NDP needs to break out of the Ottawa ‘bubble’ to rebuild: Davies

OTTAWA — As the NDP looks to rebuild with a new leader in 2026, interim leader Don Davies says job one is to get the party out of the Ottawa “bubble” and listening to Canadians.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Canadian Press, Davies said that before the party’s near-death experience in the spring election — which saw it lose 17 House of Commons seats and official party status — the NDP was already drifting out of touch with voters’ priorities while focusing on its own, including one of the party’s policy accomplishments: pharmacare.

“It’s an excellent program and it’s needed. But I don’t know that that came organically up from the ground,” Davies said.

“It was, we sort of developed that policy and then went and marketed it to to working Canadians, many of whom have coverage, by the way, and they liked it, but I don’t know that that was their first priority.”

Davies led the NDP’s negotiations on pharmacare with then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals while its supply-and-confidence agreement with the government was still in place last year.

This year began with Trudeau’s resignation, Mark Carney’s rapid rise to the Liberal leadership and — with a little help from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and loose talk of annexation — the reelection of a Liberal party that previously seemed doomed to crushing defeat at the hands of the Conservatives.

But rising tides don’t lift all boats — the political forces that saved the Liberals also set up a two-horse race that pushed the NDP to one side. Its 24-seat caucus was reduced to seven and leader Jagmeet Singh came in a distant third place in his own Vancouver-area riding.

“I sometimes joke that one of the few advantages of being burnt to the ground is that you get to build a brand new foundation,” Davies said.

“In fact, it’s once in a lifetime where you get to kind of examine everything you know, that you’ve been doing, and you get to keep what worked and you get to discard what didn’t.”

Reconnecting with the grassroots and expanding the party’s outreach have been key themes of the NDP leadership race to date. All five candidates — union leader Rob Ashton, city councillor and social worker Tanille Johnston, documentarian Avi Lewis, Edmonton MP Heather McPherson and organic farmer Tony McQuail — agree that more needs to be done to win back working class voters and strengthen local riding associations.

New Democrats can take comfort from the fact that they’ve been in a similar spot before. The party dropped from 44 seats to nine in the 1993 election — at the time, its worst defeat since its founding in 1961 — but managed to regain recognized party status under Alexa McDonough’s leadership in 1997.

Svend Robinson, who ran against McDonough for the party leadership in 1995, said the party faces a crisis — and an opportunity.

“This is an absolutely critical point for the future of the party, and I hope fervently that the membership of the party recognizes that there’s a real risk if we make a mistake now that the future of the party could be in jeopardy,” he said.

Robinson said he sees an opening for the party to tap into the “sense of betrayal” felt by many climate-conscious voters over Carney’s pipeline deal with Alberta.

“I think there is there is a real opportunity now for people who are feeling that sense of betrayal. I mean, you’ve got the leader of the Green Party, for God’s sake, Elizabeth May voting for the budget,” he said.

“There is a huge opportunity for a strong progressive alternative that puts the climate crisis at the heart of our policies.”

The real obstacle to the NDP’s growth, he said, lies in Quebec — in the party’s current ability to connect with Quebec voters.

Winning most of the province’s federal seats province propelled the Jack Layton-led NDP to Official Opposition status in 2011. Party insiders had hopes for Quebec gains at the start of the 2025 campaign.

But the leadership contest’s recent French debate was conducted mostly in English; none of the current candidates are fluent in French. Robinson said the debate was “painful to watch.”

“It was a linguistic torture chamber,” he said. “If you want to lead a national party in Canada today, you’ve got to be able to communicate effectively with the eight million Canadians … whose first language is French.”

Language is one hurdle facing the leadership candidates. Obscurity is another.

An October poll from Pollara suggests most Canadians aren’t overly familiar with any of the candidates, even though 46 per cent of respondents said they are open to voting for the NDP.

“My point is that you know there’s a lot of potential for the NDP, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to actually convert some of those ‘might vote’ into ‘likely to vote’ or even ‘certain to vote,'” said Matt Smith, Pollara executive vice president.

Smith, who was B.C. Premier David Eby’s chief of staff for two years, said he sees potential for the next NDP leader to grow the party’s support as Carney steers the Liberals toward the centre.

He said the NDP should emulate the B.C. and Manitoba governments by putting forward practical policy proposals that address Canadians’ daily struggles with affordability.

Davies will lead the NDP for only a few more months. The new permanent leader will be selected at the party’s convention in Winnipeg on March 29.

He said the biggest lesson he’s learned in his short time leading the party is the importance of listening to a wide variety of perspectives.

“I think that at its best, politics reflects things on the ground,” he said. “And if we’re going to have policies that respond to the realities of people’s lives, we have to understand what those realities are. And that would be a key piece of advice I would give to the new leader.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 19, 2025.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press