Charting a Path to Victory

To win, the NDP must offer a sound economic vision but be unequivocal that reducing inequality is also a moral imperative.

In the lead-up to the NDP leadership convention scheduled for next March, The Mark has reached out to the various leadership candidates, asking them to offer their visions for their party and for the country. So far, we have featured articles from MPs Peggy Nash, Nathan Cullen, and Paul Dewar. This week, we welcome Brian Topp.

In the last election, Jack Layton took the NDP one step away from forming government, an extraordinary accomplishment that has profoundly altered the Canadian political landscape.

Now party members are asking me, and the other NDP leadership candidates, two straightforward questions: Can we win? And if we do, will it be worth it?

In my view, the answers to these questions are at the heart of the debate in the leadership contest. Here’s what I would say in response to these queries:

First: Can New Democrats win the next election?

Yes, we can. But not if all we do is offer to manage the economic status quo. That’s what the Liberal party is for. To win, New Democrats must offer both a strong critique of the Harper agenda and an alternative economic vision.

And we won't win if all we do is talk to ourselves about ourselves. We must be an expansive and outward-looking social democratic party that engages with the difficult questions of governance.

Finally, we won’t win if all we offer are platitudes. Telling Canadians what we believe in is one thing – articulating a clear and substantive vision of how we get there is something else entirely. As Canada’s Official Opposition, we have to meet the highest of tests in this regard.

This leads to my answer to the second question: If we win, will it be worth it?

Yes, it will. But only if we are clear about the mandate we seek. It’s not enough to issue lists of unfunded spending proposals with no means to pay for them. That’s the path to failure. New Democrats need to show where the money is coming from. That’s why my first major policy announcement was my plan to restore fairness to Canada’s tax system. My plan has three major components:

1. establishing a 35-per-cent tax bracket on incomes over $250,000;
2. taxing capital gains at the same rate as employment; and,
3. rolling back Stephen Harper’s corporate tax cuts.

Taken together, these changes to our tax system offer Canadians a substantive and clear alternative to the Conservatives agenda. They also start to address the fundamental issue facing our country: the rapidly growing inequality that is tearing at Canada’s social fabric, hurting our economy, and creating a meaner society.

As the Occupy movement has demonstrated, there is a profound shift taking place in the way people around the world view economic inequality. The NDP must respond to this change by speaking with courage and conviction about what it takes to build a more equal and just society – and we must speak about equality as both a moral and an economic imperative.

After all, the evidence is clear: Growing income inequality leads to worse economic and social outcomes for everyone. A strong, inclusive, and equal society is the backbone of a growing and sustainable economy.

Therefore, in my view, a future NDP government should measure its progress by the degree to which it reduces inequality. Equality is the value that ties together our agenda, and is the overarching goal to which we aspire.

New Democrats have the power to win the next election, and it will be worth it if we offer a clear and substantive vision of a more equal Canada, backed up by concrete and practical proposals to get us there. If we do that, we will get the kind of positive mandate we seek from Canadians to create a better, greener, and more just society for every Canadian.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.