. GoodDay (talk) 23:11, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Well actually, they could become a member of a provincial legislature if they chose to run. Also the content of the article includes provincial and territorial parties as equal wings of the NDP along with the federal wing. A merger is not necessary because you can have an article on a national party and also an article on local parties, see Democratic Party (United States) includes local state and territorial seats, and on top of that articles on local parties like California Democratic Party also exist.


 * If there is consensus to remove local seats from the infobox then it should also be removed from the text of the article. Charles lindberg (talk) 23:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I recommend you bring this to WP:CANADA. Whatever the consensus there. I'll accept whatever consensus there, is reached. GoodDay (talk) 00:01, 24 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I find it misleading because the assumption is that each province or riding is the same population. Provincial populations range from less than 150,000 (PEI) to over 14,000,000 (ontario) and average riding populations range from just over 5,000 to over 131,000.  And the NDP is not truly national since it does not contest Quebec provincial elections.  Incidentally the Liberal Party is a national party in the Atlantic provinces and de facto the three parties are all national in Ontario and the Atlantic.  TFD (talk) 00:28, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned references in New Democratic Party
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of New Democratic Party's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "montrealgazette.com": From Tom Mulcair: http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-tom-mulcairs-harsh-fate From Clarity Act: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Battle+secession+control/9071161/story.html 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 16:57, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Leap is an NDP faction?
I'm not sure what it's officially called, but in the bar at the bottom of the page the Leap Manifesto is listed as a "faction" along with the Waffle Faction, New Politics Initiative, Socialist Caucus and others. I think that this is problematic. Despite a lot of insinuation from mainstream media that the Leapers were an organised NDP internal faction, that's not entirely accurate. Avi Lewis himself has stated on many occasions that he has no interest in getting involved with the NDP, he only bought a membership so he could push his manifesto at the Edmonton Convention, and the Manifesto has only been adopted by the Green Party (it's not NDP policy). In fact, at one point Lewis said that he'd prefer it if Trudeau and the Liberals adopted it since they're in power.

I think it's debatable whether Mr Lewis is actually a New Democrat and just how much support the Manifesto really has within the Party. The party delegates who voted in favour of discussing the manifesto at the riding level were pretty demoralised from what happened the year before, and there was a lot of criticism of the document from both the Party's Right and even Left (many leftists found it bourgeois, eco-evangelist and tone-deaf). I got the sense that a lot of the more socialistic NDP members didn't necessarily want their Party to be primarily defined by a rigid stance over pipelines. I haven't decided whether or not I'll remove it, but even on the wiki page for the Leap Manifesto it doesn't really seem to indicate that it's an actual organisation within the NDP, per se.

It's problematic to conflate it with the Wafflers (who were indeed an organised movement within the NDP). That's not to say that the NDP doesn't still have organised factions amongst its members, the Socialist Caucus for example, but I'm just sure if the Leap Manifesto qualifies.

Chris-Gilmore77 (talk) 10:55, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

"Providing Parliamentary Support"?
Under the Electoral Results section, some elections are listed with the party's results not as third or fourth party, but as "Providing Parliamentary Support". This is technically correct but strikes me as misleading. While the NDP did support Liberal minority governments, there were not, AIUI, any formal agreement to that nature; Liberal governments dealt with the NDP on an issue-to-issue basis, or simply adopted some of their platform and dared them to vote against it. And though that did result in some of the NDP agenda being enacted, that isn't forming or being part of government in any meaningful sense. Looking through the history, this was added back on January 31, 2016 without any explanation or debate. Is there any reason it should be kept now? — Kawnhr (talk) 23:45, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Political Position revisited
Since it's been over a year since this was discussion, and to invoke WP:CCC and WP:BOLD, I think this should be debated again, especially once the leadership election happens. Most academic sources/political books already list the NDP as a left-wing party, so there's already merit that be mentioned within political position. With leader Tom Mulcair being removed due to not being left enough for most members, and with it looking like the next NDP leader will try to implement a more left-wing platform, I think the position of "Centre-Left to Left Wing" would be appropriate, with sources of course. Plus, it's undeniable that party houses factions that are left wing. Even though the Provincial equivalents are listed as Centre-left, remember that the Federal NDP is a different entity then thier provincial counterparts and may be classified with a different position (IE with the Centre to Centre-Left Federal Liberals and the BC provincial Centre-Right Liberals). Spilia4 (talk) 18:52, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it matters if the party houses left-wing factions unless they have considerable enough power. Niki Ashton, the only candidate in this year's leadership election I would charcterize as "left-wing" only received around 13% of the vote (compared to around 9% last time) despite having a higher profile run than in 2102.. I think it's worth noting that the NDP is the only major federal party with its provincial branches being fully affiliated with it - every provincial New Democrat is technically a federal New Democrat. The British Columbia Liberal Party is centre-right because socially liberal members of the right-wing Social Credit Party joined it to prop up a new socially liberal, fiscally conservative party which they believed would be more viable i socially liberal BC, especially after the unpopular socially conservative government of Bill Vander Zalm. I believe some members pf the BC Liberals are actually members of the federal Conservatives as well. Scizor_99 (talk) 05:27, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

