New Democratic Party (NDP)

When Was the NDP Formed?

The New Democratic Party (NDP) was founded in 1961. At a convention in Ottawa, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), affiliated unions of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and also New Party clubs officially merged. The NDP’s founding leader was Tommy Douglas (1961–71), a long time CCF Premier of Saskatchewan and a Baptist minister. Douglas was a champion of social democracy, which espouses that political democracy must also include social and economic democracy (equal right to education, medical care, pensions, employment and safe working conditions). Douglas was voted the “Greatest Canadian” in a public poll conducted by the CBC in 2004. He is best known as the father of universal health care in Canada, having introduced the country’s first government-funded health insurance in Saskatchewan in 1947. (See Health Policy.) Douglas led the first socialist government elected in Canada. After serving as premier for 17 years, he made history again as the first federal leader of the NDP.

Leaders of the NDP

After Tommy Douglas (1961–71), the federal NDP was led by David Lewis (1971–75), Ed Broadbent (1975–89), Audrey Mclaughlin (1989–95), Alexa McDonough (1995–2003), Jack Layton (2003–2011), Tom Mulcair (2012–2017) and Jagmeet Singh (October 2017–present).

Federal NDP

From its founding until 2008, the federal NDP obtained on average 15.6 per cent of the vote in national elections. This has proven sufficient to influence Canadian politics, especially during minority governments. But is not enough to form either the national government or the Official Opposition. Because of the electoral system, the NDP, like the CCF before it, has consistently received a smaller percentage of seats in Parliament than its percentage of votes. (See also Electoral Reform in Canada.)

In 1988, the NDP achieved a then-historic high of 43 seats in the House of Commons. But in the following election of 1993, it plummeted to a record low of nine seats. In 2004, Jack Layton, a former Toronto city councillor, led the NDP back to its normal level of voter support. It slowly increased in 2006, when the NDP won 29 seats, and in 2008, when the party won 37 seats. In the 2011 election, Layton led the NDP to a triumph that was described as an “Orange Crush” (named after the NDP’s main colour). The party captured an unprecedented 103 seats (and 30.6 per cent of the vote), thanks in large part to the collapse of support for the Liberal Party in Quebec. Layton and his wife, fellow NDP MP Olivia Chow (now the mayor of Toronto), moved into Stornoway, the residence of the leader of the Opposition.

Many of the Commons seats captured in 2011 were won in Quebec. This was unusual. Traditionally, the West provided the highest number of seats and individual memberships for the party. The largest number of actual NDP votes traditionally came from Ontario. The NDP was unable to elect an MP from Quebec in a general election until 2011. However, it had acquired the occasional Quebec seat via the defection of an MP from another party (as in 1986) or in a by-election (1987).

Provincial NDP Governments

Several provincial branches of the NDP have formed governments. In British Columbia, the NDP ran the province under premiers Dave Barrett (1972–75), Mike Harcourt (1991–96), Glen Clark (1996–99), Dan Miller (1999–2000), Ujjal Dosanjh (2000–01), John Horgan (July 2017–22) and David Eby (2022–present).

In Alberta, an NDP government came to power for the first time in 2015 under Rachel Notley. It was in power for one term, until 2019.

The NDP has had considerable success in Saskatchewan under the following premiers: Tommy Douglas (1944–61), Woodrow Lloyd (1961–64), Allan Blakeney (1971–82), Roy Romanow (1991–2001), and Lorne Calvert (2001–07).

In Manitoba, the NDP has run the government under Ed Schreyer (1969–77), Howard Pawley (1981–88), Gary Doer (1999–2009), Greg Selinger (2009–16) and Wab Kinew (2023–present), the first First Nations premier of a Canadian province.

In Ontario, Bob Rae (1990–95) was an NDP premier. In Nova Scotia, Darrell Dexter was NDP premier (2009–13). And in Yukon, Tony Penikett (1985–92) and Piers McDonald (1996–2000) ran the territory as NDP premiers.

