Abstract:
The NDP was founded out of the ashes of the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation to
cooperate with the Canadian Labour Congress to become the 'political arm of organized labour' in
Canada. The NDP has long claimed they are the party which represents the policy goals of organized
labour in Canada: that the NDP alone will fight for trade union rights, and will fight for Canadian
workers. Divergent Paths is an examination of the links between the labour movement and the ND P
in an era ofneo-liberalism. Provincial NDP governments have become increasingly neoliberal in
their ideological orientation, and have often proved to be no friend to the labour movement when
they hold office. The Federal party has never held power, nor have they ever formed the Official
Opposition. This thesis charts the progress of the federal NDP as they become more neoliberal from
1988 to 2006, and shows how this trend effects the links between the NDP and labour.
Divergent Paths studies each federal election from 1988 to 2006, looking at the interactions
between Labour and the NDP during these elections. Elections provide critical junctions to study
discourse - party platforms, speeches, and other official documents can be used to examine
discourse. Extensive newspaper searches were used to follow campaign events and policy speeches.
Studying the party's discourse can be used to determine the ideological orientation of the party itself:
the fact that the party's discourse has become neoliberal is a sure sign that the party itself is
neoliberal.
The NDP continues to drive towards the centre of the political spectrum in an attempt to gain
multi-class support. The NDP seems more interested in gaining seats at any cost, rather then
promoting the agenda of Labour. As the party attempts to open up to more multi-class support,
Labour becomes increasingly marginalised in the party. A rift which arguably started well before
the 1988 election was exacerbated during that election; labour encouraged the NDP to campaign
solely on the issue of Free Trade, and the NDP did not. The 1993 election saw the rift between the
two grow even further as the Federal NDP suffered major blowbacks from the actions of the Ontario
NDP. The 1997 and 2000 elections saw the NDP make a deliberate move to the centre of the
political spectrum which increasingly marginalised labour. In the 2004 election, Jack Layton made
no attempt to move the party back to the left; and in 2006 the link between labour and the NDP was
perhaps irreparably damaged when the CAW endorsed the Liberal party in a strategic voting strategy,
and the CLC did not endorse the NDP.
The NDP is no longer a reliable ally of organized labour. The Canadian labour movement
must decide wether the NDP can be 'salvaged' or if the labour movement should end their alliance
with the NDP and engage in a new political project.
