NDP forges ahead with leadership race despite dissent

National Observer

10-07-2025

The NDP leadership race will launch in September despite calls by veteran MPs and grassroots members to first have a thorough election post-mortem and renewal process.
But Peter Julian, who headed up the 1993 renewal process the last time the NDP lost official party status, said taking time to do it right was the key to coming back stronger.
'There is no doubt that when we have the worst result in the century, that we need to properly reflect and be properly accountable on evaluating that campaign,' Julian said.
The former NDP MP and party stalwart told Canada's National Observer in an interview Wednesday that at such a critical juncture, the NDP should take six months to talk to party members across the country, take stock of what led to the disastrous 2025 election result and build a stronger foundation to move forward.
'This is where the evaluation is so important to know how these decisions were made and when they were made and why they were made,' he said.
He called the 2025 campaign strategy 'deeply flawed,' pointing to such examples as the final days of the campaign when volunteers in his riding were asked to campaign in other ridings despite the tight race. Many other decisions need to be examined, he said, including how national resources and the leadership tour were leveraged.
In particular, the party's decision to wait until late in the campaign to release an election platform made no sense, Julian said. A platform could have been used by candidates across the country to help the NDP differentiate itself from the Conservatives and Liberals — both of whom waited until the race's final weeks to release theirs — but instead, it was a 'stealth release' and flew under the radar, he added.
'We can't rush the leadership process. We need to make sure that we get the renewal right, the rebuilding right, that first important stage before we move to leadership,' ‪@mrpeterjulian.bsky.social‬ told @nationalobserver.com‬ earlier this week.
On Tuesday, more than two months after the NDP's worst election result since 1993, the party announced a 'review and renewal' process to 'reflect' on the 2025 election campaign and 'help shape a path forward,' led by Emilie Taman, a former NDP candidate and labour and human rights lawyer.
However, today the national council — through a contentious process criticized by some members — approved rules that will launch the leadership contest in September, likely before the review and renewal process is complete. Julian did not immediately respond to a request for further comment on Thursday afternoon on this development.
A handful of other prominent New Democrats and grassroots members say a thorough post-mortem must come before the leadership race is launched.
'How can we decide on how to move forward, including with a leadership race, without all the information to assess the moment, where we are?' NDP MP Leah Gazan wrote in a leaked email June 23 criticizing the party for undemocratic decision-making and sidelining racialized and marginalized members.
At a confidential meeting on July 10, the NDP federal council decided on some, but not all, of the leadership contest rules, the Toronto Star reported late Thursday afternoon. The entrance fee is set at $100,000 — a cost many say is too high. A newly launched group called Reclaim Canada's NDP, as well as members of the NDP's Indigenous People's Commission, wanted an entrance fee no higher than $50,000 to ensure fresh faces can run, so the decision was "disappointing," said Keith de Silvia-Legault, a spokesperson for Reclaim Canada's NDP.
The race will last about six months, starting in September. The six-month duration was heralded as a win by Reclaim Canada's NDP, which bucked against earlier proposals by the party brass for a shorter race.
But some members are still concerned that the timing of the leadership race will sideline the review and renewal process.
"I, personally, do not foresee there being time between now and the election of a leader, where we will do a proper post-mortem and, personally, I'm afraid that that is an intentional move, because they don't want to do the post mortem, and they don't want to be held accountable," Des Bissonnette, co-chair of the Indigenous People's Commission, said in an interview with Canada's National Observer. Bissonnette would not specify or confirm what happened in the July 10 meeting.
Currently, the federal NDP is in debt, reduced to seven seats in the House of Commons and deprived of the resources that official parties of 12 or more MPs have.
Everyone has an opinion on where the party should go from here.
Nathan Cullen, former provincial and federal NDP MP (and 2012 leadership hopeful), recently penned an opinion piece in the Toronto Star arguing for a short leadership race, on the basis that the minority government could fall at any time.
According to Cullen, dragging the process out beyond 2025 will lower the NDPs profile at a time when the House of Commons needs strong opposition.
Others disagree. Peggy Nash, a former federal NDP president and MP, thinks the party 'should not rush into anything.'
Nash currently works in a non-partisan role removed from the NDP now, but said 'if there's a mood that somehow the central party was too controlling, it was too leader-focused, I think it might not be seen in a good light to have a short, quick election where it seems that there's only one candidate who's going to be the choice.'
In her view, it is wisest to hold a wide-ranging, open leadership race over a number of months where candidates can go out, sign up members, build support, raise money and engage in debate to rebuild the party.
'I have been in a leadership campaign, and I think those public debates are really, really healthy, and you can have debates from different perspectives and let the delegates choose,' Nash told Canada's National Observer in a phone interview.
A major challenge for the NDP is the need to raise money, which is why some members were willing to compromise with a $50,000 fee, federal council members told Canada's National Observer in June. In the last leadership race the cost was $30,000.
But leadership fees are not the only way to raise money.
In 1993, one of the byproducts of honest 'unvarnished' conversations and review process was that people saw this work being done and wanted to contribute, both financially and otherwise, to help rebuild the party, Julian explained.
'There is a fundamental reason why having that honest, accountable discussion is so important to rebuilding the NDP; there often are very clear benefits,' he said.
'When we went into the following election, we basically paid off our debt.'
Beyond the financial challenge, Julian said the 1993 renewal process allowed people to weigh in on everything and 'touched every aspect of the party.' All that work allowed them to make major changes to the party's democratic structure, its mission, values and produce 'very strong policy documents' on environmental, economic and social policy with widespread support of NDP members at convention.
'We can't rush the leadership process. We need to make sure that we get the renewal right, the rebuilding right, that first important stage before we move to leadership,' Julian said.