#ndpldr - Results and Thoughts

The votes are in, and Avi Lewis has been elected leader of the federal NDP on the first ballot. And while that doesn't come as a huge surprise based on what we knew about the race, there are a couple of parts of the outcome which bear watching.

First, to the extent there was any surprise in the outcome of the vote, it was Rob Ashton's finish in a distant fourth place. 

He'd received a substantial number of endorsements both from labour leaders and provincial elected officials, and his fund-raising was solidly ahead of the projected also-ran candidates. And it surely can't be a great sign that the candidate branded as the union choice was the weakest in the field at turning institutional resources into organizing results. 

Conversely, Tanille Johnston's placement in third was a pleasant surprise - which fit my own ballot if not my expectations. And it's certainly a plus that she's been recognized around the convention as a key leader for the NDP's future.

Meanwhile, as the newly-elected leader worked from minute one to bring the party together in solidarity, two provincial leaders unfortunately chose to undermine that effort. Naheed Nenshi's immediate disavowal of Lewis and the NDP could at least be explained away partially by a lack of personal connection to the party; Carla Beck's immediate declaration of a refusal to even meet with Lewis is both more surprising and more disappointing.

But ultimately, the leadership campaign determined who best represents the will of voters from coast to coast to coast - including in Alberta and Saskatchewan. And the choice to abandon the federal NDP and the national progressive movement just as they reach a point of revitalization and renewal will ultimately ensure primarily that those provincial wings miss out on what still looks to be a wave of energy and excitement around an impressive new leader.  

#ndpldr Roundup

One final collection of links and resources for those still deciding (or just wanting to learn more about the NDP leadership campaign):

- Marcel Nelson and Nathan Rao offer their take on how Avi Lewis has the potential to redefine left organizing in Canada. And Nora Loreto discusses some of the possible paths forward, while arguing that there's a need to work toward organizing on far more than just a partisan basis. 

- Jennifer Howard offers some advice for the candidates - though it's worth noting the apparent asymmetry in her expectations for a federal leader who is supposed to cater to the interests of provincial wings, and provincial leaders who are apparently able to use the federal leader as a punching bag. (And I'd argue the better answer is that both should work toward emphasizing and organizing around shared values, rather than looking to throw the other under the bus.)

- Markham Hislop interviews David McGrane about the campaign:

  

- And finally, Eleanor Wand and Marlo Glass report on the candidates' final pitches at the convention. And each of the candidates' showcases can be seen on CPAC:

 

 

 

 

 

#ndpldr - Leadership Vote Notes

A few observations on process as delegates have started the NDP's leadership convention in Winnipeg...

First, let's note how much actually remains to be decided this weekend. 

In the two previous federal leadership elections run under a similar voting process to this one, turnout was slightly over 50% of the party's membership. Barring a break with historical trends, we can then expect the membership count of roughly 100,000 to result in just over 50,000 votes being cast. 

Of those, plenty have already been cast online, as the candidates have encouraged supporters to vote in advance rather than waiting for the convention. And even among those who do vote, we can expect there to be some attrition as people who signed up to support a particular candidate may not rank the remaining contenders.

As a result, while there's theoretical room for late deciders to determine the outcome, there's also a real possibility that the result is already substantially baked in.

For anybody still waiting to cast their ballot, though, I'll reiterate my regular take that if there's anything to learn about the candidates at this stage, it has to do with their ability to manage the convention itself. 

I wouldn't expect to hear anything especially surprising in terms of policies or values, and any endorsements among the candidates will be of relatively limited significance. But if any of the candidates (and particularly the front-runners) run afoul of time limits or convention logistics, that will bode poorly for their ability to manage future communications and the responsibilities of leadership. 

We'll find out soon whether anything happens to change minds among leadership voters - and whether it makes a difference in the broader campaign. And after a difficult year, NDP activists should be looking forward to the opportunity to build a people-focused organization to challenge both the threat from the Trump regime, and its enablers among the Libs and Cons.

Leadership 2026: Ballot and Endorsement

At this stage of the NDP leadership campaign, there seems to be little doubt which two candidates are the most qualified for the job and best positioned to hit the ground running from day one. Which makes it odd that of the many ballots I’ve seen circulating so far, none rank them in the first two positions. 