NDP Policy Positions

In domestic affairs, the NDP is committed to a moderate form of socialism and a mixed economy. It favours government planning and public ownership (including Crown corporations and co-operatives), where necessary, to provide jobs and services. The NDP has always been a vigorous champion of such social security measures as universal medical care, old-age pensions, workers’ compensation and employment insurance as a means to reduce class inequalities. It has called for national dental care and child care programs, favoured higher taxes on corporations and the rich, and generally favoured greater government expenditures to expand social services.

The federal NDP under Jack Layton and Tom Mulcair targeted the big banks and fees charged to consumers. As the official political voice of labour, the NDP has encouraged trade union organization. While the CCF advocated for a strong, federal government, the NDP has been more receptive to provincial rights.

In foreign policy, the NDP traditionally showed strong pacifist tendencies. While this pacifism lessened somewhat in the 1950s and early 1960s, the party opposed Canada’s involvement in NATO and NORAD and called for Canada to become a nuclear-free zone. The NDP has also been uneasy about increased military integration with the United States, believing that this will jeopardize Canadian sovereignty. It has warned of the dangers of the weaponization of space and American lobbying to have Canada join the North American anti-ballistic missile system. The NDP has been highly critical of America’s unilateralism and fondness for military interventions in world politics. The NDP instead favours more peaceful international efforts through the United Nations.

Throughout its history, the NDP has been critical about the high rate of foreign, particularly American, ownership of Canadian industry. (See also Economic Nationalism.) Under NDP pressure, the Liberal minority government of Pierre Trudeau introduced the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA) in the 1970s. When Brian Mulroney’s Conservatives campaigned for economic integration with the US under the Free Trade Accord (FTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the NDP opposed both agreements.

Rebuilding After 1993

Following its 1993 electoral setback, when it was reduced to a record low of nine seats, the federal NDP sought to rebuild organizationally. It sponsored policy conferences in an attempt to re-energize itself and its platform. One innovation employed in 1995 was to elect its next leader by means of a two-step process — first involving a direct ballot of party members and affiliated unions and then followed by a national convention. The new leader, Alexa McDonough, led the NDP into the 1997 campaign with the challenge of regaining official parliamentary status for the party. The goal was achieved, but the NDP still remained a distant fourth place in the House of Commons. The 2000 election saw the party slip in both votes and seats. It narrowly retained official party status in Parliament.

After several disappointing elections, party members once more debated the future of social democracy, the party’s organizational structure and its relationship to the labour movement. To facilitate the renewal process, McDonough stepped down as leader. In a 2003 nation-wide direct ballot, individual and affiliated union members elected Jack Layton the new federal NDP leader.

Layton’s victory signalled that the NDP membership wanted a more visible leader better equipped to tackle urban issues and foster links between the party and new social movements. Leading up to the 2004 campaign, the energetic Layton attracted media attention, and the party rose in the polls. In the 2004 election, the NDP recorded its best vote count in more than a decade, almost doubling its share of the vote to 15.7 per cent. But the number of seats won increased only to 19, significantly less than the party had hoped for.

Minority Governments

Nevertheless, in Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberal minority government of 2004–05, the NDP was able to play a key role. The NDP’s changes to the budget generated more spending for infrastructure and social programs. The NDP also successfully lobbied the government to resist involvement in the US missile defence system and to legalize same-sex marriage. In the 2006 election, the NDP under Jack Layton continued to make gains in votes and seats. Given the outcome of yet another minority government, the NDP’s role continued to be substantial.

One of the greatest organizational difficulties for the NDP was the 2004 election finances legislation. It virtually eliminated trade union financial contributions to the party that labour co-founded. The legislation strictly limited corporate and union contributions to individual candidates. In 2006, all such contributions were banned. Instead, parties received public funding based on the number of votes they had received in the previous general election. This subsidy ended in 2015. (See Political Party Financing in Canada.)

Another challenge emerged during the 2006 election when Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) president Buzz Hargrove called for union members to vote strategically. He urged unionists and others, where necessary, not to vote NDP, but instead to vote Liberal, in order to stop a Conservative Party victory.

