Activists Make History: Big Tent Organizing with Heather McPherson
Heather McPherson is channeling value-driven politics in her campaign for NDP leadership.
Heather McPherson is channeling value-driven politics in her campaign for NDP leadership.

Tony McQuail is channeling decades of grassroots activism to platform rural issues and a green progressive vision for the federal NDP.

This Scottish-born preacher turned politician helped lay the foundation for early social democratic electoral success in Alberta and across Canada.

The politics of the centre are no match for the challenges that face humanity. We do, it seems, face a choice between socialism or barbarism.

The still elusive goal of winning federal power notwithstanding, the CCF-NDP has persisted across the decades because social democracy has continued to hold profound appeal among millions of Canadians.

Contemporary social democracy is not equipped to take up the first of these options without a fundamental re-foundation ideologically, programmatically, and organizationally. Is such a deep reinvention possible by Canadian social democrats?

Elements of a redistributive and working-class agenda are already in demand, but many voters and especially the working class, feel politically alienated and disaffected that their interests are not being pursued.

“As social democrats we aim to build solidarity and global justice with like-minded people around the world. But we need to hold tightly to the international institutions and norms that Canadians have helped to build over decades.”

The NDP’s ability to credibly advance this alternative vision depends largely on whether the labour movement is itself willing and able to engage in such political and economic education.


