(LifeSiteNews) — The New Democratic Party (NDP) had restricted how much support leadership candidates can receive from “cis” male Canadians.
According to the NDP leadership contest rulebook, leader candidates cannot receive more than 50 percent of the total required signatures from “cis” men, which is the LGBT term for a man who recognizes his being a man.
“At least fifty percent (50%) of the total required signatures must be from members who do not identify as a cis man,” the handbook states.
Additionally, the NDP mandates that a “minimum of one hundred (100) signatures must be from members of equity-seeking groups, including but not limited to racialized members, Indigenous members, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, and persons living with disabilities.”
Likewise, the signatures must be split between the provinces, and at least 10 percent must come from young NDP supporters.
The NDP officially launched its leadership race on September 2, following the resignation of former leader Jagmeet Singh after the party’s significant defeat in the April 2025 federal election.
During the election, the party lost its official status after only winning seven ridings. The NDP party has held its official status since 1961, losing this position for a short time between 1993 and 1997.Without official party status, the party lost privileges in Parliament, including the ability to ask daily questions in question period. NDP MPs will also not be guaranteed seats on standing committees and will be denied financial resources provided to recognized parties.
The race aims to select Singh’s permanent successor, with the new leader to be announced at the NDP’s national convention in Winnipeg on March 29, 2026
While the NDP based its party platform on supporting workers’ rights, in recent years it appears to have become little more than another radical woke party. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Liberal and NDP parties formed a coalition which kept the Liberals in power for years.
Interim NDP leader Don Davies admitted recently that his party’s obsession with woke identity politics has been an electoral millstone around the party’s figurative neck. In a recent podcast interview with TVO host Steve Paikin, Davies mused that the party’s priorities have drifted in recent years.
“I think what the NDP has to do is a really good navel-gazing,” he told Paikin. “Are we talking about the right issues that are affecting kitchen tables in Oshawa or Trois-Rivières or Kamloops? Are we really understanding what working people are going through? I’m looking forward to the discussion in our party to see if we can reorient ourselves so we can tell workers, ‘We get you; we’ve got policies that will make your lives better.’”
As the National Post noted, Davies “said he also recognizes that, at the same time, issues facing white, straight male workers are ‘not the same’ as issues facing a worker who is a lesbian and a woman of colour and the party should find a balance between reflecting those different interests.” While the NDP has historically claimed to be the party of the working man, popularity among that demographic has slumped in recent years.
