New Democratic Party of Manitoba

The New Democratic Party of Manitoba (french: Nouveau Parti démocratique du Manitoba) is a social-democratic political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is the provincial wing of the federal New Democratic Party, and is a successor to the Manitoba Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. It is currently the opposition party in Manitoba.

Formation and early years

In the federal election of 1958, the national Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was reduced to only eight seats in the House of Commons of Canada. The CCF's leadership restructured the party during the next three years, and in 1961 it merged with the Canadian Labour Congress to create the New Democratic Party (NDP).

Most provincial wings of the CCF also transformed themselves into "New Democratic Party" organisations before the year was over, with Saskatchewan as the only exception. There was very little opposition to the change in Manitoba, and the Manitoba NDP was formally constituted on November 4, 1961. Future Manitoba NDP leader Howard Pawley was one of the few CCF members to oppose the change. Outgoing CCF leader Russell Paulley easily won the new party's leadership, defeating two minor figures who offered little in the way of policy alternatives. For all intents and purposes, the CCF caucus in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly became the NDP caucus.

The NDP did not initially achieve an electoral breakthrough in Manitoba, falling from eleven seats to seven in the provincial election of 1962. They recovered to ten seats in the 1966 election, but were still unable to seriously challenge Dufferin Roblin's Progressive Conservative government.

Party leadership contest in 1968

Many in the NDP considered Paulley's leadership a liability, especially after the 1966 election. Paulley was known as an old-style labour politician, and could not appeal to the broader constituency base that the party needed for an electoral breakthrough. In 1968, he was challenged for the party leadership by Sidney Green, a labour lawyer from north-end Winnipeg.

The 1968 leadership challenge was unusual, in that many of Paulley's supporters wanted him to resign the following year so that he could be replaced by federal Member of Parliament (MP) Edward Schreyer. Some also regarded the challenge as reflecting ideological divisions in the party, with Green depicted as a candidate of the radical left. Green's supporters tended to be from the party's youth wing, while Paulley was supported by the party establishment and organized labour.

Paulley won the challenge 213 votes to 168 and resigned the following year. Edward Schreyer entered the contest to replace him and defeated Green by 506 votes to 177.

Provincial election of 1969

The NDP won 28 of 57 seats in the 1969 election and formed a minority government after gaining the support of maverick Manitoba Liberal Party Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Laurent Desjardins. Although the party had been expected to increase its parliamentary presence, its sudden victory was a surprise to most political observers.

The question of leadership was important to the NDP's victory. After Dufferin Roblin resigned as Premier in 1967, the Progressive Conservatives chose Walter Weir as his replacement. While Roblin was a Red Tory, Weir was from the party's rural conservative wing, and alienated many urban and centre-left voters who had previously supported the Tories. The Liberals, for their part, called former cabinet minister Robert Bend out of a decade-long retirement to lead the party before the election. Like Weir, Bend was a rural populist who had difficulty appealing to urban voters. He campaigned on a "cowboy/rodeo" theme that made both himself and his party look dated.

Schreyer, by contrast, was a centrist within the NDP. He was not ideologically committed to democratic socialism, and was in many respects more similar to federal Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau than to the province's traditional NDP leadership. He was also the first of Manitoba's social-democratic leaders who was not from an Anglo-Saxon and Protestant background. A German- Austrian Catholic from rural Manitoba, he appealed to constituencies that were not previously inclined to support the NDP.

In power

During the years of NDP government, major tax and social reforms were carried out, a major hydroelectricity development project was launched in the north of Manitoba, while the province spent heavily on public housing. Schreyer's first administration introduced several important changes to the province. It amalgamated the city of Winnipeg, introduced public auto insurance, and significantly reduced Medicare premiums. Schreyer's cabinet was divided on providing provincial funding for denominational schools (with Green and others opposing any such funding) but resolved the issue by a compromise. The government also continued energy development projects in northern Manitoba.

Schreyer's government was re-elected with a parliamentary majority in the 1973 provincial election. His second ministry was less ambitious on policy matters than was his first, though the government did introduce a new tax on mining resources. In the 1977 election, Schreyer's New Democrats were upset by the Tories under Sterling Lyon.

