New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair has promised party faithful to win government in 2015 and says he needs a western resurgence of party fortunes as part of the strategy.
A healthy 12-member caucus elected in British Columbia in the 2011 election makes the three prairie provinces the major gap. The party took just three of 58 seats there in the last election.
Saskatchewan, home of the first CCF-NDP electoral base, shut out the party for the fourth straight federal election in 2011.
Mulcair, whose caucus strength is based in Quebec, vowed last week that a key priority is to rebuild the party base on the Prairies, centred on a Lethbridge Declaration of organizing and consulting with westerners.
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“We’re going to take on Mr. Harper’s Conservatives in every region and in every riding in the country,” Mulcair said to raucous applause from MPs and party staffers during a speech on Parliament Hill Jan. 18 after a two-day caucus meeting.
“Our goal is simple: give Canadians a clear choice when they go to the polls in 2015.”
The party now holds one seat in Edmonton and two in Manitoba.
A veteran Prairie New Democrat MP and a 2011 election survivor insists the dream of re-establishing on the Prairies need not be wishful thinking, although the assumption is not based on any presumption of a rural revival.
Pat Martin of Winnipeg said redrawing riding boundaries in time for the 2015 federal election will create a number of more urban-concentrated seats in Saskatchewan’s growing cities that bodes well for the party.
For the past decade, Saskatchewan’s ridings have been more of a balance between rural and urban voters that has eliminated the NDP advantage in some urban areas.
“There’s a very real prospect of rebuilding in the prairie region and the redistribution alone makes it a lot more likely,” he said.
“We got 33 percent of the vote in Saskatchewan without a single seat. I think redistribution will give us some credit for that support level.”
Martin said the party is also beginning a “concerted effort” to talk to prairie voters and fashion a 2015 election platform that reflects their priorities.
“We will be appealing to people who don’t feel well represented by the Conservatives, who feel taken for granted.”
Martin predicts a handful of Sask-atchewan seats, a couple more in Manitoba and possibly an expansion of the party’s one-seat Alberta base.
“There’s a real and compelling argument that we can make significant gains on the Prairies, and I don’t think that’s just blowing smoke,” he said. “It’s based on the evidence.”
