20th century , leader of the NDP from 1961 to 1971
Origins and Tommy Douglas In 1956, after the birth of the
Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) by a merger of two previous labour congresses, negotiations began between the CLC and the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) to bring about an alliance between
organized labour and the
political left in Canada. In 1958 a joint CCF-CLC committee, the National Committee for the New Party (NCNP), was formed to create a new social democratic political party, with ten members from each group. The NCNP spent the next three years laying down the foundations of the
New Party, the party's interim name pending a national convention. During this process, a large number of New Party Clubs were established to allow like-minded Canadians to join in its founding, and six representatives from New Party Clubs were added to the National Committee. In 1961, at the end of a five-day long founding convention which established its principles, policies and structures, the New Democratic Party was born, and
Tommy Douglas, the long-time CCF
Premier of Saskatchewan, was elected as its first leader. Supporters of the New Democratic Party are sometimes referred to as "Dippers".
David Lewis At the
1971 leadership convention, an activist group called
the Waffle tried to take control of the party but was defeated by
David Lewis with the help of the union members. The following year, most of The Waffle split from the NDP and formed their own party. The NDP itself supported the minority government formed by the
Pierre Trudeau–led Liberals from 1972 to 1974, although the two parties never entered into a
coalition. Together, they succeeded in passing several socially progressive initiatives into law such as pension indexing and the creation of the crown corporation
Petro-Canada. In 1974, the NDP worked with the Progressive Conservatives to pass a motion of non-confidence, forcing an
election. However, it backfired as Trudeau's Liberals regained a majority government, mostly at the expense of the NDP, which lost half its seats. Lewis lost his own riding and resigned as leader the following year.
Ed Broadbent , leader of the NDP from 1975 to 1989 Under
Ed Broadbent (1975–1989) the NDP attempted to find a more populist image to contrast with the governing parties, focusing on more pocketbook issues than on ideological fervour. The party played a critical role during
Joe Clark's minority government of 1979–1980, moving the
non-confidence motion on
John Crosbie's
1979 budget that brought down the
Progressive Conservative government and forced the
1980 election that brought the Liberal Party back to power. In the
1984 election, which saw the Progressive Conservatives under
Brian Mulroney win the most seats in Canadian history, the NDP won 30 seats, while the governing Liberals fell to 40 seats. The NDP set a then-record of 43
members of parliament (MPs) elected to the house in the
election of 1988. The Liberals, however, had reaped most of the benefits of opposing the
Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement to emerge as the dominant alternative to the ruling PC government. In 1989, Broadbent stepped down after 14 years as federal leader of the NDP.
Audrey McLaughlin At the
party's leadership convention in 1989, former
BC Premier Dave Barrett and
Yukon MP Audrey McLaughlin were the main contenders for the leadership. During the campaign, Barrett argued that the party should be concerned with
western alienation, rather than focusing its attention on
Quebec. The Quebec wing of the NDP strongly opposed Barrett's candidacy, with
Phil Edmonston, the party's main spokesman in Quebec, threatening to resign from the party if Barrett won. McLaughlin ran on a more traditional approach, and became the first woman to lead a major federal political party in Canada. Although enjoying strong support among organized labour and rural voters in the Prairies, McLaughlin tried to expand their support into Quebec without much success. Under McLaughlin, the party did manage to win an election in Quebec for the first time when Edmonston won the
1990 Chambly by-election. McLaughlin and the NDP were routed in the
1993 election, where the party won only nine seats and 7% of the vote, three seats short of
official party status in the House of Commons. This was, until
2025, the NDP's lowest seat total in any election since the party's founding in 1961; the election also resulted in the lowest-ever total number of votes ever received by the NDP in a federal election. The loss was blamed on the unpopularity of NDP provincial governments under
Bob Rae in Ontario and
Mike Harcourt in British Columbia and the loss of a significant portion of the Western vote to the
Reform Party, which promised a more decentralized and democratic federation along with right-wing economic reforms.
Alexa McDonough McLaughlin resigned in 1995 and was succeeded by
Alexa McDonough, the former leader of the
Nova Scotia NDP. In contrast to traditional Canadian practice, where an MP for a safe seat stands down to allow a newly elected leader a chance to enter Parliament via a
by-election, McDonough opted to wait until the next election to enter Parliament. The party recovered somewhat in
the 1997 election, electing 21 members. The NDP made a breakthrough in
Atlantic Canada, a region where they had been practically nonexistent at the federal level. Before 1997, they had won only three seats in Atlantic Canada. However, in 1997 they won eight seats in that region. The party was able to harness the discontent of voters in Atlantic Canada, who were upset over cuts to
employment insurance and other social programs implemented by
Jean Chrétien's Liberal majority government. In the November
2000 election, the NDP campaigned primarily on the issue of Medicare but lost significant support. The governing Liberals ran an effective campaign on their economic record and managed to recapture some of the Atlantic ridings lost to the NDP in the 1997 election. The initial high electoral prospects of the
Canadian Alliance under new leader
Stockwell Day also hurt the NDP as many supporters strategically voted Liberal to keep the Alliance from winning. The NDP finished with 13 MPs—just barely over the threshold for official party status. McDonough announced her resignation as party leader for family reasons in June 2002 (effective upon her successor's election).
