Ontario New Democratic Party
The
Ontario New Democratic Party (formerly known as the
Ontario Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) is a
social democratic political party in
Ontario,
Canada. It is a section of the federal
New Democratic Party.
The NDP was founded in 1932 as the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a
democratic socialist political party. The Ontario CCF saw itself as the successor to the 1919-1923
United Farmers of Ontario-
Labour coalition that formed the government in Ontario under
Ernest C. Drury.
While United Farmer
Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) joined the
Ontario Liberal Party, the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO), as an organization, participated in the formation of the Ontario CCF, and was briefly affiliated with the party. It decided to withdraw in
1935, alleging
Communist influence in the new party. Many active members of the UFO remained supporters, including
Agnes Macphail, who served as president of the Ontario CCF until 1935 when, as a UFO
Member of Parliament (MP), she was forced to officially resign from the CCF when the UFO withdrew from the party. She was elected to the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a CCF
Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP)
1 in 1943.
Other prominent CCFers were
Graham Spry who was the Ontario CCF's chairman from
1934 to
1936 and
Elmore Philpott, a former
Liberal Philpott joined the CCF in
1933 and became president of the Ontario Association of CCF Clubs before resigning from the party and rejoining the Liberals in
1935.
The CCF contested its first Ontario provincial
election in 1934. It received 7% of the vote, and won its first seat in the Ontario legislature:
Samuel Lawrence was elected in
Hamilton East. The Ontario CCF failed to win any seats in the
1937 election.
1 In 1938, Members of the Ontario Legislative Assembly (MLAs) passed a motion to adopt the title "Members of Provincial Parliament" (MPP).
The party achieved a major breakthrough under its first leader,
Ted Jolliffe, in the
1943 election, forming the
Official Opposition with 32% of the vote and 34 seats. The CCF was just four seats short of
George Drew's
Progressive Conservatives ("Tories"), who formed a
minority government.
The Tories remained in government for 42 years. The prosperity of the 1950s, combined with the
anti-Communist hysteria of the
Cold War, caused the CCF's fortunes to decline in the 1950s. The party lost its position as the Official Opposition in the
1951 election to the Liberal Party, and was reduced to just two seats.
Donald C. MacDonald became leader in 1953, and spent the next fifteen years rebuilding the party. The CCF changed its name to the New Democratic Party in 1961, when it formed a formal alliance with the
labour movement.
The Ontario NDP gradually picked up seats through the 1960s. It achieved a breakthrough in the
1967 election, when its popular vote rose from 15% to 26%. The party increased its presence in the legislature from 8 to 20 seats.
Stephen Lewis took over the party's leadership in 1970, and the NDP's popularity continued to grow. With the
1975 provincial election, the governing Conservatives were reduced to a minority government for the first time in thirty years. The NDP became the Official Opposition with 38 seats and 29% of the vote as the result of a brilliant election campaign that forced the Tories to promise to implement the NDP's
rent control policies.
Hopes were high that the NDP was on the verge of taking power, but in the
1977 election, the Tories under
Bill Davis again won a minority government. The NDP lost five seats, and slipped into third place behind the Liberals.
The NDP declined further in the
1981 election under
Michael Cassidy, but the party's fortunes turned around under the leadership of
Bob Rae.
|
Bob Rae was the first NDP Premier of Ontario. |
The
1985 election resulted in a minority legislature: the Tories under
Premier Frank Miller won 52 seats, the Liberals won 48, and the NDP 25. The New Democrats entered negotiations with both the Tories and the Liberals. The NDP signed a two-year accord with the Liberals, in which the Liberals would form government with the NDP's support in exchange for the implementation of a number of NDP policies.
Miller resigned, opening the way for Liberal leader
David Peterson to form a government. This was not a coalition government as the NDP declined an offer to sit in
Cabinet, preferring to remain in opposition.
When the accord expired in 1987, the Liberals called an
election and were re-elected with a majority. The NDP returned as the second largest party with Bob Rae becoming
Leader of the Opposition.
In the
general election of 1990, the party won power for the first time by heavily defeating the Liberal government. Most of the party's own supporters hadn't expected to win. However, Peterson's popularity tailed off dramatically between 1987 and 1990. With the Tories in considerable upheaval, the NDP was able to take advantage of the situation. Although the NDP finished only three percentage points ahead of the Liberals, they managed to take many seats in the GTA away from the Liberals. As a result, the NDP won a strong majority government with 74 seats while the Liberals suffered the worst defeat in their history.
Bob Rae became
Premier of Ontario during the worst economic downturn since the
Great Depression. In government, the NDP disappointed supporters by abandoning much of its ambitious program, including the promise to institute a public auto insurance system. As the
recession worsened, the NDP implemented what it called the
Social Contract — which represented a shift to the right that echoed that of
Tony Blair's
Labour Party in the
United Kingdom. This was a package of austerity measures that;
* reopened the collective bargaining agreements of public sector unions;
* implemented a wage freeze for public servants; and
* imposed
Rae Days, which were a schedule of days in which government workers were given days off without pay.
The Social Contract resulted in a major breach in the NDP's alliance with the labour movement as several unions turned against the party. At one point, the NDP fell to a low of 6 percent support in polling. An ominous sign for the party came in the
1993 federal election, in which all of the NDP's Ontario MPs lost their seats. It was obvious by the
1995 election that Rae would not win another term. In this election, the NDP was heavily defeated by the Tories under
Mike Harris. The NDP fell to 17 seats, third place in the Legislative Assembly.
Rae resigned a few months after the election and was succeeded by
Howard Hampton, a longtime rival. Rae has since joined the
Liberal Party of Canada and is currently a candidate for that party's
leadership.
