By Lori Turnbull

March 1, 2026

The federal New Democratic Party is fighting for its life. The caucus is down to seven people and, if rumours are true about longtime Member of Parliament Alexandre Boulerice considering a jump to Quebec provincial politics, it might get even smaller.

After last year’s election rout, Canada’s left-est federal party is hiking through a political wilderness in what will be either its final phase or a road to revival.

The party’s ongoing leadership contest feels less like a race than a protracted brunch, with the latest leadership debate ahead of the March 29th convention in Winnipeg described by the CBC in its lede on the story as “a fairly agreeable final debate”. Argument over who’s BFFs with Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi: not terribly heated. Knockout punches: 0.

The five candidates are union leader Rob Ashton, social worker Tanille Johnston, farmer Tony McQuail, Edmonton MP Heather McPherson and activist Avi Lewis, scion of the NDP dynasty of the same name. McPherson and Lewis have the highest name recognition, as reflected in their fundraising.

The NDP has had its ups and downs before, but things haven’t been this dire since the general election of 1993, when it went from 43 seats in the House of Commons down to nine. Just as in 2025, the NDP lost official party status and the resources that go along with it. But in the 1997 federal election, new leader Alexa McDonough pulled the party out of crisis mode and led it back up to 21 seats.

If there is any lesson for today’s NDP to draw from its comeback in the 90s, it’s that a revitalization is possible – provided the party chooses the right leader.

The NDP has always been weighed down by both factors beyond its control and unforced errors. Structural obstacles include the first-past-the-post electoral system, which often delivers fewer seats for the New Democrats than their share of the popular vote would suggest they deserve.

As well, many Canadians who might share the NDP’s principles end up voting strategically for the Liberals, especially when the Liberals’ scare tactics against the Conservatives are particularly resonant.

For much of its history, the NDP has been the third party in a two-party system, trying to punch through and be relevant despite not resonating with enough voters to present a real alternative to government.

With the exception of the 2011 breakthrough of the Orange Wave that saw the NDP under the late Jack Layton propelled to Official Opposition status for the first time, the NDP has been kept out of power by its perpetual internal battle between ideological orthodoxy and electoral pragmatism.

The 2011 result can be attributed to Mr. Layton’s appeal as a leader, especially in Quebec, but also to the fact that both the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois imploded simultaneously, which opened a gap for the NDP to fill. They won a whopping 59 seats in the province.

Fortunately for the NDP, Canadian politics has become so leader focused that the leader’s brand can eclipse the party’s, as it did with Layton in 2011. This fact alone could give the NDP a new lease on life.

Shifts in the party system toward the inclusion of more parties in the House of Commons have produced mixed results for the NDP over time. With the birth and success of the Bloc Quebecois, whose regional concentration makes for a more fruitful translation of votes into seats under first-past-the-post, the NDP isn’t even the third party anymore.

All political parties face institutional and systemic constraints, and they all must find ways of maximizing their vote and seat counts. Clearly, the decision to create a formal alliance with the Liberals in the form of a confidence and supply agreement did not pay off for the NDP. They could not convince the public that Liberal policies were really NDP wins, no matter how much they were involved behind the scenes.

Perhaps more significantly, the agreement belied the longstanding NDP claim of differentiation with the Liberals on matters of ideology and social conscience, which raised the bigger-picture existential question of whether the NDP is necessary.

A common thread in the post-mortem analysis of the 2025 election is that the NDP’s result was perhaps beyond its control. The ballot question came down to which party leader Canadians wanted to be prime minister in a time of global disruption and economic transformation — more crucially, which leader they thought was best qualified to deal with Donald Trump.

The NDP was not really a contender for government, so because it could not answer the ballot question in practical terms or compete with Mark Carney on economic leadership any more than the Tories could, its vote collapsed.

But that’s not the whole story. The peculiarities of the 2025 election do not fully explain why then-leader Jagmeet Singh came third in his own riding, or why the party’s popular vote share plummeted from 17.8% in 2021 to a mere 6.3% in 2025. That’s not all because of Donald Trump.

One thing that is in the party’s control is the selection of its leader.

Fortunately for the NDP, Canadian politics has become so leader focused that the leader’s brand can eclipse the party’s, as it did with Layton in 2011. This fact alone could give the NDP a new lease on life.

With the right leader, the party could shed some of its brand baggage and show up differently with fresh messaging and a clear plan for climbing back in the next election.

Someone like Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, for example, is seen as a potential game changer for the federal NDP. Nenshi is another provincial party leader whose charisma could transcend the federal party’s moribund status in the next leadership cycle.

To become a real player again, the NDP needs to choose a leader who can organize the party internally, raise enough money to make it competitive, attract high-quality candidates to carry the party’s message, earn voters’ trust as the party of the working class, and get into the political ring with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre and still stand out.

There is no doubt that there is real choice on the ballot in this NDP leadership race. But is there a Jack Layton, an Ed Broadbent or an Alexa McDonough in the mix? If not, the party’s revitalization exercise will become an internally focused project, with little effect on the House of Commons or on Canadian politics, and little hope for a renaissance.

Policy Columnist Dr. Lori Turnbull is a professor in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University and a senior advisor at the Institute on Governance.