I’ll presume that’s a largely a matter of strategic messaging and voting, as people posting their ballots see it as important to be perceived voting against one or the other. (Needless to say, that makes for no small irony given how much reason NDP members have to challenge that mindset in federal elections.)

But I won’t be following the trend. So here’s how I’ll be ranking the candidates.

1. Avi Lewis

Since before the last federal election campaign, I’ve been emphasizing the need for the NDP and its leadership to adapt with organizing ambition and a willingness to resist and confront both the Trump regime, and the filthy rich class (spread across multiple parties) which has supported or enabled its abuses. 

Lewis is the only leadership candidate meeting the moment, offering the prospect of both party rebuilding and broader organizing. And the fact that he combines that needed approach with strong communication skills and deep political and media bona fides makes him my clear top choice.

2. Heather McPherson

She’s a reasonably close second behind Lewis as a potential spokesperson for the NDP, and her track record as a progressive leader is far better than you’d think from the petropolitical rhetoric being used to try to bully members into supporting her.

But this is not a moment to vote out of fear or resignation, nor to treat the federal NDP’s role as being limited to that of headwaiter to the party’s provincial wings. And the ubiquity of those themes among McPherson’s supporters signals that she’s not the right first choice.

3. Tanille Johnston

It may have been lost in the results of the 2025 election, but Johnston was already seen as a rising star candidate when she made her first federal run. And despite the NDP’s painful overall result and an associated Liberal vote split, she came extremely close to holding a seat which had rarely been more than a virtual coin flip even in better days for the party.

Which is to say that based on her strong personal profile, her ideas and her established organizing success, Johnston should be seen as one of key faces of the NDP’s future. And while she isn’t yet in the same tier as the candidates above her as a current leadership contender, I’d hope we’ll see her in another leadership race down the road.

4. Rob Ashton

Ashton does get credit for out-organizing my initial expectations, and for at least recognizing plenty of policies worth pursuing (though as PLG notes in his comment, those have rarely appeared in Ashton’s opportunities to speak contemporaneously). 

Ultimately, though, he too has spent too much of the campaign fighting either past battles or the wrong opponents to place any higher in my rankings.

5. Tony McQuail

While he’s made a valiant effort as a lower-profile candidate and brought plenty of worthwhile ideas to the race, McQuail is ultimately the candidate with the least prospect of rebuilding the NDP’s organization from a lead role. And so while I hope both he and his principles feature in the party’s future plans, he lands at the bottom of my leadership ballot.

Leadership 2026 Candidate Profile - Heather McPherson

What We Knew

McPherson entered the leadership campaign with both the  advantage and the burden of being the first choice of the party establishment at a time when the party itself isn’t seen especially positively, and when that establishment itself is made up disproportionately of a niche (urban contenders for government in two-party Western provinces) which fall far short of covering the ground the federal party needs to win.

What We’ve Learned

McPherson has predictably won a slew of endorsements throughout the campaign. But her experience as an MP hasn’t translated into an advantage in either organization or communication. Instead, she’s tried to walk a fine line between avoiding being seen as the pro-dirty energy candidate, while trying to benefit as the alternative to Lewis’ more focused commitment to a clean energy transition.

What She’s Proposing

One standout proposal from McPherson however is her combination community work placement program as associated job transition plan. While it’s important to deal with the loss of hope throughout the working class, there’s a particular need to offer young voters reason to think they have a path forward - and McPherson has done well on that front.

What to Watch For

Ultimately, McPherson hasn’t been able to turn her advantages into a great deal of momentum for herself - so while to would be a surprise to see her rank below second on the first ballot, her prospects will likely come down to the efforts of the other two main contenders. 

There’s a chance Lewis could take an insurmountable lead early with his greater appeal beyond party lines, or conversely if he can’t match his fund-raising momentum with motivated voters there’s a chance McPherson could win out as the default alternative. Or it’s possible that Ashton could pave the way for her to win by both mobilizing labour, and persuading members not to support Lewis (particularly in down-ballot rankings).