Under Hampton, the party has largely repudiated Rae's policies and renewed its commitment to a moderate form of socialism. Shortly after the
1999 election, Hampton cited the
Swedish model of
social democracy as closely reflecting his own beliefs. However, the party has never really healed the breach with organized labor that resulted from the Social Contract. It has also never approached the popularity it enjoyed in the late 1980s.
NDP support fell even further in the
1999 election, leaving the party with just 9 seats. However, this was largely due to NDP voters voting Liberal in hopes of removing Harris and the Tories from power. As a result, Hampton was not blamed for this severe defeat and stayed on as leader.
Under the rules of the Legislative Assembly, a party would receive "official party status", and the resources and privileges accorded to officially-recognized parties, if it had 12 or more seats; thus, the NDP would lose caucus funding and the ability to ask questions in the House. However, the governing Conservatives changed the rules after the election to lower the threshold for party status from 12 seats to 8. The Tories argued that since Ontario's provincial ridings now had the same boundaries as the federal ones, the threshold should be lowered to accommodate the smaller legislature. Others argued that the Tories were only helping the NDP so they could continue to
split the vote with the Liberals.
In the
2003 election, the party alienated some traditional supporters with an over-reliance on photo ops. It won over some new supporters by emphasizing a few key issues, primarily "public" hospitals and "public" electricity. Despite a slight increase in raw vote, the party lost two seats, once again losing official party status and the concommitant speaking privileges and funding. The newly elected Liberal government refused to change the rules as the Tories had done. However, the NDP regained party status when
Andrea Horwath won a massive victory a
by-election in
Hamilton East on
May 13,
2004.
The NDP's representation in the Legislature was again reduced to seven seats when
Marilyn Churley resigned her seat to run in the
2006 federal election. However, the Liberals reversed their position and declared that the NDP would retain party status even if they lost the upcoming
Torontoâ€"Danforth by-election. Some opposition sources believed the Liberals, mindful of their humiliating defeat to Horwath, had loosened their interpretation of the rules so that whomever ran for the NDP in Toronto-Danforth couldn't use the threat of lost status in a campaign. This issue became moot when
Peter Tabuns won the seat for the NDP comfortably by 9% over the Liberal's
Ben Chin.
Ontario is scheduled to hold its
next general election on
October 4,
2007, its first
fixed date election. The Ontario NDP has reason to expect significant gains in this forthcoming vote. A July, 2006, Environics poll showed the party with 27% popular support, it's highest level recorded since March, 1992, when Bob Rae's government was still in power.[
1] However, in this most recent poll, the NDP still trailed the governing Liberals who received 35% support and the Opposition Progressive Conservatives who led with 36%.
An upcoming byelection in the provincial riding of
Parkdaleâ€"High Park may provide an early test of the NDP's ability to capitalize on its rising standing in the polls. A well-known local
United Church minister,
Cheri DiNovo, has been nominated as the NDP's candidate to replace former Liberal MPP
Gerard Kennedy, who resigned earlier in 2006 to seek the Liberal Party of Canada leadership. Although Kennedy held parts of this riding for the provincial Liberals for the past ten years, the NDP has a long history of support in the area, and
Peggy Nash won the corresponding federal riding for the NDP in 2006, raising the NDP's hopes for picking up the provincial seat. A victory in Parkdale High Park would increase the provincial NDP caucus to nine members and be a potential harbinger of future gains for the party in other ridings not presently held by the provincial NDP, but where the federal party has recently performed well.
*
E.B.(Ted) Jolliffe 1942-1953
*
Donald C. MacDonald 1953-1970
2*
Stephen Lewis 1970-1978
*
Michael Cassidy 1978-1982
*
Bob Rae 1982-1996
3*Howard Hampton 1996-present
2 The Ontario CCF became the Ontario NDP in 1961.
3 Bud Wildman was interim leader of the NDP in the Ontario legislature from Rae's resignation as an MPP to Howard Hampton's election as party leader.
See also: Ontario CCF/NDP Leadership Conventions| Year of election | Candidates elected | # of seats available | # of votes!% of popular vote | | 1934 | 1 | 90 | na | 7.0% |
| 1937 | 0 | 90 | na | 5.6% |
| 1943 | 34 | 90 | na | 31.7% |
| 1945 | 8 | 90 | na | 22.4% |
| 1948 | 21 | 90 | na | 27.0% |
| 1951 | 2 | 90 | na | 19.1% |
| 1955 | 3 | 98 | na | 16.5% |
| 1959 | 25 | 98 | na | 16.7% |
| 1963 | 7 | 108 | na | 15.5% |
| 1967 | 20 | 117 | na | 25.9% |
| 1971 | 19 | 117 | na | 27.1% |
| 1975 | 38 | 125 | na | 28.9% |
| 1977 | 33 | 125 | na | 28.0% |
| 1981 | 21 | 125 | na | 21.2% |
| 1985 | 25 | 125 | 865,507 | 23.8% |
| 1987 | 19 | 130 | 970,813 | 25.7% |
| 1990 | 74 | 130 | 1,509,506 | 37.6% |
| 1995 | 17 | 129 | 854,163 | 20.6% |
| 1999 | 9 | 103 | 551,009 | 12.6% |
| 2003 | 7 | 103 | 660,730 | 14.7% |
*List of articles about Ontario CCF/NDP members
*Ontario CCF/NDP leadership conventions
*List of Ontario general elections
*List of Premiers of Ontario
*List of Ontario political parties
*United Farmers of Ontario
*Progressive Party
*Labour Party
*Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
*Metro New Democratic Party - Municipal NDP in Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s
*Ontario New Democratic Youth
*New Democratic Party candidates, 2003 Ontario provincial election*Ontario NDP
*Ontario NDP Caucus
*Ontario New Democratic Youth
