Leadership candidate McPherson senses the moment to grow the federal NDP is now

Heather McPherson, one of the frontrunners in the federal NDP leadership race, was in Calgary Saturday to meet with supporters.

NDP leadership candidate Heather McPherson feels like there’s a voice missing from the national conversation as Canada contends with the twists and turns of a trade war.

McPherson was in Calgary Saturday drumming up support for her campaign ahead of a Jan. 28 deadline to sign up members and raise the last of four $25,000 payments required to be on the ballot when the party chooses its new leader March 29 in Winnipeg.

“I have door-knocked in almost every province in this country, I have spent time trying to get New Democrats elected since I’ve been in politics,” said McPherson who was first elected to the House of Commons in 2019.

“What we need to do is to start talking to Canadians about the things that mean so much to them,” she added.

Among those things are the state of health care, the economy, the price of groceries and housing affordability.

“I’m delighted to be in Calgary,” she said. “We had a great event, a packed house – people are excited about rebuilding our party.

“And they’re excited about the opportunity to see a strong progressive party in the House of Commons.

“Mark Carney has taken a pretty wild swing to the right,” she added. “We need the New Democrats now more than ever.”

Facebook was peppered with photos of McPherson’s Calgary visit, including one to the Falconridge Castleridge Community Association in the northeast quadrant of the city.

“It was a pleasure meeting Heather McPherson during her visit to Calgary as she continues her campaign as the federal NDP candidate,” posted Asim Naveed on social media, who attended the event.

“Hearing her speak in person about the economy, job creation, and the future of Canada offered valuable insight into the priorities she hopes to advance.

“Her focus on strengthening communities and supporting working Canadians made for an engaging and thoughtful conversation.”

Lone Albertan

McPherson, who represents Edmonton Strathcona, is the lone Alberta candidate in a race where she’s considered one of the front runners alongside a pair of B.C. candidates, Rob Ashton and Avi Lewis, whose grandfather David was the federal NDP leader from 1971 to 1975.

“Listen, my dad was a truck driver in the oil patch,” McPherson said. “I know how hard the boom-and-bust economy is on people working in the oil and gas sector. But the oil and gas companies are laying people off.

“They’re making a barrel of oil with less and less workers,” she said. “We need to be investing in all kinds of renewable energies, in big nation-building projects where we can actually get Canadian and Alberta workers working – that’s got to be our goal. That’s our priority."

Individual candidate fundraising data will be revealed when the party announces the sums raised up to the end of December in a financial report through Elections Canada later this winter.

Both the McPherson and Ashton campaigns have said they are confident they’ll hit their fundraising targets, while the Lewis campaign said in early January that it had already raised close to $800,000.

The self-described underdog campaigns of Tanille Johnston and Tony McQuail have had to launch fundraising blitzes in the days before each fundraising deadline in order to stay in the race.

Key dates

Following the Jan. 28 membership deadline, the next big date for New Democrats will be Feb. 19, when they have an English-language debate.

Former NDP strategist Karl Belanger of Traxxion Stratégies, who hosted a French-language debate in early January, said following the French debate that he hopes to see more moments in the English debate where the candidates differentiate themselves.

“I think the English debate will be the key opportunity for these candidates to establish that contrast and to persuade NDP members that are still on the fence.

“The French debate was not an exercise that worked that way,” he said. “I mean, they were all playing defence, to be honest.”

Belanger said the next leader will have to reconcile factions within the party.

“People are in dire need for jobs. The economy is not doing well. The trade war is taking its toll ... So there’s a reason why the environment has fallen off the radar when it comes to Canadian voters’ priorities,” he said.

“But there’s also political opportunities with the different positions taken by the Carney government, and so can you seize that moment as well? So those are the difficult dilemmas that these candidates are facing.”

With files from CTV’s Darren Wright and The Canadian Press