@mayintoronto

A few friends were discussing the NDP leadership. We genuinely are not sure if leaning more to the left really helps or not.

Using long serving provincial premiers as examples, like Gary Doer and Roy Romanow, they were pretty moderate. Romanow in particular enacted a number of service cuts and tax increases to create surpluses and pay down the debt. So far Wab Kinew has been pretty close to centre left.

The provincial NDP dominated BC in the '90s, but went through 4 leaders due to a series of scandals.

I think Kinew had some useful advice in his speech.

"Kinew’s speech suggested the NDP’s path back is not through trying to sound more radical than everyone else in the room. It is through sounding more useful to voters than the Liberals and more credible than the Conservatives on daily life. The emphasis on affordability, health care, workers and national self-respect was a reminder that left-of-centre politics still has to be translated into plain public concerns if it is going to win outside activist circles. That was the subtext of his advice to the leadership field: first earn power, then use it."

https://www.netnewsledger.com/2026/03/28/wab-kinews-winnipeg-speech-gave-federal-new-democrats-a-blunt-lesson-in-how-to-win/