Schreyer resigned as party leader in 1979, after being appointed Governor-General of Canada. Howard Pawley was chosen as interim leader over Sidney Green and Saul Mark Cherniack in a caucus vote, and later defeated Muriel Smith and Russell Doern to win the party's leadership at a delegated convention. Green left the NDP soon thereafter, claiming "the trade union movement and militant feminists" had taken control of the party. In 1981, Green formed the Progressive Party of Manitoba, joined by New Democratic MLAs Ben Hanuschak and Bud Boyce.

Despite these defections, Pawley's New Democrats were able to win a majority government in the 1981 election. Pawley's government introduced progressive labour legislation and entrenched French language services in Manitoba's parliamentary and legal systems. Doern, who had served as a cabinet minister in Schreyer's government, left the NDP in 1984 on the language issue.

Declining popularity in the late 1980s

The New Democrats were re-elected with a narrow majority in the 1986 election. Over the next two years, the party suffered a significant decline in its popularity. Auto insurance premiums rose significantly during this period, and the government's support for the Meech Lake Accord also alienated some voters. Future party leader Gary Doer has claimed that an internal party poll put the NDP at only 6% popular support in early 1988.

Early in 1988, Jim Walding, a disgruntled NDP backbencher, voted with the opposition against his government's budget. This defection brought about the government's defeat in the house and forced a new election before the NDP could recover its support base. Pawley immediately resigned as party leader, though he continued to lead a caretaker administration as Premier.

Gary Doer narrowly defeated Len Harapiak on the third ballot of the leadership convention which followed. Doer declined to be sworn in as Premier after the convention.

The Pawley government's achievements included the construction of the Limestone hydro project in northern Manitoba, and the enactment of the Manitoba Human Rights Code which included, for the first time in Manitoba, protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Electoral defeat and years in opposition (1988–1999)

The NDP was defeated in the 1988 election, winning only 12 seats out of 57. Gary Filmon's Tories won 25 seats, and the Liberal Party under Sharon Carstairs won 20 seats to supplant the NDP as the official opposition. Most of the NDP's seats were in north-end Winnipeg and the north of the province. Doer was not personally blamed for his party's poor performance and remained as leader.

Filmon called another provincial election in 1990 to seek a majority mandate. He was successful, but Doer brought the NDP back to official opposition status with 20 seats, benefiting from a strong personal showing at the leaders' debate.

The NDP began the 1995 election well behind the Tories and Liberals, but received a last-minute surge in popular support and came very close to forming government. The party won 23 seats, with the Liberals falling to only three.

Filmon's Tories lost much of their popular support between 1995 and 1999, due to increased unemployment, the privatization of Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) and a vote-manipulation scandal in the 1995 election. Voters were also unnerved by Filmon's announcement that his government would undertake a further shift to the right if reelected. With the Liberals suffering from internal divisions, the NDP were able to present themselves as the only viable alternative. The 1999 election was considered too close to call until election day, but the NDP benefited from a decline in Liberal support and won 32 seats to form a majority government. Doer was sworn in as Premier after eleven years in opposition.

Return to government (1999–2016)

Doer government

The Doer government did not introduce as many radical initiatives as the Schreyer and Pawley governments, though it retained the NDP's traditional support for organized labour. Manitoba has the lowest unemployment rate in Canada , and Doer's government remained generally popular with the electorate.

In the 2003 election, the NDP were re-elected with 35 seats and almost 50% of the popular vote, an impressive result in a three-party system. Doer was re-elected in his east-end Winnipeg riding of Concordia with over 75% of the popular vote, and the NDP also made inroads into traditional Tory bastions in south-end Winnipeg.

Doer became the only NDP premier in Manitoba history to capture a third majority when his party was re-elected during the 2007 provincial election. It won more seats than it had before: 36. Again, support was gathered from the south and western areas of Winnipeg which were traditionally thought to be safe for the Progressive Conservatives.