But it’s hard to see what would change for the better in the NDP with McPherson at the helm and the current powers that be left in place. 

Leadership 2026 Candidate Profile - Rob Ashton

With voting set to begin tomorrow in the federal NDP’s leadership campaign, I’ll take the opportunity to offer candidate profiles - focusing on what we knew at the start, what we’ve learned over the course of the campaign, and what’s worth keeping an eye on in their skills and policy proposals. 

What We Knew

At the beginning of the campaign, Rob Ashton was the political neophyte in the race. That meant we had relatively little to go on in terms of his personality, plans and prospects - other than the general impression that he had ample support from the labour movement.

The sense of the unknown them built further when Ashton declined to offer policy proposals, stating instead that he’d develop those in talking to people over the course of the campaign. But he did start off strongly on the organizational front, getting successful events organized from the early stages of the race.

What We’ve Learned

If any candidate’s position has improved meaningfully over the course of the campaign, it’s Ashton’s. He’s managed to win coverage delivering an oppositional message against Avi Lewis’ front-running campaign, elevating him above the other lesser-known candidates to the point of having a plausible path to benefit from an effective candidate alliance with Heather McPherson.

Yet if Ashton’s organization has built up over the course of the campaign, his personal appeal hasn’t done the same. He’s still a distinctly less effective communicator than the top tier of candidates, as a middling speaker in English and a write-off in French. And while he’s gone further than I would have expected in winning labour support, he hasn’t moved meaningfully past its boundaries.

What He’s Proposing

For the extra time Ashton took in presenting his policies, he hasn’t offered much that doesn’t echo other candidates. Perhaps the most distinctive proposal he’s put forward is to tie an explicit tax surcharge to pay disparities between the CEO and median worker of a single company - but that looks to be a relatively minor piece of puzzle in addressing inequality which largely arises out of disparities both between organizations, and between types of income and wealth. 

What to Watch For

At this point, the best guess for Ashton’s result is to finish a solid third, with the ability to direct much of his support to McPherson to put her over the top. An extreme best-case outcome for Ashton would be to have those standings reversed to allow him to win as the leading alternative to Lewis, while a drop to fourth or lower would be a disappointment.

But perhaps more important will be his choices after the campaign is over. 

Ideally Ashton and his labour movement supporters will want to stay involved in building the party no matter who wins, including by having him take a prominent role going forward. But his relatively negative messages again Lewis raise the risk he’d choose to do so if the leadership campaign doesn’t turn out as he hopes - and that could only further attenuate the connections between the NDP and its labour base.

#ndpldr Roundup

A few links and updates from the NDP's federal leadership campaign...

- The (primarily) English leadership debate can be found via CBC:

 

- Perspectives Journal's January issue focuses on the leadership race and its relationship to the NDP and Canada's progressive movement generally. And Peggy Nash has also been interviewing the leadership candidates for Perspectives Journal: see so far her interviews with Tony McQuail, Heather McPherson, Tanille Johnston and Rob Ashton.

- Laurie Adkin examines the bad-faith complaints about Avi Lewis - including familiar demands of fealty to exploitative oil and gas interests with no regard for the harm they do to public health and well-being - from inside and outside the leadership campaign.  

- Finally, Dale Smith offers his take on the campaign, recognizing that the likely decision will come down to Lewis versus McPherson. 

On high-level tracking

With the January 28th membership deadline approaching for voters in the NDP's federal leadership campaign, I'll offer a brief high-level look at the campaign so far - and how it fits into the wider political scene. 

For the most part (other than the exceptions I'll get to shortly), the campaign seems to be best explained as reflecting a party recognizing the need to build itself up in generally rather than fighting for existing territory. Litmus tests which would have been applied in previous races (including bilingualism and experience in office) have largely fallen by the wayside in light of the actual candidate pool, while the interactions between the lower-ranking candidates in particular have been marked by regular cooperation to keep people in the race rather than any sense of competition. 

The result has been the presence of candidates to meet most target NDP voters, without a great deal of clash between them. And the stature of the approved candidates has generally fit the relative strength of their prototype within the party.