21st century .|278x278px
Jack Layton A Toronto city councillor and recent President of the
Federation of Canadian Municipalities,
Jack Layton was elected at the party's
leadership election in Toronto on January 25, 2003. The
2004 election produced mixed results for the NDP. It increased its total vote by more than a million votes; however, despite Layton's optimistic predictions of reaching 40 seats, the NDP only gained five seats in the election, for a total of 19. The party was disappointed to see its two
Saskatchewan incumbents defeated in close races by the new
Conservative Party (created by merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties), perhaps because of the unpopularity of the NDP provincial government. The Liberals were re-elected, though this time as a
minority government. Combined, the Liberals and NDP had 154 seats – one short of the total needed for the balance of power. As has been the case with Liberal minorities in the past, the NDP were in a position to make gains on the party's priorities, such as fighting health care
privatization, fulfilling Canada's obligation to the
Kyoto Protocol, and
electoral reform. The party used Prime Minister
Paul Martin's politically precarious position caused by the
sponsorship scandal to force investment in multiple federal programs, agreeing not to help topple the government provided that some major concessions in the federal budget were ceded to. On November 9, 2005, after the findings of the
Gomery Inquiry were released, Layton notified the Liberal government that continued NDP support would require a ban on private healthcare. When the Liberals refused, Layton announced that he would introduce a motion on November 24 that would ask Martin to call a federal election in February to allow for several pieces of legislation to be passed. The Liberals turned down this offer. On November 28, 2005, Conservative leader
Stephen Harper's motion of no confidence was seconded by Layton and it was passed by all three opposition parties, forcing an election. During the
election, the NDP won 29 seats, a significant increase of 10 seats from the 19 won in 2004. It was the fourth-best performance in party history, approaching the level of popular support enjoyed in the 1980s. The NDP kept all of the 18 seats it held at the dissolution of Parliament. While the party gained no seats in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, or the Prairie provinces, it gained five seats in British Columbia, five more in Ontario and the
Western Arctic riding of the
Northwest Territories. The Conservatives won a minority government in the 2006 election, and initially the NDP was the only party that would not be able to pass legislation with the Conservatives. However, following a series of
floor crossings, the NDP also came to hold the balance of power. The NDP voted against the government in all four confidence votes in the 39th parliament, the only party to do so. However, it worked with the Conservatives on other issues, including in passing the
Federal Accountability Act and pushing for changes to the
Clean Air Act. Following that election, the NDP caucus rose to 30 members with the victory of NDP candidate
Thomas Mulcair in a
by-election in Outremont. This marked the second time ever (and first time in seventeen years) that the NDP won a riding in Quebec. The party won 37 seats in the
2008 federal election, the best performance since the 1988 total of 43. This included a breakthrough in the riding of
Edmonton-Strathcona, only the second time the NDP had managed to win a seat in Alberta in the party's history. In the
2011 federal election, the NDP won a record 103 seats, becoming the
Official Opposition for the first time in the party's history. The party had a historic breakthrough in
Quebec, where they won 59 out of 75 seats, dominating
Montreal and sweeping
Quebec City and the
Outaouais. This meant that a majority of the party's MPs now came from a province where they had only ever had two candidates elected in the party's history. The NDP's success in Quebec was mirrored by the collapse of the
Bloc Québécois, which lost all but four of its 47 seats, and the collapse of the Liberal Party nationally, which was cut down to just 34 seats, its worst-ever result. This also marked the first time in history where the Liberal Party was neither the government nor the Official Opposition, as the NDP had taken over the latter role. The NDP was now the second largest party in the House of Commons opposing a Conservative majority government. In July 2011, Layton announced that he was suffering from a new cancer and would take a leave of absence, projected to last until the resumption of Parliament in September. He would retain his position of NDP Leader and Leader of the Opposition. The party confirmed his suggestion of
Hull—Aylmer MP
Nycole Turmel to carry out the functions of party leader in his absence. Layton
died from his cancer on August 22, 2011.
