Canadian Politics

A04(b) - Canadian Social Democracy and the NDP

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Peter Graefe (McMaster University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Peter Graefe (McMaster University)

What is Canadian Social Democracy?: David McGrane (University of Saskatchewan)
Abstract: This paper begins by exploring the methodological challenges of defining a specific ideology in a particular time and place and concludes that the best way to do so is to subjectively interpret the rhetoric of ideologues who espouse that ideology. It then applies this method of defining an ideology to the case of Canadian social democracy from 1900 to present by establishing a “canon of Canadian social democracy.” This canon consists of several of the most important books, pamphlets, and speeches in the history of Canadian social democracy. The paper ends by identifying the main themes of the canon of Canadian social democracy as interconnectedness, co-operation, and kindness. It is these three concepts that then are argued to form an overarching definition of Canadian social democracy.

Deep Diversity and Social Democracy in English-Speaking Canada: An Historical Perspective on the New Democratic Party (NDP): Bruce McKenna (Université du Québec à Montréal)
Abstract: This paper is a draft of a chapter for a book project on the concept of ‘deep diversity’ in dialogue—or multilogue—with the work of Charles Taylor, building on a December 2022 event at UQAM. A sociological perspective on the CCF-NDP—as a mass membership organization and a party-in-government—shows us that political parties can be spaces where normative understandings of federalism develop, clash, and synthesize in the grounded context of political organizing, coalition building, and debate. When elected, CCF-NDP partisans have also exerted an influence on the institutional landscape around them—an influence sometimes rooted in ideology and relationships with social forces. How and to what extent have actors in the CCF and the NDP understood Canada as a deeply diverse society and polity? What relations can we observe between their actions in government, in parliament, and in constitutional negotiations, and the normative ideal of multinational federalism? How has deep diversity been reflected in the broader organizational and ideological evolution of the CCF and the NDP? Overall, I will argue that the CCF-NDP tradition has become markedly more open to deep diversity over the decades. However, it has faced an array of challenges related to its overwhelmingly anglophone social profile and to the limitations of a political project associated with managing federal and provincial capitalist states. I will develop these arguments first by situating Taylor’s thought in its partisan context, and then by examining the broad trajectory of Quebec and indigenous issues in the NDP and its predecessor, the CCF.

Narrativizing confidence and supply: Jagmeet Singh's Rhetoric during the NDP and LPC Deal: Donal Gill (Concordia University)
Abstract: The confidence and supply agreement (CASA) between the NDP and minority Liberal government that was in place between March 2022 and September 2024 was the first of its kind in Canadian federal politics. Since the formal adoption of the agreement, the NDP sought to carefully situate itself rhetorically as both working with the government to produce key legislation favourable to its progressive voter base whilst also harshly criticizing the Trudeau government. In the immediate period following the dissolution of the agreement, public opinion polling and fundraising numbers have indicated only a modest increase in support for the NDP as the Liberals continue to decline in polling. Thus, we might conclude that the CASA served a purpose in generating the stability in parliament to elongate the lifespan of the government beyond that of the typical duration of a minority administration in Canada, it failed as a means of building popular support for either party. This project seeks to assess the strategic, tactical, and ideological dimensions to the NDP leader Jagmeet Singh's political communications about the CASA during the period where it was in place. Through direct engagement with primary source data - speeches to the press, in parliament, and other official party-political communications – political discourse analysis will be conducted to test the argument that Singh’s discursive emphasis on conflict over cooperation contributed to the NDP’s inability to increase its popular support as a result of the CASA.