Election 2025: Where goeth the NDP?
Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson
The Conservatives increased their vote and seat count in the 2025 election, so the real story explaining the overall result was how the NDP, having embraced Wokism, became irrelevant. Traditional supporters of the party that once proclaimed that it would not rest until it had eradicated capitalism voted for a rich capitalist banker whose New York headquartered company is registered in Bermuda to escape Canadian taxes. J.S. Woodsworth, first elected to parliament as an independent labour-socialist in 1921 before becoming leader of the new Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in 1932, must truly be rolling in his grave.
Woodsworth edited the newsletter of the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919. Although the strike was broken with its leaders charged with sedition, Woodsworth was continually re-elected to parliament by his constituents until his death in 1942. His riding, Winnipeg North Centre, continued to send CCF members to parliament thereafter. In an effort to tone down its radical image in the rest of the country, the CCF became the New Democratic Party in 1961 and Stanley Knowles, who had replaced Woodsworth, was promptly re-elected as a New Democrat. In 1988 the federal electoral map was redrawn and a large part of Winnipeg North Centre became part of the new riding of Winnipeg Transcona. Bill Blakie of the NDP was promptly elected to represent it. The NDP election materials of the day emphasized social programs such as medicare with no mention of class politics and socialism. Finally, in 2013, the NDP dropped all mention of socialism from its constitution.
While the NDP was still democratic socialist, it offered an alternative to the Liberals and Conservatives. Its first leader, Tommy Douglas, described these “old-line parties” as being no different from each other as “Tweetle Dee Dee is to Tweetle Dee Dum.” But with its rejection of socialism the NDP became a political party in need of an ideology. It embraced Wokism – an ideology that replaces working class politics with identity politics. Under this schema, the working class becomes invisible as attention is paid to constructed racial, religious and genderized identities. It is no longer capitalism that is oppressive; it is “whiteness” or white straight people. With this ideology, sometimes described as a proto-religion, white people can redeem themselves from their original sin by becoming ultra-Woke.
Before becoming chairman of the Brookfield Asset Management Board, our new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, was Vice-chair of Brookfield Investment’s, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Impact Fund Investing Board – a body that uses ideological criteria to place investment dollars. Carney thus exemplifies Woke capitalism – a system that works with monopolies that do not need to worry about market competition when making investment decisions. By embracing Woke ideology and by supporting the previous Liberal government to the last day that the Canadian parliament met, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh effectively convinced traditional NDP supporters to vote Liberal. There is no need for two Woke parties. Further, by becoming like the Liberals, the NDP created a void on the political spectrum that they once occupied. The NDP could become politically relevant again by returning to its ideological roots becoming, once again, an actual progressive or “left” party concerned with class differences guided by a humanism based on actual, as opposed to constructed, reality.
Tellingly, the Conservatives won Transcona in this federal election. The new representative is a construction electrician and a member of the International Union of Electrical Workers. His NDP opponent has a history of business management in the “Not for Profit” sector. Her father was a trade unionist.
11 replies on “Election 2025: Where goeth the NDP?”
Very clear and succinct, Lloyd. Thank you!
Assuming the elections haven’t been rigged (big assumption), they truly attest for the democracy being “the worst system except for all the rest”.
Interesting, Lloyd, however the bandying about the term “Woke”, which is a concept nebulous at best, doesn’t clarify matters.
In my view, the NDP was decimated by the electorate’s fears that the Conservatives would get in and sell Canada’s interests down the river, in favour of US interests and objectives. A third option to Canadian voters, given the imperatives, was likely seen as a luxury.
As ever, just my opinion.
Thanks again for all that you do.
The political advertising from the Conservatives said “Canada First.” So on what basis did some New Democrats decide that voting Liberal was in Canada’s interest? As I demonstrated in my opening piece, traditionally the CCF/NDP would have said that a socialist alternative was putting Canada first. By changing their ideology to one the Liberals were espousing made them redundant.
I’m not persuaded that NDP wokeism was a significant factor in their poor performance in the election. I think that it was simply not wishing to split the left vote with the Liberals, which would allow the Conservatives to win the election – basically a case of strategic voting. Of the leaders, Carney was the choice of a majority of Canadians in polls leading up to the election regarding who would be the best leader to face the demon Trump. For most lefties, PP is a Trump mini-me, how could any selfless Dipper take the risk?
John, on what basis do you, the media, or anyone else describe the Liberals and NDP as “the left?” At one time being “left” meant being socialist but as I demonstrated in my article, the NDP dropped class politics for identity politics. My thesis is that by moving to the political right the NDP has become redundant? Do you see a place for thee NDP in this new political formulation John>
Pretty much concur with John Janis on this, Lloyd. The existential threat of annexation drove many further on the left to the center, in the rejection of PP the Mini-Me and the mapeline magazi who are in league with King Don (the Felon).
