Party faithful are choosing the next leader of the federal NDP this weekend in Winnipeg.
Five people are running for the party’s top job after it suffered the worst election defeat in its history.
The NDP ranks diminished to just seven seats in the House of Commons following last year’s election – losing official party status. They suffered a further loss with the recent departure of an MP (Lori Idlout,) who joined the governing Liberals.
The new leader will have a big job ahead trying to rebuild the party and put it back on the federal political map.
A poll released this week by Angus Reid shows that two thirds of past NDP voters were either unsure who would make the best leader, or didn’t know the candidates.
(via Angus Reid)
Still, NDP President Mary Shortall who is in Winnipeg for this weekend’s leadership convention, remains positive.
“There’s a lot of hope here, there’s a lot of people itching to get up on the mic and talk about how they feel about some of those issues that should be priorities for our party.”
She told VOCM Open Line the NDP still has relevance, especially for the working class.
“Workers don’t always feel like the current Liberal government, or even past Liberal governments, have been fighting for them. The policies are more conservative, like cutting jobs, cutting public services, privatizing those services that people rely on, not building strong communities, or not dealing with the real cost of living crisis that people are in right now.”
The five leadership candidates include Rob Ashton, Tanille Johnston, Avi Lewis, Heather McPherson and Tony McQuail.