The NDP continued to make strides in the areas of peacekeeping, environmental issues and amendments to the Clean Air Act, as well as on the issue of residential schools. This resulted in an official apology from the Stephen Harper government in June 2008. The federal election that year returned the NDP to Ottawa with a stronger team to take on the larger Liberal opposition party and to exert pressure against the Conservative Party. The NDP pushed the Conservatives on issues that included health care wait times, global warming, jobs and affordability. In May 2010, the House of Commons passed the NDP’s Climate Change Accountability Act. It would have made Canada the first to adopt scientific targets to cut climate-changing emissions by 80 per cent before 2050. The bill was voted down in the Senate the following November but was reintroduced by the NDP in 2011.

Coalition Bid, 2008

Following the 2008 election, the Conservative government opened Parliament with an announcement of temporarily suspending federal employees’ right to strike and denying monetary subsidies for political parties. The leaders of the other three parties responded by announcing that they could not support such measures. Layton, along with Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, negotiated terms to form a coalition to replace the Conservatives in the House of Commons. In early December 2008, they signed an accord for an agreement on a coalition government. They were expecting Governor General Michaëlle Jean to replace the Conservatives with the coalition government, rather than dissolve Parliament and call another election. Except for inside Quebec, popular opinion across the nation was opposed to the coalition. Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked the governor general to prorogue Parliament until January, when he would introduce the new budget. On 4 December 2008, Jean granted his request.

Dion was replaced as leader of the Liberal party by Michael Ignatieff before the issue of a coalition was resolved. Layton, opposing the Conservative budget, urged the Liberal Party to unseat the Conservatives before the coalition expired. But on 28 January 2009, Ignatieff agreed to support the Conservative budget, thereby ending any possibility of a coalition.

Official Opposition, 2011–15

In the subsequent election in March 2011, Jack Layton led the NDP to a record number of 103 seats in the House of Commons and the role of Official Opposition. The party’s success was largely due to a breakthrough in Quebec, where it held only one seat prior to the election. But thanks to the collapse in support for the Liberals in Quebec, the NDP won 59 of the province’s 75 seats.

Layton had announced in February 2010 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Yet he led the NDP through the 2011 election campaign with the same apparent vigour and enthusiasm he had displayed throughout his career. In July 2011, he announced he would be taking a temporary leave from his duties to fight a second cancer. He said that Nycole Turmel would be interim leader. Layton succumbed to the disease only a month later. Tom Mulcair, a lawyer and former Quebec government Liberal cabinet minister, was elected the party’s new leader in March 2012.

Tom Mulcair and 2015 Election

Tom Mulcair provided steady leadership, proving to be an effective performer and prosecuter in the House of Commons as leader of the Official Opposition. He led the NDP into the 2015 federal election, widely expected to challenge the Conservative hold on power and perhaps form the country’s first NDP government. This belief was bolstered by the unprecedented victory in Alberta earlier in the year, where the provincial NDP had been elected to power for the first time in the conservative stronghold. (See also Rachel Notley.)

Mulcair and his party ran what they considered a safe campaign. They away from the NDP’s traditionally activist role and instead wooed moderate, centrist-minded voters by promising — like the Conservatives — a strict adherence to balanced budgets. The effort failed. Canadian voters were ready for change after nine years of Conservative rule, but most threw their support instead behind the Liberals led by Justin Trudeau. The NDP came a distant third in the election. Many of its most prominent MPs were defeated. Its dreams of winning power in Ottawa were once again unfulfilled.

In 2016, Mulcair was ousted when 52 per cent of delegates at the party’s convention in Edmonton voted against his leadership. Mulcair decided to remain in his post until a new leader could be chosen, no later than the fall of 2017. Along with the leadership turmoil, the Edmonton convention further divided the party over a document put forward for debate called the Leap Manifesto. (See also Naomi Klein.) It called for a transition of Canada’s economy away from fossil fuel development and for a ban on new oil and gas pipelines. Although supported by activists both in and outside the party, the Manifesto was deeply unpopular among many Alberta delegates — a newly powerful wing of the party led by Alberta NDP premier Rachel Notley.

