National Post

The NDP is here to rescue us from ‘cis’ men

[Robert Jarvis, who wrote five booklets for C-Far’s Canadian Issues Series, including The Workingman’s Revolt: The Asiatic Exclusion Rally of 1907, started off politically as a supporter of the NDP, becuase it was seen as the workingman’s party. However, by the 1990s things were changing. It had largely abandoned the workingman, especially the White workingman to embrace identity or special minority politics. Bob Jarvis quit the NDP saying it “had become the party of fags, feminists and tree huggers) and embraced the Reform Party. During this Spring’s federal election, tv viewers may recall then NDP leader Jagmeet Singh with his turban du jour, at some press conference, surrounded almost entirely by women of the short haired, feminist type. Way in the back might be one or two sad graying males. – Paul Fromm]

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh stepped down after he lost his seat and the party had a very disappointing showing in the April 28 federal election.

The NDP have begun their leadership race and apparently wish to confirm to Canadians that they have learned absolutely nothing from their electoral flogging earlier this year. The language and rules for the campaign are emblematic of an organization so beholden to the deranged ideology of identity politics that even being reduced to seven seats in the House of Commons isn’t enough to change course.  It is their apparent desire to make sure that there is no comeback from the abyss, no second chance, as they drive their own brand even further into the mud.

Among the various requirements to be approved to run for the poisoned chalice of NDP leader is a Nomination Signature Form, which must be signed by 500 members in good standing of the NDP. So far, so normal. Then, as is too often the case for the new left, normal leaves the room to be replaced by grievance and nonsense.

And so, to ensure common sense is entirely absent from the signature process, the NDP requires “at least fifty percent (50%) of the total required signatures must be from members who do not identify as a cis man,” and “a minimum of one hundred (100) signatures must be from members of equity-seeking groups, including but not limited to racialized members, Indigenous members, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, and persons living with disabilities.”

If there were any lingering doubt, the party of the working class is now definitively the party of identity politics and grievance culture. This is the language that broadcasts to Canadians that the message the NDP got from their electoral drubbing is that they must be even more radical.

While the NDP’s tone deafness to public sentiment is remarkable, the manner in which it facilitates the exclusion of women is even more staggering. Nowhere, readers of the rules will note, is it specified that 50 per cent of signatories must be female, only not “cis man.” That is to say, a candidate can be approved with a combination of cis men and trans women, all natal males, without the need to seek the approval of a single female. While this scenario is admittedly unlikely, it is staggering that a party so hell bent on “inclusivity” and “equity” is so obviously comfortable with the erasure of women from its inclusion criteria. By refusing to mention the word “woman” anywhere, the NDP have signalled their virtue, all while displaying the electoral communications sophistication of trepanned gnat.

This display of lunacy follows hot on the heels of endlessly poor political decisions by Jagmeet Singh to prostrate the party before Justin Trudeau and the Liberals in exchange for a pittance. From 2019 to 2025 when the Liberals had a minority, the NDP didn’t hold the government to account in any tangible way. As former Conservative cabinet minister James Moore pointed out recently , the NDP “wins” were small consolation for the horrendous damage Singh did to the party’s brand. Even when Liberal polling numbers were in freefall in late 2024, Singh somehow couldn’t bring himself to pull the plug on his support for the Liberals.

The descent of the NDP into absurd irrelevancy is sad. Historically the NDP have often been good for Canada even if they have not governed federally. The NDP pushed for universal healthcare, equitable pensions, women’s equality and gay rights. They can be commended for this and their contribution in pushing for a fairer society. The NDP grandees of old should also be respected for this.

The current NDP is a frail carcass of grievance, extremism and zealotry which bears no resemblance to its respectable past. Their next choice of leader will demonstrate to Canadians whether or not any flicker of the torches of Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent and Jack Layton remain to re-light the fire of a shattered movement and broken party.

(National Post, September 4, 2025)

Adam Pankratz is a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.