Under Doer, the NDP ran a moderate government that introduced a succession of balanced budgets. Doer's first budget, delivered in 2000, removed 15,000 low-income Manitobans from the tax rolls and introduced $150 million in tax breaks over three years while projecting a $10 million surplus. His 2003 budget, the last of his first term, reduced provincial taxes by $82.7 million and increased spending by about 5%, mostly in health and education.

Despite a series of economic setbacks, the government was able to post a balanced budget in 2004 through increased taxes and drug premiums as well as civil service reduction through attrition. Tobacco and liquor taxes were increased and the provincial sales tax expanded to cover more services, although Doer rejected a panel recommendation to increase the sales tax by 1%.

The government was able introduce a more expansive budget in 2005 after an infusion of federal revenues, reducing personal and property taxes, increasing spending by 3.5% and putting $314 million into a "rainy day" fund. Doer's 2006 and 2007 budgets introduced further tax cuts, and the 2007 budget offered increased education spending and a new child benefit to assist low-income families.

At the Manitoba NDP's March 2009 convention, Doer announced that Manitoba would continue its commitment to education, training and research despite a global economic downturn and a slowing economy. He argued that the province was still recovering from the Filmon government's spending cuts during the economic downtown of the 1990s and that his policies would allow Manitoba to emerge from the recession in a strong, competitive position. His government introduced a balanced budget with economic stimulus programs a few weeks later, even as the global recession forced other provincial governments across Canada into deficit.

Selinger government

After leading the party for over two decades, Doer retired as Premier and leader of the NDP on 27 August 2009 and was named Canadian Ambassador to the United States the next day. Following Doer's retirement, Finance Minister Greg Selinger became leader of the party at the leadership convention in October 2009. Despite gloomy predictions, Selinger led the NDP to its fourth straight majority government in the October 2011 general election, surpassing Doer's record and winning 37 seats.

In April 2013, the Selinger government broke an earlier promise not to increase the provincial sales tax. It instead implemented a 1 percentage point increase in the sales tax from 7% to 8%, which resulted in a precipitous decline in popular support for the government and, ultimately, a caucus revolt against Selinger's leadership culminating in the resignation of five cabinet ministers. Due, in part, to the unpopularity of the tax increase, the NDP fell far behind the Progressive Conservatives in public opinion polls and never recovered. In the fall of 2014, several cabinet ministers privately asked Selinger to resign in hopes that the party would recover under a new leader. However, Selinger declined. In September 2014, during a caucus retreat, several MLAs openly told Selinger that he needed to resign. However, he refused again. A month later, at the end of October Jennifer Howard, (Fort Rouge), minister of finance, Stan Struthers, (Dauphin), minister of municipal government, Theresa Oswald, (Seine River), minister for jobs and the economy, Andrew Swan, (Minto), minister of justice and Erin Selby, (Southdale), minister of health. and several senior party officials went public with their call for Selinger's resignation. On November 3, the five ministers resigned from cabinet due to their opposition to Selinger's continued leadership. They did, however, remain in the NDP caucus as backbench MLAs. Selinger responded on November 9 by asking the party executive to hold a leadership election during the party's annual convention scheduled for March 6–8, 2015, stating his intention to be a candidate. The party executive subsequently agreed. Theresa Oswald, one of the five rebel ex-ministers, challenged Selinger for the leadership and so did Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation Steve Ashton who had not protested against Selinger but who resigned from cabinet to enter leadership contest. At the March 8, 2015 leadership election, Ashton was eliminated on the first ballot and Selinger prevailed on the second ballot with 50.93% of ballots cast, defeating Oswald by 33 votes.

After trailing in opinion polling for almost four years, the NDP was heavily defeated at the April 19, 2016 provincial election. It dropped to only 14 seats, the party's worst showing since 1988. Notably, it lost a number of previously safe seats by wide margins. The Progressive Conservatives under Brian Pallister were elected to a majority government. Selinger announced his intention to resign as party leader in his concession speech. Logan MLA Flor Marcelino was named interim leader on May 7, 2016.

Opposition (2016–present)

Wab Kinew

Prominent Indigenous broadcaster and first-term MLA Wab Kinew