Tom Mulcair In his final letter, Layton called for a
leadership election to be held in early 2012 to choose his successor, which was held on March 24, 2012, and elected new leader
Tom Mulcair. Despite early campaign polls which showed the NDP in first place, the party lost 59 seats in the
2015 election and fell back to third place in Parliament. By winning 44 seats, Mulcair was able to secure the second best showing in the party's history, winning one more seat than Ed Broadbent managed in the 1988 election, but with a smaller share of the popular vote. NDP seat gains in Saskatchewan and British Columbia were offset by numerical losses in almost every other region, while in Alberta and Manitoba the party maintained its existing seat counts. The party was locked out of Atlantic Canada and the Territories, and lost over half of its seats in Ontario, including all of its seats in Toronto. In Quebec, the NDP lost seats to all three of the other major parties, namely the Liberals, Conservatives, and Bloc Québécois, though it managed to place second in both vote share (25.4%) and seats (16) behind the Liberals in the province. The election resulted in a Liberal majority government. Mulcair's leadership faced criticism following the election, culminating in his losing a
leadership review vote held at the NDP's policy convention in
Edmonton,
Alberta on April 10, 2016. This marked the first time in Canadian federal politics that a leader was defeated in a confidence vote. Consequently, his successor was to be chosen at a
leadership election to be held no later than October 2017, with Mulcair agreeing to remain as leader until then.
Jagmeet Singh On October 1, 2017,
Jagmeet Singh, the first person of a
visible minority group to lead a major Canadian federal political party on a permanent basis, won the leadership vote to head the NDP on the first ballot. On August 8, 2018, Singh announced he would be running in a by-election to replace
Kennedy Stewart as the Member of Parliament for
Burnaby South. Stewart had resigned in order to make an ultimately successful bid for
Mayor of Vancouver. Singh relocated to
Burnaby for the election and won on February 25, 2019, with 38.9 percent of the vote. In the
2019 federal election, the NDP won only 24 seats in its worst result since 2004, shedding 15 seats.
Alexandre Boulerice, who was elected to his third term in
Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, was the only NDP candidate to win a seat in Quebec, while the party lost all three of its Saskatchewan ridings (
Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River,
Regina—Lewvan, and
Saskatoon West) to the Conservatives. The party remained shut out of Toronto and lost two of its MPs (
Cheryl Hardcastle in
Windsor—Tecumseh and
Tracey Ramsey in
Essex) in the rest of Ontario, while making small or no gains in the popular vote in Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta and Nunavut. In British Columbia, the NDP lost three seats (
Kootenay—Columbia,
Port Moody—Coquitlam, and, after having lost it at
a by-election,
Nanaimo—Ladysmith); however, they retained most of their support in the province. Following the election, the NDP held the balance of power as the Liberals won a minority government, although it fell back to fourth place behind the resurgent Bloc Québécois. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, the NDP used its leverage to lobby the Liberals to be more generous in their financial aid to Canadians, including by extending of the
Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) program, which was a key demand in order to provide confidence to the government in the autumn of 2020. In the
snap 2021 federal election, the NDP made minor gains in both vote share and seat count, winning in 25 ridings. The party won a second seat in Alberta for the first time when
Blake Desjarlais picked up
Edmonton Griesbach and
Heather McPherson won her second term at
Edmonton Strathcona. The party also picked up two seats in British Columbia with
Lisa Marie Barron reclaiming Nanaimo—Ladysmith and
Bonita Zarrillo reclaiming Port Moody—Coquitlam. These gains were offset by losses to the Liberals in
St. John's East and
Hamilton Mountain, where incumbent NDP MPs
Jack Harris and
Scott Duvall did not stand for re-election. Overall, the election resulted in no change to the balance of power in the House of Commons. In March 2022, the NDP agreed to a
confidence and supply deal with the Liberal Party, led by
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Among the policies included in the deal were the establishment of a national
dental care program for low income Canadians, progress towards a national
pharmacare program, labour reforms for federally regulated workers, and new taxes on financial institutions. In September 2024, the NDP ended their confidence and supply agreement with the Liberal Party; the deal had run from March 2022 but was pulled nine months early. Following the appointment of
Mark Carney as prime minister, the NDP suffered poor polling. At the
2025 federal election, the NDP has suffered its worst seat result in its history, losing 17 of their 24 seats to both Liberal and Conservative candidates, and lost
official party status in the
House of Commons. Singh lost his own riding of
Burnaby Central, and announced that he would resign as party leader after the selection of an interim leader. He was replaced by
Vancouver Kingsway MP
Don Davies on an interim basis until
a new party leader is elected.
Avi Lewis On March 29, 2026,
Avi Lewis, the grandson of former NDP leader David Lewis and son of former Ontario NDP leader
Stephen Lewis, won the
NDP leadership election on the first ballot. Afterwards,
Alberta NDP leader
Naheed Nenshi and
Saskatchewan NDP leader
Carla Beck criticized the federal party's oil and gas policy under Lewis. ==Ideology and policies==