OTTAWA — The five NDP leadership candidates all agree on the need to revitalize the party’s grassroots and build up riding associations as the party recovers from its near-wipeout in the April election.
Beyond that, the contenders are offering significantly different platform pitches now that the first debate has come and gone.
Here are some of the ideas that are being put forward in the race for the NDP leadership.
Rob Ashton
Ashton, a dockworker for 30 years and a longshoreman union leader, is running a worker-focused campaign that proposes to make it easier to join a union and to take away the government’s power to force a vote on an employer’s contract offer.
He said an Ashton-led NDP would promise a job for anyone who wants one. Those jobs would be focused on home and public infrastructure construction, environmental sustainability projects and caring for others, according to his campaign materials.
Ashton has called for the construction of more government-built, affordable housing to address the affordability crisis. He has said his goal is to grow the non-market housing supply in Canada by 20 per cent by 2040.
Ashton is also running on replacing the Temporary Foreign Worker Program with a new program he said would ensure “fair pay” for everyone. He said this new program also would offer migrant workers a path to permanent residency, open work permits and the ability to join unions.
Tanille Johnston
Accessibility is one of the key themes of social worker and B.C. city councillor Tanille Johnston’s leadership campaign.
Johnston has said that if she wins the leadership, she intends to get rid of the party’s annual $25 membership fee so that anyone who wants to join can do so free of charge. Johnston has said that if the NDP wants to grow and rebuild, it has to offer every Canadian a seat at the table.
Johnston is also campaigning on free post-secondary education and a guaranteed livable basic income.
Johnston, a member of the We Wai Kai First Nation, has called for a more collaborative relationship between Ottawa and Indigenous governments.
She said the infrastructure gap in First Nations communities must be closed, all Indigenous communities must have access to clean drinking water and Ottawa should pay more attention to those communities’ own infrastructure priorities.
Avi Lewis
Documentarian Avi Lewis has said he is running on “big, bold ideas.” Arguing that too many people are being price-gouged on essentials, he has called for publicly owned grocery stores and telecommunication services.
Lewis has claimed that public grocery stores could cut costs by 30 to 40 per cent by using a subsidized warehouse model that his campaign materials compare to Costco.
To help make this model work, Lewis has called for the creation of regional food hubs where local produce could be grown, stored and distributed.
On the telecom front, Lewis has said he wants to build a national public network, similar to Saskatchewan’s Crown telecom provider SaskTel.
During Thursday’s leadership debate, Lewis said these ideas could be paid for with a wealth tax of “one per cent on the one per cent” that he said could generate $25 to $40 billion per year.
Heather McPherson
The only MP in the race, Edmonton’s Heather McPherson is running on her experience in federal politics and her ability to win, and has said she has a plan to open up the party to more people.
Housing policy is a focus of McPherson’s campaign and she has said it’s time to declare a national emergency on the housing shortage.
During Thursday’s debate, McPherson said such a declaration would unlock more federal funds to build more homes.
McPherson has said she wants to establish a federal Crown corporation with a mandate to build affordable, co-op homes. Her housing plan also calls for low-interest loans to allow community housing providers to buy and preserve properties, and the construction of more modular homes on federal land.
McPherson also has called for a Homelessness Prevention Fund to provide emergency rent relief to people facing homelessness.
Tony McQuail
Candidate Tony McQuail, an organic farmer from Huron County, Ont., said Thursday all the great policy ideas in the world won’t help the NDP unless Canada adopts proportional representation in elections.
This is part of McQuail’s “4 R’s” that shape his campaign: representation, regeneration, redistribution and redesign.
“Regeneration,” he said, is about shifting environmental policy away from sustainability to making a healthy and thriving environment the basis for a strong economy.
“Redistribution,” he said, means a universal basic income and a progressive wealth tax to pay for expanding universal health care to include full dental, pharmaceutical and mental health coverage.
And McQuail said the economy needs to be “redesigned” to focus on sustainability. That includes developing a housing system that prioritizes affordable and communal living arrangements.
The NDP will select its next leader on March 29 at the party’s annual convention in Winnipeg.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 29, 2025
David Baxter, The Canadian Press
