Without a doubt, the last few months have been trying ones for the New Democrats. After winning 103 seats in the federal election in May, the NDP became the official opposition for the first time in its history. Just as the New Democrats were beginning to grow into their new national role, Jack Layton announced in June that he would be taking leave to receive treatment for cancer. On Layton’s recommendation, rookie Quebec MP, Nycole Turmel, became interim leader. Layton passed away in mid-August, triggering a public outpouring of grief rarely seen in Canadian public life.
Last week, Parliament returned to work for the fall and the New Democrats are faced with the challenge of learning to be the official opposition without the guidance of the man who brought them there. A leadership election is set to take place by the middle of next year, but it has been off to a slow start with only two declared candidates. In the meantime, Turmel must contend with the challenges of running a caucus composed mostly of rookie MPs and Quebecers, as well as to relearn what the opposition’s role is in a majority Parliament after seven years of minority.
No matter who the New Democrats choose as their next leader, it is important that they pick someone who could be prime minister after the next election in 2015. This means picking someone for whom compromise is not an option and who is comfortable with the prominent media role that the leader of the opposition plays, even between campaigns. We do not know what kind of a leader of the opposition Layton would have been, but we certainly know that the last two, former Liberal leaders Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, were unable to present Canadians with a credible alternative to Stephen Harper.
Beyond leadership, it is also time that the New Democrats begin to build the kind of electoral machine that could deliver victory for them in four years. This means building on the momentum from the last election to close the fundraising gap between the NDP and the Conservatives. The best way to do this is to learn from the Conservatives, who have mostly focused on recruiting and maintaining a large number of regular individual donors. If the New Democrats could do the same, they could begin to run bigger and more visible election campaigns that could propel them towards government.
In addition to getting their financial house in order, the New Democrats should also work on developping in-house political talent. This means building a more governing-oriented and less protest-centric youth movement. It also means looking to current and former provincial New Democrats, especially those with experience in government in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan, to provide the federal party with the kind of expertise that it would need to govern the nation successfully. The New Democrats should also invest in a more sophisticated research program and take advantage of opportunities to work with left-wing think tanks such as the new Broadbent Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives to generate tangible alternatives to the Conservative consensus.
Finally, the New Democrats also need to hone their policies. While they have been successful in identifying short-term issues that give them small rating spikes, such as their pledge to cap credit card interest rates or to ban mobile phone companies from charging for incoming text messages, they have not been as good at developing credible and practicable big-picture policies. This must change if the NDP wants to start being treated as a government-in-waiting, rather than merely an overgrown protest party.
New Democrats need to make a concerted effort to be in the right place at the right time on the issues. For instance, an aging population is going to create a plethora of policy challenges that the Conservatives seem to be unaware of or unwilling to respond to. The NDP could introduce an expanded drug insurance scheme and expand other programs to help seniors live in their homes for longer periods of time. Demographics could very well make the NDP’s destiny much rosier in the next few years, but only if they take the steps to prepare for it now.
