The federal NDP’s shift to the right proved to be catastrophic for the party in the last federal election said Yves Engler, who is campaigning to replace Jagmeet Singh as party leader.
Engler, who was in Cowichan on Sept. 23, said the NDP has gotten far from its roots as a socialist party, and he expects there will be a strong shift back to the left by the time of the next federal election.
“The NDP used to connect with the working class and followed socialist policies,” he said. “But it has become too ‘Liberal-lite’ and it is hard to differentiate the NDP Party from [Prime Minister Mark] Carney’s Liberal Party. The conservative bent of the federal NDP Party has put it in crisis, and that has proved catastrophic for the party.”
The NDP lost 17 of the 24 seats they were defending in the federal election last spring, including the seat of Alistair MacGregor, the long-time NDP MP for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford who lost to the Conservative's Jeff Kibble, as well as leader Singh losing his seat, leading to the decision for Singh to step aside as leader.
Yves Engler is a Canadian writer, political activist, and critic of Canadian foreign policy.
In addition to 12 published books, Engler's writings have appeared in alternative press and in mainstream publications such as The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, and Ecologist.
On July 3, 2025, the NDP Socialist Caucus announced it was running Engler as its candidate in the 2026 federal NDP leadership campaign.
Engler is on a cross-country tour to talk to voters and shore up support among party members in preparation for the NDP leadership convention that will take place in Winnipeg on March 29, 2026.
He said that in just two weeks of campaigning and visiting cities across the country, including Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo in this leg of his tour, he has already assembled more than 1,000 volunteers and raised $70,000 so far towards the $100,000 entrance fee to run in the leadership campaign, with six months to go before a new leader is chosen.
“The response to my campaign has been good so far,” he said.
