As Canada enters 2026, the New Democratic Party stands on the edge of irrelevance. In the April 2025 federal election, the NDP suffered its worst defeat in history: reduced to just seven seats and a mere 6-7% of the popular vote, losing official party status and watching its support collapse across the country.

Union households are splitting their votes, working-class ridings like Windsor are flirting with the Conservatives, and national polls show the party mired at 11-12%—trailing far behind a resurgent Liberal Party under Mark Carney.

The diagnosis is clear. For decades, the NDP has drifted from its radical economic roots. The 2022-2025 confidence-and-supply agreement sealed the fate: the party became a junior partner in a government that failed on housing and wages, while voters punished it for propping up the status quo.

There is still a path back, but it requires a return to our 1933 origins as the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). The NDP must declare itself, unequivocally, the Party of Worker and Community Cooperatives.

Why Cooperatives Are the Only Viable Lifeline

Cooperatives aren’t a nostalgic sidebar; they are the most practical tool for democratizing wealth in a failing capitalist economy.

They solve the “who pays” problem. Public spending relies on extraction. Cooperatives generate and retain wealth internally. Spain’s Mondragón network maintained near-full employment through the 2008 crisis while private firms collapsed. In Canada, Gay Lea Foods—owned by 1,300 dairy farming families—now generates over $1.3 billion in annual revenue, proving that democratic ownership scales and survives market shocks better than Bay Street models.

They are politically unassailable. Imagine Pierre Poilievre attacking “Canadian workers owning their own factories.” It’s impossible. Cooperatives neutralize populist right-wing attacks on “socialism” while exposing corporate greed.

They scale—and Canada has the blueprint. Québec’s “Solidarity Cooperative” model houses hundreds of thousands. In the Maritimes, the Antigonish Movement once proved that rural communities could seize their own economic destiny through credit unions and fish pools. We don’t need a new idea; we need to scale the one that worked.

The “Winnipeg Manifesto” for 2026

A Ten-Point Platform for the Next Leader

1. The winner of the March 29 leadership vote cannot afford another 80-page manifesto. The platform must be singular and relentless:
2. The Marcora Rule: Give workers the “Right of First Refusal” to buy their companies when they are up for sale or closure, backed by federal low-interest loans.
3. Worker-Co-op First Procurement: Any federal contract over $10 million goes only to enterprises ≥50% worker-owned or on a binding five-year path to it.
4. $20 Billion National Co-op Conversion Fund: A public fund to buy out retiring “silver tsunami” business owners and transfer firms directly to employees.
5. One Million “Limited-Equity” Homes by 2037: Building 500,000 new housing co-ops where the goal is shelter, not speculation.
6. Reform the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) into the primary federal lender for cooperatives: Amend the BDC Act to mandate a dedicated Co-operative Financing Division that lends preferentially (or exclusively within certain programs) to worker, community, and multi-stakeholder co-ops—filling current market gaps and aiming for 20-30% of BDC’s portfolio targeted at democratic enterprises within five years.
7. Platform Co-op Offensive: Federal funding for worker-owned alternatives to Uber and Amazon Flex—making gig exploitation unprofitable.
8. Introduce Swiss-Style Direct Democracy at the Federal Level:Enact citizen-initiated referendums: allow 150,000 verified signatures to trigger a binding national vote on any new federal law (optional referendum) or to propose constitutional amendments (popular initiative). Mandate referendums for major tax increases, international treaties ceding sovereignty, or borrowing beyond GDP thresholds. Empower Canadians to check parliamentary overreach and ensure big decisions reflect the people’s will, not just party elites.
9. Mandatory Ownership for Tax Breaks: Any firm claiming R&D credits must offer ≥20% ownership to workers.
10. The New Sherbrooke Principle: A permanent ban on Liberal alliances. No more being Mark Carney’s junior partner.
11. Democratize the Party: End union block voting; one member, one vote.

To the Five Candidates: The Clock Is Ticking

As of January 2026, Rob Ashton, Tanille Johnston, Avi Lewis, Heather McPherson, and Tony McQuail are all running respectable campaigns. But respectability is what got us to seven seats.

Tommy Douglas dreamed of a cooperative commonwealth, not a marginally kinder Liberal Party. The membership is exhausted; the country is ready.

If the new leader steps forward in Winnipeg and declares: “My sole mission for the next decade is to help Canadian workers own the businesses, platforms, and homes they pour their lives into,” the party will surge.

Cooperatives or extinction. The choice is yours.

---