Reviving the NDP’s legacy as a mass party requires new innovation for today’s world to recover the purpose that motivated democratization—to grant ordinary citizens the maximum possible role in the governance of Canadian society.
To minimize floor-crossing episodes, mass parties can leverage existing political institutions to make Canada’s democracy more deliberative and participatory.
There are many lessons for today’s labour organizers and social democrats to learn from the FPU as a mass party, such as its deep entrenchment within struggling working-class communities, and the alternative economic and financial institutions it built.