Jagmeet Singh, 2017–25

On 1 October 2017, Jagmeet Singh was elected as the NDP’s new leader. He defeated several sitting party MPs for the position. With no seat in the House of Commons, Singh named another leadership candidate, Quebec MP Guy Caron, as the party’s leader in Parliament. A lawyer from Windsor and a former NDP MPP in Ontario, Singh was the first racialized person (and first Sikh) to lead a major national political party in Canada. In the leadership campaign, Singh denounced the Quebec government’s controversial Bill 62, which would ban Muslim women from giving or receiving public services while wearing a face covering. He also advocated the decriminalization of all illegal drugs and the reform of Canada’s electoral system. The latter was promised by Justin Trudeau in the 2015 election. Trudeau openly abandoned it shortly thereafter.

One of the most serious challenges facing Singh and the federal NDP was the proposed expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Rachel Notley, the NDP premier of Alberta, supported the project. However, John Horgan, the NDP premier of British Columbia, opposed it. Horgan’s minority government depended on the support of the BC Green Party and was fully committed to halting the pipeline expansion. This conflict put Singh and the federal NDP in a difficult position. For months, Singh tried to remain neutral, calling for a more thorough environmental assessment of the project. However, in May 2018, he announced his opposition, leading Notley to call his position “naive.”

In August 2018, Singh announced that he would run for a federal seat in the Burnaby South by-election in British Columbia. The Vancouver-area riding had been vacant since June, when NDP MP Kennedy Stewart resigned to run for election as mayor of Vancouver. (Stewart won the election and became mayor in October 2018.) On 25 February 2019, Singh was elected as the MP for Burnaby South.

2019 Federal Election

On 16 June 2019, Jagmeet Singh and the NDP announced A New Deal for People, the party’s campaign platform for the October federal election. One of its key policies was a national pharmacare program, including prescription drug coverage for all Canadians. ( See The Case for a National Drug Plan.) The platform also addressed climate change, vowing to end subsidies to gas and oil companies and increase emissions targets. The party also promised to expand cell phone coverage and broadband Internet and set caps on Internet and cell phone bills in line with global averages. In addition, the NDP platform emphasized affordable housing, including promises to create 30-year terms for CMHC-insured mortgages, which would enable smaller monthly payments for first-time buyers, and construct 500,000 affordable units. The NDP also confirmed its commitment to reconciliation and Indigenous rights. It promised improved housing, clean water and education for First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities. To help pay for these initiatives, the NDP proposed increasing the corporate tax rate and highest income tax rate, as well as imposing a new one per cent wealth tax on fortunes worth more than $20 million.

During the 2019 campaign, Jagmeet Singh announced several new policies aimed at shoring up and enhancing support in Quebec, where polls indicated that Quebecers were largely abandoning the party. Those included a promise for more money for immigrant integration, recognition of the importance of Quebec’s cultural autonomy, and an effective veto over infrastructure projects that have an environmental impact, such as pipelines. Singh also suggested that he could make Quebec — the lone province that has not signed Canada’s Constitution — a signatory, though he did not specify how he would achieve that.

Singh was also criticized — including by some in his own party — for declaring before the election campaign that he would not work with the Conservative government if it won a minority government. Critics suggested that Singh was effectively conceding that the NDP could not win the election itself and said he was also forsaking a potentially valuable bargaining chip in such an event.

At the beginning of the election campaign, Singh and the NDP were virtually tied with Elizabeth May’s Green Party in public opinion polls. However, the New Democrats pulled ahead of the Greens as the election neared, due in large part to Singh’s performance in the televised leaders’ debates. This did not, however, translate to success at the polls. While Singh kept his seat in Burnaby South, the NDP was reduced to 24 seats in the House of Commons, dropping to fourth place overall. The party lost all but one of its seats in Quebec, where the Bloc Québécois enjoyed a resurgence. The NDP was also shut out of the Greater Toronto Area, which the Liberals dominated. Despite this, Singh was optimistic about his party’s ability to influence policy in the new Liberal minority government.

Liberal Minority Government, 2019–21

Justin Trudeau’s minority government needed the support of at least one other party to remain in office. Jagmeet Singh proved adept at negotiating with the prime minister for NDP support. He was especially effective in helping to shape the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beginning in spring 2020, the government undertook various initiatives to help Canadians. The Liberals proposed direct financial aid for students. But Singh made it clear the NDP would not support the program without increasing the amount of aid. The government agreed. Singh told Trudeau that he could count on continued NDP support only if he committed to improving paid sick leave. Again, the prime minister agreed. To help Canadians who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, the government offered a Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit (CERB) of $1,000 per month for 16 weeks. Singh said he would only vote for the CERB if it was $2,000 a month and extended to 28 weeks. The prime minister agreed. As a result of Singh’s pressure and promise of support, the government also agreed to increase its original 15 per cent wage subsidy to 75 per cent.

