Some critical thoughts on the NDP.

• Author: Orton, David
• Position: Salvaging Democracy - New Democratic Party of Canada

Some members of the Green Party become quite excited when people associated with the NDP [the New Democratic Party of Canada] make various criticisms of the party. I believe one should always be open to hearing criticisms and looking at one's own practices, to see if some rectification is needed. I make a distinction in my own mind between those who criticize the GP from a position of fundamental opposition to what Greens stand for, as opposed to those who believe in the overall Green agenda but who raise various points of disagreement with what we are doing and how we are going about it.

I think sometimes that GP policies are all over the map and that, perhaps, a particular environmental policy of the NDP may be more progressive than that to be found in the GP. It is only within our Party, however, that a certain kind of debate is taking place about the fundamental shift in consciousness needed in how we humans should relate to the earth. We need this debate as the existing industrial capitalist societies, in Canada and worldwide, are destroying the very conditions of life, not only for humans but for other species and the earth itself.

The GP, theoretically, sees itself as a voice for those species that have no representation--hence our stated support for deep ecology and our welcomed stand finally, after long internal struggle, on opposing the annual seal slaughter. This debate cannot take part in the NDP, a capitalist human-centered reform party, but a party which does have a record of bringing social justice concerns to the foreground. This past social justice contribution should be acknowledged by GP members engaged in debates with NDP opponents.

The NDP has nothing to do with socialism. It is a capitalist reform party and has always upheld the parliamentary road. The NDP is opposed to serious extra-parliamentary struggle and has not hesitated to remove or neutralize more radical voices who were seen as threatening in some way the electoral acceptability of the party--the Waffle, and later the so-called "Green Caucus" within the NDP that both failed to realize that more economic growth, unionized jobs, and rising consumerism will always win out in this Party over long-term environmental concerns, or the ecological justice concerns of non-human species. [1]

Canadians concerned about social justice have, in the past, gravitated to the NDP. Many GP members have come from such a background. So we need to keep this in mind and welcome (but not capitulate to) green Tories...