The two most prominent candidates have been Heather McPherson, following the urban prairie model whose success at the provincial level has made it the default for the party as it stands, and Avi Lewis running as an urban environmentalist and champion of economic equality. Both have some measure of national profile (McPherson as a sitting and well-respected MP, Lewis based on his media experience and personal ties), and would have fit comfortably among the class of contenders in previous leadership campaigns. 

As for the rest of the candidate, Rob Ashton has been a consensus choice for much of the labour movement and seems to have gained the most profile from the campaign to date. And his challenge to Lewis seems to have been treated as the first major oppositional moment of the campaign - though I'm not sure the end result is a bad one for Lewis, as a willingness to challenge rip-and-ship resource extraction and the toxic politics it's funded would seem to be a mantle that will serve him well in the leadership campaign. 

Tanille Johnston has reflected both Indigenous inclusion and municipal political experience, and Tony McQuail has offered a rural-agricultural perspective. But each would figure to have been a distant also-ran in any other leadership campaign in recent memory, and it's difficult to see a path to victory for either of them absent some serious negative impressions around the front-runners. 

The most obvious exclusion from the current mix has been any Quebecois or other francophone candidate. Yves Engler and then Bianca Mugyenyi have lurked around the race as informal candidates, and on paper would appear to add to the inclusiveness of the campaign as a whole. But unfortunately their efforts seem to have been aimed more at sniping from the sidelines than participating in the actual campaign - and while I would have preferred to see Engler's candidacy approved, there's significant reason to doubt the campaign is much worse off for his being rejected. 

For now, there's plenty of reason for people interested in the future of the NDP to at least ensure they're able to vote, while planning to take a critical look at the candidates as the campaign progresses. 

On changed realities

Readers may have noted that I've set up a reference page for the 2026 NDP leadership election, which will be updated with both reference information and my own posts on the race. (And yes, you can expect more new content here than I've posted recently.)

Before delving into the candidates individually, though, I'll take a moment to note what I'll be looking for throughout the campaign which will differ from past leadership races.

There has been plenty of acknowledgement that the NDP's dismal election result reflects both the change in political reality created by the Trump regime in the U.S., and the federal party's failure to respond to it with a campaign that took heed of a radically changed public mood. But with that in mind, one of the crucial tests I'll be applying to the leadership candidates is whether they're accounting for the Trump reality in their plans.

That doesn't mean that any particular leadership candidate, or the NDP as a party, can merely hope to step into the shoes of the Carney Libs as the main beneficiary of the public's general backlash against Trump. Instead, it means:

- organizing in ways which assist in developing a broader resistance movement on both sides of the border;

- identifying areas where the NDP can present a distinct and principled message, including by serving as the primary opposition to Trump's actions in areas where the Libs and Cons aren't prepared to do so; and

- pointing out the connections between Trump and his Canadian sympathizers and collaborators, while developing policies which help break the connection between concentrated wealth, corporate cronyism and government corruption.

While other issues will of course  be discussed as well, it's as much the case in Canada as in the U.S. that the other challenges of the time can't be met without a plan to counter or work around the abuses of the Trump regime. And any candidate who plans to use an outdated playbook can expect to fare little better than the party's national campaign.

NDP Leadership 2026 Reference Page

A one-stop source for general information about the NDP's 2026 leadership election. 

General Information
NDP Constitution (PDF)
Leadership Rules (PDF)
NDP Leadership 2026

Candidate Information

Candidate	Website	Bluesky	Profile	Prediction Ranking	Ballot Ranking
Rob Ashton	Rob Ashton - A Voice for Everyday People	@rob-for-ndp-leader.bsky.social	Here	3	4
Tanille Johnston	Tanille for NDP Leader	@votetanille.bsky.social	Here	4	3
Avi Lewis	Lewis for Leader - Avi Lewis for NDP Leader	@avilewis.ca	Here	1	1
Heather McPherson	Heather McPherson for Leader of Canada's NDP	@heathermcpherson.bsky.social	Here	2	2
Tony McQuail	Tony McQuail Green Progressive	@mcquail4ndp.bsky.social	Here	5	5

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