NDP leadership contenders to make their pitches to voters in first forum

The five official candidates for the federal NDP leadership will get their first chance to sell themselves to party members at a forum in Ottawa on Wednesday evening.

The forum is being hosted by the Canadian Labour Congress and will see CLC president Bea Bruske hold one-on-one discussions with each of the candidates.

Documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis, Alberta MP Heather McPherson, union leader Rob Ashton, B.C. city councillor Tanille Johnston and organic farmer Tony McQuail have all been accepted as candidates in the race to replace Jagmeet Singh, who resigned after the last election.

MP Don Davies is serving as the interim leader.

The NDP suffered its worst defeat ever in the April election. It was reduced to just seven seats in the House of Commons and lost recognized party status.

"The NDP needs to re-win the lunchroom chatter, the lunchroom discussion of real issues that workers are talking about every single day," Bruske told The Canadian Press.

Bruske said workers are worried about the high cost of living and housing, the growing threat of layoffs and the job market their kids will face.

"Those are the kinds of questions that people are talking about every day. And if the NDP doesn't have the answers to those questions, we're going to continue losing workers to other parties," she said.

The forum is meant to serve as an "introduction" for the candidates, said Bruske.

Bruske knocked on doors for the NDP in the last campaign and said she heard repeatedly from people who normally support New Democrats but were parking their votes with the Liberals due to the threat posed by U.S. tariffs and President Donald Trump.

While Bruske said she believes that played a role in the NDP's loss, the party still needs to simplify its message to reach more voters.

"I come from the labour movement. We like to give you reams of information. We like to articulate why we believe this. We like to prove all kinds of data points as to why that is the case, but people don't have time for that," she said.

"People are very, very busy, they're exhausted and they want a quick fix. And unfortunately, the issues that we are grappling with as a society don't have necessarily quick fixes. But the ideas that need to be articulated need to be easy to comprehend and understand and easy to be digested."

Bruske said if the NDP can't win the debate over basic issues like the cost of living, it won't get the chance to implement more ambitious policy objectives.

The event, which is being livestreamed by the CLC, is set to begin at 6 p.m. ET. More than 1,500 people registered for the broadcast as of Tuesday morning, according to the CLC.

The forum will start with the candidates posing for a family photo before Bruske begins one-on-one discussions with each of the candidates in a randomly drawn order.

The first formal debate in the leadership race is scheduled to take place in Montreal in late November.

New Democrats will choose their next leader at their annual convention, which is being held in Winnipeg on March 29.

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi