NDP strategy Some think new electoral boundaries could improve performance in Saskatchewan
MONTREAL — New Democratic Party activists say they are developing a plan to improve party results in the 2015 election after more than a decade of decline on the Prairies.
Part of the hope rests on proposed electoral boundary changes in Sask-atchewan — creating urban, rural and some mixed ridings — that New Democrats hope will produce at least two urban wins, the first since 2000.
“We won a third of the vote in 2011 and that translated into no seats,” said Winnipeg MP Pat Martin.
“A third of the vote should produce a third of the (14) seats.”
Read Also
U.S. loses out on sales of soybean to China
U.S. soybean exporters risk missing out on billions of dollars worth of sales to China this year as trade talks drag on and buyers in the top oilseed importer lock in cargoes from Brazil.
The other part of the strategy is a series of meetings across the Prairies trying to find out why the NDP has fallen out of favour in the region.
The NDP held 10 of 14 Saskatchewan seats and a majority of Manitoba seats a generation ago.
In 2011, the party won two seats in Manitoba and one in Alberta.
“We have to show that in the next election we’re not just ready to take on Canada but more specifically the Prairies, which is the area where we were born and where we still have a lot of work to do,” MP Niki Ashton of Churchill, Man., said during the NDP national convention last weekend.
“We need to be speaking to the concerns and aspirations that people in the new West have.”
She said the result will be a report or resolution to the next NDP national convention in Edmonton in 2015, on the cusp of the next election.
NDP national president Rebecca Blaikie from Winnipeg said in an interview the party must be willing to invest the same kind of resources and energy in winning back the West that it invested in Quebec during the last election, when it scored a major breakthrough to become the majority party in the province.
“I can’t explain why we have lost support because I’m from Manitoba, where we have been in government for 12 years, and yet our federal seats have gone down,” Blaikie said.
“There seems to be no rhyme nor reason, but we have concentrated on other regions like Quebec and perhaps we need the same effort in the West to bring the party back to its roots.”