I believe there is considerable confusion about “Woke”, and that the notion that there is an ideology affixed to this is mistaken. It was comical to watch PP trying to define “Woke”, as he clearly does not understand it. That said, words take on new meanings over time, so perhaps I am missing something with this, too.
Lead Belly “Stay woke”
In possibly the earliest audio recording of the phrase, Lead Belly urged Black listeners to “stay woke” in the spoken afterword to a 1938 recording of his song “Scottsboro Boys”, which tells the story of nine Black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. Lead Belly warns his listeners, “So I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there—best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”[52][53]
The reaction to “Woke” is akin to the reaction to “Antifa”. Those who rail the loudest are the guilty parties.
The notion that Woke Identitarianism (Wokism) is somehow connected to a 1930s blues singer has been debunked. Please see my comments of May 2nd.
Good historical recap Lloyd!
Indeed, I call the new PM “Carnival, shell game, Carney” who will short sell Canada to make a buck while his money is safely tucked away in the US and offshore. Who, as a member of the WEF and Trudeau’s financial advisor will continue to fund DEI initiatives of the WEF with Canadians money. His wokeness will become the subject of many debates which thanks to more conservative seats can be slowed down.
I would like to thank everyone for their participation. I hope that my comments will be seen as an invitation to continue this discussion.
My historical scan demonstrated that throughout its 100 year history the CCF/NDP has been slowly moving toward the political right. I observed much of this personally having been president of a NDP youth club in the 1960s, an NDP organizer in the 1970s and having served on numerous constituency executives and election committees since. I voted for Jagmeet Singh at the convention that elected him leader. We need to consider that the popular media narrative that the Liberals have moved “left” is mistaken – the direction of change was taken by the other party in the opposite direction.
Having abandoned socialism, the NDP sought a new ideology. It embraced one that includes cancel culture, transgenderism and political correctness, but its most defining feature is identity politics – the idea that one’s racial, religious, gender or sexual identity defines one’s place in life. Like Marxism, it divides the world into oppressors and oppressed but like fascism, it defines these categories on the basis of race. Since it is fundamentally about power, it often creates the racism and genderism they publically decry. Edan Tasca and I went into some detail about this in Woke ironies: achieving the opposite of its stated goals.
As Mark Carney’s work history demonstrates, Wokism is compatible with monopoly capitalism.
Globalization means being able to exploit cheaper sources and implementing programs like DEI and ESG allows capitalism to assume a moral position while doing so. You can read more about Woke capitalism here: How Turbo-Wokism broke America – UnHerd
Woke Ideology holds that it represents awareness of racial, gender and sexual discrimination but, in point of fact, the NDP (and humanists prior to that) have been making progress on these issues long before there was Wokism. The logic of Wokism makes simultaneous consideration of racial and class differences difficult. Wokism seeks to effect what it calls equity through a system of quotas with the objective of placing representatives of approved groups at every level in the capitalist hierarchy. The class system remains intact. Working class people who object are characterized as racist, and minority working class people who object are labeled “white adjacent.” It is this compatibility with capitalism and has afforded to Wokism an outsized degree of success within the system. Wokism is first and foremost a system of power. At every level people who do not support Woke ideology are removed and replaced by people who do, see: How Woke puritanism can lead to fatal consequences: Reflections on the death of Richard Bilkszto.
Damian repeated a common trope that Wokism was invented by a 1930s black blues singer. In fact, Lead Belly was warning blacks about going to certain areas of the United States where the Ku Klux Klan was active, and he was using black vernacular to do so. The Black Muslims active against systemic racism at the time used standard English. Martin Luther King had a lot to say about racism and did so in standard English. The sight of 21st Century mostly white academics defending their political ideology as descended from 1930s black vernacular is both insulting and degrading to black culture and an example of the cultural appropriation they abhor in others.
Excellent summary of the decline of the CCF through the needless and counter-productive renaming to NDP (WTF did that even mean?) to the abandonment of working class issues in favour of naked nihilism in the form of identity based hostility enhancing identity based bigotry. Unfortunately only the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois have for the most part resisted Pseudo-Woke ideology. So we are left with only bad and worse options in who to vote for.
Hi Lloyd, Well said. I’d add that the Greens are the most Woke of all, leaving me politically homeless. For me, the worst thing about the NDP has always been their Union roots. Unions are a symptom of extreme economic inequality. They should be made obsolete, not entrenched. The biggest mass arrest in Canada was by the BC NPD protecting Union logging jobs. They have never agitated for more employee ownership, or for co-ops as the standard business model.
I think the gaping hole in Woke foundations is that it rejects any objective thinking about gender issues. Fifty years ago, Sociobiology finally married logic and sociology, and got banned for conflicting with Feminist dogma. It has all gone downhill from there, leaving people like me uniquely targeted for discrimination after fighting it all my life.