Last weekend, thousands of New Democrats gathered in Toronto to select their party’s next leader. Thousands more cast their ballots in advance and online the day of the convention. After four ballots, Thomas Mulcair, one of the party’s two deputy leaders, was chosen as Canada’s leader of the opposition. In choosing Mulcair, New Democrats have shown that they have a sense of what they need to do if they want to win the next federal election. Mulcair is popular in Quebec, which the NDP hopes to make its new electoral stronghold, and is sufficiently moderate to attract disaffected Liberals to the party.
[pullquote]While many in Ontario recall the New Democratic government of current federal Liberal leader Bob Rae with disgust, NDP governments in other provinces have been remarkably successful.[/pullquote]
However, new leadership will not be enough to transform the New Democrats from opposition to government. Many Canadians still question whether the New Democrats could handle the economy and tame the deficit. The standard New Democratic response to this attack, which emphasizes the harm that the policies of the other parties have done to the majority of Canadians while in government, is simply not enough. The negative perception of the New Democrats is so entrenched that they will have to work harder than both the Conservatives and the Liberals to establish their economic chops.
Fortunately, the New Democrats benefit from a major untapped resource in this regard: provincial New Democratic governments. While many in Ontario recall the New Democratic government of current federal Liberal leader Bob Rae with disgust, NDP governments in other provinces have been remarkably successful. Ahead of the convention, Nova Scotia premier Darrell Dexter published an op-ed in the Globe and Mail touting his government’s many economic achievements. Indeed, Dexter’s government is one of the few in Canada to be running a budgetary surplus. New Democratic governments, past and present, in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have also enjoyed many successes.
As the New Democrats look towards the 2015 election, they should aggressively recruit current and former cabinet ministers from these governments to run. This would not only help the federal NDP seem more credible, but also would also enhance their ability to govern well if they were to form a government. The New Democrats should not ignore provincial cabinet ministers from other parties, particularly the Liberals, in their effort to strengthen their shadow cabinet. After all, prior to running for his House of Commons seat in Outremont, Mulcair served as environment minister in a Quebec Liberal government.
Even former provincial cabinet ministers who are not interested in running federally could help improve the NDP’s credibility. While they are already active in federal election campaigns, they are generally unseen between elections. They should be deployed in greater numbers as spokespeople for the party in the news media, explaining the flaws in the Harper government’s proposals and sketching out the New Democratic alternative. This is something that the Conservatives and Liberals do not need to do because voters are accustomed to thinking of one of them as the government-in-waiting, while the other is in power. Not so with the New Democrats.
Bolstering credibility by drawing on provincial experience is important, but it is not the only thing that New Democrats will have to do in order to be seen as a potential government. During his recent leadership campaign, Mulcair proposed doubling payments to retirees made by the Canada Pension Plan. Currently, the CPP is funded through contributions deducted from the paychecks of Canadians. Doubling the benefit would require increasing deductions, which currently apply only to the first $48,300 of income. While Mulcair would presumably support raising the amount of income to which the deductions apply, he would likely have to raise deduction rates across the board to achieve this ambitious goal.
This kind of problem does not exist with all the policies put forward by New Democrats. Yet it certainly plagues some of them, such as introducing national childcare and pharmacare programs. It makes it all too easy for the Conservatives and Liberals to paint the NDP as a party not prepared to govern. There is certainly a risk involved in disclosing costs for their proposals, but unless they do so, the New Democrats will never gain the credibility that they need to constitute the government.
The New Democrats have done well to select Mulcair as their leader. He is certainly the type of politician who could lead them to victory in 2015, but he cannot do so unless the New Democrats raise their game. This means drawing on the experience of provincial New Democratic governments and ensuring that the NDP makes proposals that are solidly founded. The New Democrats face several obstacles along the road to 24 Sussex, but these can be overcome if they admit the challenges they face and work to resolve them.
