The Federal NDP Convention in Winnipeg March 2026

In the last federal election, the NDP was reduced to seven seats with their leader Jagmeet Singh losing his seat in British Columbia. He has subsequently stepped down and an interim leader has been chosen. The party has arranged a national leadership convention set for Winnipeg on March 29 of 2026. Only a very few have indicated their possible interest. The vetting process has to be satisfied and $100,000 entry fee paid in four payments must be paid to run. The maximum amount to spend on the campaign is $1,500,000.

So far only two potential candidate have announced they will run once vetting is over. The new people are Avi Lewis and Heather McPherson. Presently, both are in the west. Since 2019, Heather McPherson has been a NDP MP in Edmonton. Lewis is NDP royalty with both his father, grandfather and even great grandfather connected to the labour movement and the NDP. He is working as a professor at UBC in Vancouver. Lewis is known to many Canadians as a former journalist for the CBC who is married to Naomi Klein. McPherson has been a resilient member of the NDP opposition and supportive of the oil industry. Her past work was with a social agency in Alberta focused on international development.

There are sure to be other candidates but plenty of people have passed including people like Wab Kinew. It seems unlikely that a powerful new premier wants to lead a party where he spends a lot of time in opposition with possibly no chance to be prime minister. The B.C. premier also rejected the chance to run. It is a job that may have no real upside for many years. Even Kinew, had to serve in opposition for 8 years, 9 as a MLA, before becoming premier in Manitoba. For Eby, it was a decade in opposition, three as leader before becoming premier.

Any new leader of the NDP had better be realistic that they might need to go thought at least two and maybe three election cycles. And even then, it might only be to be the third or fourth party. In a minority government, the NDP had more power than they had had in decades. Singh gave a list to the Liberals and a lot of the agenda was adopted. But for what? For the NDP to wiped off the board next election? Sadly, this has been the pattern for decades for those who support a minority government. It nearly never results in a win in first past the post elections.

And while the NDP federally wants proportional representation, the provincial NDP in the west don't want anything to do with it lest it see Liberals get more seats. What good for the goose is good for the gander. Can't really promote it federally and not want to talk about it provincially.

The choice to have the leadership convention in Winnipeg makes sense. The provinces with NDP governments are in B.C. and Manitoba. Surprisingly, Vancouver has only hosted one leadership convention in party history. The convention in Winnipeg likely makes the city the most frequent NDP convention site ever used. In a way that makes sense. It has generally been safe territory for NDP provincially and federally for years. The federal party will be able to get the warm support from their provincial counterparts. Wab Kinew is a likely prominent speaker. This week he is a prominent speaker for the Assembly of First Nations convention in Winnipeg.

The NDP is likely to have a very important debate about the directions of the party. The Socialist wing wants to defund the military, recognize Palestine and end the oil industry. The centrist part of the federal party is far more pragmatic. One can argue that the more dogmatic aspects of the Manitoba NDP were suppressed to attract Liberal votes to win the election. Most times Kinew will avoid the former pitfalls that befall NDPers such as being anti-military, anti-Jewish or anti-business. He still can't resist being hyper-partisan on the provincial front and that might be his Achilles heel.

The NDP would very much like to displace the Liberals federally as they have in the west and rarely done elsewhere, including federally. The problem for the NDP is they need to court Liberal or centrist votes if they hope to win office regularly. It seems most times they don't want to do that and push further left which alienates the party and keeps them from being the brokerage party the federal Liberals are.

The Winnipeg convention will be a battle for the future of the party. Is it a movement or a political player ready to govern? That is the question. Regardless, it might be possible the next general election comes in the new year as it still a minority government. It will really only take two parties to vote together to bring the Carney government. With that in mind, the NDP needs to formulate policies and recruit candidates to, at the very least, try to get party status and a leader in the Commons to represent the party.

And what of the Manitoba influence on what is to come of the federal NDP? I suspect that it will be a lot. The people coming to the convention will hoping their provincial counterparts will give them a masterclass in how to win elections and what policies might be winning ones and what policies will be losers for them. They will also get an education on how to build a leader. There is a time expiry for leaders and policies. The federal NDP and Conservatives have been less adaptable than Liberals. It might annoy the other parties but the Liberal pivot was breathtaking. However, it wouldn't have been possible if the public didn't want to go there.

Expect some fire at the convention but it should be interesting to see how Manitoba influences it all.