Earlier this year, I renewed my membership in the New Democratic Party of Canada in anticipation of the party’s coming leadership race and its convention in Winnipeg early next year. I’ve voted in two so far (2012 and 2017), and this one feels particularly important. Having been reduced to just seven seats and only 6.29 percent of the popular vote in last April’s federal election—the worst showing for both the NDP and its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, since the latter’s founding in 1932—the next few years potentially represent a make-or-break moment for Canada’s parliamentary left.

Electorally, the party itself needs to recover. But beyond this, it needs to debate and reckon with more existential questions of policy and purpose. That calls for a genuine process of renewal, not simply a rebrand, and NDP members deserve a leadership race characterized by vibrant, vigorous debate about the party and its future. This being the case, the debate in Montreal this past Thursday—the first of only two official debates currently scheduled—was a resounding failure, and watching it, I felt a mixture of anger, frustration, and embarrassment.

In what follows, my purpose is not so much to criticize any of the candidates—who, among other things, were themselves done a disservice by the debate’s format—but rather to make some broader points about the debate and race itself. And it leaves one blunt question hanging: does the NDP even want to be a national party?

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. In a November 17 release, party officials announced that the debate would “be held majority in French, underscoring the Party’s commitment to engaging Quebec and francophone communities.” But if this was the goal, it can safely be said the evening was actively counterproductive.

From the outset, this was quite explicitly billed as a French-language debate—a fact further testified by the introductory remarks offered by Alexandre Boulerice (the NDP’s solitary Quebec member of Parliament) and the chosen moderator Karl Bélanger (its former principal secretary, a Quebec candidate in the 1990s, and part of its senior team during the Orange Wave of 2011).

That was, on its face, a somewhat confusing choice, given the conspicuous lack of French within the leadership field. Among the five candidates, only Avi Lewis really seems conversant, with Edmonton—Strathcona MP Heather McPherson a fairly distant second.........

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