The NDP suffered an "unmitigated disaster" in the last election because it lost touch with its grassroots and became too "leader-focused," former MP Charlie Angus said Wednesday.
The longtime NDP stalwart said he toured the country during the election and spoke with many rank-and-file members. He said the party now needs to do a lot of soul-searching to reconnect with that base, renew itself and rebuild.
"People feel that the party lost touch by becoming very much a leader-focused group as opposed to the New Democratic Party of Canada," he said, when asked about the dismal April election results.
"We have to be a democratic party from the grassroots. We have to re-engage with people. We lost touch and we have to be honest about that."
The NDP saw the worst results in its history in the April 28 election. It won just seven seats, lost official party status and watched then-leader Jagmeet Singh lose his own seat in British Columbia.
Angus did not run in that election after representing the northern Ontario riding of Timmins—James Bay since 2004. That riding was recently redistricted and grew significantly in size, and was won by the Conservatives on April 28.
Angus said he has not met with Singh since the election.
Interim NDP Leader Don Davies said later Wednesday that while it was a tough election, he does not think the party lost touch with its supporters.
Davies said he will wait to see what the party base has to say about why the NDP lost so badly.
"The key thing is to engage in a really authentic visioning process with our membership to really explore where we've come from, why we're in the position we're in, but more importantly, to chart a better path forward," Davies said.
"I don't want to second-guess what our membership and our grassroots and our progressive allies have to say because there's different opinions on why we're in the position we're in."
Angus said the party should be less online and more on-the-ground. He said the NDP should ditch its virtual meetings — which became commonplace during the pandemic — and pointed out that the party was built from the ground up through simple in-person community events, such as bean dinners.
"We became a party very focused on TikTok likes. I'm sure that helps, but TikTok didn't get us elected," he said. "We became focused on data. Data is very important. But to be a social democratic movement, you need to go back to reinvigorating the riding associations."
Angus, who said he has no plans to run for the party leadership, made the comments at a press conference on Parliament Hill on Wednesday, which he called to talk about the upcoming G7 summit Canada will host in Alberta later this month.
Angus took shots at U.S. President Donald Trump and the person he called Trump's "MAGA" ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra. He said the Trump administration is an "authoritarian regime that's on the rise" and poses a threat to Canada.
"We're not talking about creeping fascism here. This is full-on police state tyranny from the gangster president Donald Trump. And this is the man who will soon be crossing our border to attend the G7 meetings in Canada," he said.
Trump recently deployed thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles — a decision made without the governor's consent — in response to protests against immigration enforcement raids.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