If we are saying the party is "center-left to left-wing" rather than just calling it "center-left", we should at least acknowledge the democratic socialist currents and historical traditions as part of the party's ideology. Social democracy is considered center-left in most of the world and Thomas Mulcair doesn't even deserve that title considering the spineless centrist platform he ran under. Either we include democratic socialism under the party ideology, or we remove "left-wing" until we actually see the NDP make a legit left-wing platform. Left-Libertarian (talk) 15:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The Liberals are "Centre-Left", not the NDP
https://books.google.ca/books?id=kmoHCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA173&dq=Left+wing+ndp&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxroW7-qfXAhVY4mMKHbzNC94Q6AEIQTAF#v=onepage&q=left-wing%20NDP&f=false207.164.255.137 (talk) 17:34, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I have restored the long standing version of both sources text...thus added to left-wing ....--Moxy (talk) 17:59, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Your source says the Conservatives are a "right-wing" party and the NDP are a "left-wing" party. It is unclear in the context written in that book whether it is meant that they are "on the left" or hard to the left, which is what is usually meant by "left-wing" here on Wikipedia. In addition, the article you referenced here says that the NDP was far to the left of the other parties from 1945-1980, while describing both the Liberals and the Conservatives as center-right over that period. For almost half of that period, the NDP did not exist and was the CCF, which was a self-described "democratic-socialist" party whose founding documents pledged the abolition of capitalism. While it didn't quite turn out that way, full or partial nationalization of "key sectors" of the economy was a primary part of the party's agenda. The formation of the NDP, which merged itself with Canada's largest trade union, the Canadian Labour Congress, marked an attempt to appeal to the (then) wealthier Eastern provinces by put the emphasis on reforming, rather than replacing capitalism. Social welfare policies such as universal healthcare and anti-poverty programs became more important than nationalization of the economy, which was seen as a tool to use in circumstance where the public sector was deemed more efficient. The NDP had many marked defeats of those representing the old left-wing of the CCF, such as Allan Blakeney's defeat of Woodrow LLoyd in Saskatchewan and the defeat of James Laxer and the Waffle movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Besides, the fact that the Liberals shifted notably to the left after electing Pierre Elliott Trudeau makes this passage seem less credible as a source. Scizor_99 (talk) 02:24, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

It's been a long time since Pierre Elliot Trudeau was electe, and there have been a lot of leaders shaping the party since then as well as the neo-liberal global economic climate. We currently have a Liberal Party run by the son of Pierre Trudeau who is handing out corporate subsidies calling it "public spending in the economy", keeping the Conservative's healthcare budget, privatizing infrastructure, supporting Conservative bills like C-51 and the TPP, selling arms to Saudi Arabia, and bending to the will of Donald Trump to increase our military spending for the largely obsolete NATO. The calling the Liberal Party of today left-wing or even center-left is an insult to the left. They're center-right in my opinion, maybe center at best. Left-Libertarian (talk) 15:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Results: "providing parliamentary support" and "supply and confidence".
Since my previous section was archived, I must once again register my objection to the mention, in the results table, of the NDP supporting a Liberal government. As I said before, "providing parliamentary support" was inaccurate and misleading, because it suggested a stronger and more formal relationship with the Liberal Party— and a presence in government— that simply did not exist. Just now I removed "supply and confidence", for much the same reasons: it overstates the NDP's role. Again, while it is obviously true that the NDP propped up Liberal governments in these periods, it was done on an ad-hoc basis by negotiating support on an issue-to-issue basis, or by keenly adopting NDP policy and daring them to vote against it. In either case, the NDP did not go long with this for long, and looked to topple the Liberal government at the quickest opportunity— not much of a deal. Contrast this with outcomes of the Ontario provincial election of 1985, or BC 2017: where the parties in question (Lib-NDP and NDP-Green, respectively) had a formal alliance, with a document outlining exactly the terms and conditions (and extent) of the co-operation, and unveiled this publicly. It's just not what happened federally. Kawnhr (talk) 04:55, 14 November 2017 (UTC)