2021 Federal Election

On 15 August 2021, Prime Minister Trudeau called a federal election for 20 September. As in 2019, Jagmeet Singh was an enthusiastic campaigner and again used social media to his advantage. Unlike other party leaders, he regularly posted short clips on TikTok that demonstrated his self-deprecating sense of humour. Singh visited 51 ridings held by Conservative and Liberal MPs with the hope of flipping them to the NDP. An opinion poll released by Abacus Data on 26 August found that Singh was “by far the most popular leader in the country.” Forty-two per cent of respondents expressed a positive view and only 24 per cent a negative one.

Unlike in 2019, Singh did not rule out the possibility of working with a Conservative minority government. But he focused most of his comments on Justin Trudeau. Singh emphasized in nearly every speech and response to reporters that Trudeau spoke well on issues but did not carry through on promises. Singh repeatedly brought attention to such issues as taxing wealthy Canadians, solving the climate crisis, improving access to housing, and ensuring that all Indigenous communities have clean drinking water.

However, the election results were disappointing for the NDP and Singh, even though he won his riding by more than 4,000 votes. The Liberals maintained their minority government with 159 seats. The Conservatives won 119, and the Bloc Québécois came third with 33 seats. Although the NDP increased its share of the popular vote from 16 per cent in 2019 to 17.8 per cent, the party again finished fourth with 25 seats, one more than in 2019.

The party then began a process of examining the campaign. Singh’s practice of taking funds from local ridings to support his own campaign came under scrutiny and drew much criticism. This, combined with Singh’s second underwhelming election result, led some in the party to wonder if it was time for new leadership.

Supply and Confidence Agreement, 2022–24

On 22 March 2022, Jagmeet Singh and the NDP struck a supply-and-confidence agreement with Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government. The NDP agreed to support the government in all confidence motions until June 2025. In exchange, the Liberals would implement certain NDP policy priorities, most notably dental care for low-income Canadians and a national pharmacare program.

As part of the agreement, the Trudeau government increased annual sick leave for people in federally regulated workplaces. It passed the Sustainable Jobs Act to help create sustainable jobs and economic growth in a net-zero economy. It introduced a law banning scab workers at federally regulated workplaces during a strike. It also created a roundtable to implement the recommendations of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

But the most significant policy to emerge from the agreement was the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP). It came into force on 1 May 2024, when it began providing dental coverage for roughly 1.9 million seniors. By September, it had expanded to include children under 18 and people who receive the federal disability tax credit. The program was planned to eventually cover one quarter of Canadians without private dental plans — about 9 million people — with a projected cost of $13 billion over five years.

However, another key plank of the agreement, a national pharmacare program, failed to gain traction. In February 2024, Singh threatened to pull the NDP out of the agreement if the Liberals failed to table legislation by the end of March. A pharmacare bill was introduced at the end of February and passed a vote in the House of Commons in June. But by early September, it was still hung up in the Senate.

The gains that Singh extracted from the Liberals through the agreement gave him the chance to claim victory for Canadians on numerous fronts. It was, after all, the largest expansion of free Canadian health care in decades. But Singh’s messaging failed to break through. Instead, Official Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre had set the tone and the narrative by relentlessly pounding away at the Liberals for more than two years, claiming that “Canada is broken” and that Poilievre and the Conservatives were the only ones who could fix it.

Moreover, Poilievre had successfully tarred the Liberals and NDP with the same brush. He criticized the NDP for propping up the unpopular Liberals and successfully conflated the NDP with an increasingly toxic Liberal brand. Two Conservative attack ads broadcast in July 2024 also accused Singh of supporting the Liberal government for no other reason than to secure his pension as a Member of Parliament, which he would qualify for in October 2025, when the next election was scheduled to take place. The ads dubbed him “Sellout Singh” and ended with the line, “He gets his pension, you pay the price.”

The Liberals and NDP sank in public opinion polls while the Conservatives steadily rose. In early September 2024, Singh tried to staunch the bleeding by announcing that he had “ripped up” the supply-and-confidence agreement. Singh pitched the NDP as the only viable option to prevent the Conservative Party from winning the next election. “Big corporations and wealthy CEOs have had their government. It’s the people’s time,” he said.

By early October, a Nanos Research poll showed that the NDP had pulled ahead of the Liberals for the first time since Trudeau became prime minister in 2015. The NDP garnered 21.6 per cent support compared to 21.5 per cent for the Liberals. The Conservatives held a commanding lead with 41.6 per cent.

However, Canada’s political deck of cards was reshuffled significantly in early 2025, when a beleaguered Trudeau announced his resignation. Newly inaugurated US president Donald Trump then began his second term by threatening a trade war with Canada with the stated goal of annexing it as the 51st state. Nationalism in Canada soared, and concerns over the country’s sovereignty grew.

2025 Federal Election

By 14 March 2025, when former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney became the new Liberal leader and prime minister, the polls had the Liberals and Conservatives in a dead heat. After 23 March, when Carney called a snap election for 28 April, the Liberals opened up a significant lead — largely at the expense of the NDP. The NDP saw its national support drop by more than 50 per cent as many progressive voters consolidated behind Carney and the Liberals. A poll by 338Canada on 2 April showed the NDP with only 10 per cent support, compared to 34 per cent for the Conservatives and a remarkable 46 per cent for the resuscitated Liberals.

The situation faced by the NDP was so dire that many observers believed Singh’s main objective in the election was merely to “save the furniture” — to minimize the party’s losses and retain as many seats as possible. The party received a minor boost when it was endorsed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Canada’s largest union. But Singh appeared unable to reverse the tide of public opinion — even in his own riding (the newly redistricted Burnaby Central), where his support cratered to 25 per cent. The Liberal candidate, Wade Chang, enjoyed 40 per cent support. On 8 April, 338Canada gave Singh less than a one per cent chance of winning re-election in his riding. Many polls showed that the NDP was at risk of losing official party status in the House of Commons, which requires a minimum of 12 seats.

Singh performed well in the two televised leaders’ debates, the first in French and the second in English. By then, however, he had shifted away from his strategy of pitching the NDP as the best party to govern. Instead, with a Liberal government all but certain, Singh pitched a minority government as being in the best interest of Canadians and his party as the only one that progressives could count on to hold the Liberals to account.

Singh also told the Toronto Star four days before the election that he consciously chose not to cause an early election in the fall of 2024 because, “While we could have won lots of seats, it would have meant a Pierre Poilievre majority Conservative government, and I could not stomach that.”

When election day came, the results were devastating for both Singh and the NDP. Singh not only lost his riding, he finished third with only 18 per cent of the vote. In his concession speech, Singh said, “It’s been the honour of my life to represent the people of Burnaby Central. Tonight they chose a new Member of Parliament, and tonight I wish them well as they continue to work hard for this community.” He also announced that he would resign as NDP leader once the party had chosen an interim leader.

Meanwhile, the NDP saw its share of the national vote plummet to 6.3 per cent from 17.8 per cent in 2021. Its seat total in the House fell from 24 to 7 — a loss of official party status. Perhaps most troubling for the party, it lost votes not only to the Liberals but also to the Conservatives. This was particularly true in Ontario, where the Conservatives flipped three seats from the NDP (Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, Windsor West and London-Fanshawe). Former NDP strategist Robin V. Sears called the result “the most gruesome election night for the NDP since the Diefenbaker sweep in 1958.”

And yet, when the dust settled, the Liberal Party finished with a minority government of 169 seats, three short of a majority. This once again left the NDP in a position to hold the balance of power.

After the election, political columnist Althia Raj wrote in the Toronto Star that “Singh may be remembered as one of the party’s best leaders: better than Mulcair, better than even Layton…. But what Singh has done, and what he should also be remembered for by progressives, is that he put their interests first…. What the NDP failed to get in electoral gains, it obtained in policy gains. Gains that even the Conservatives now partially acknowledge are too popular to take away.”