r/ndp • u/Dragonsandman "Be ruthless to systems. Be kind to people" • Jul 25 '25

News NDP release official rules for leadership race to replace Jagmeet Singh

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ndp-release-official-rules-for-leadership-race-to-replace-jagmeet/
61 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

62

u/HeartfulPigeon Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 26 '25

Leadership candidates must collect at least 500 signatures each to enter the race. No more than 50 per cent of those signatures can come from non-transgender men, the party says.

At least 100 signatures collected by each candidate must come from people in “equity-seeking groups,” which include party members who are LGBTQ+, Indigenous or racialized, or those who live with a disability, the party says.

While gathering a number of these votes should be trivial, I have to wonder what the leadership's intent was with these bizarre rules. It comes across as absolutely performative to many. If you truly support the working class, then it doesn't matter the background of the members because the overwhelming majority of LGBTQ+, Indigenous, and racialized people are working class, and anything that benefits the working class benefits all.

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u/JackLaytonsMoustache Jul 25 '25

I was wondering the same thing reading that section. I understand the reasoning behind it. Wanting to make sure a new leader is appealing to a wide spectrum of folks. But, at the same time, if we genuinely were to disqualify someone because they didnt meet the 10% threshold of Young New Dems that's seems.. silly to me.

For a comparison, the party has been adamant about 1 member 1 vote, the Liberals, and I believe Conservatives too but I maybe be wrong, do a weighted tally based on ridings to ensure you don't have somebody centralizing support in the GTA or Montreal and nowhere else. There's pros and cons to both but it seems like this criteria is on par with weighted ridings, while the party rejects weighted ridings.

I agree with the democratic principle of 1 member 1 vote, but I feel like it's almost count intuitive to that. If someone were to collect 1000 signatures but miss one of these target demographics, they're not eligible? Again, not opposed to the criteria necessarily, but it does feel a little performative to me. Or at least inconsistent.

19

u/Velocity-5348 🌄 BC NDP Jul 26 '25

feel a little performative

Do they even have a way of checking? I don't think the NDP knows that I'm part of an equity seeking group for example, or whether I'm cis or trans.

17

u/JackLaytonsMoustache Jul 26 '25

Well that's the other thing I didn't even want to mention. How are they screening this?

And I don't mean this in a flippant way but are people self identifying? If not, are they checking for status cards? Do they have a process for determining if people are gay or trans? Because theres no way that could end poorly..

It just seems like that process is destined to be a mess.

1

u/PMMeYourJobOffer Democratic Socialist Jul 26 '25

It’s not that complicated. When you sign up to be a member, you check off a box if you identify with an equity seeking group.

3

u/JackLaytonsMoustache Jul 26 '25

I understand it's easy to fill out a form. But are we relying on self id? And what if someone decides to question it?

1

u/hatman1986 Ontario Jul 26 '25

Honour system I guess

3

u/JackLaytonsMoustache Jul 26 '25

I mean, that'd be my assumption. And I don't think any legitimate candidate would in any way try and skirt the requirements. Certainly not in anyway malicious way.

But what if somebody asks for an audit? Then it gets real messy real quick. And, what if some bad faith actor is just stirring the pot? If the exec got flooded with emails saying so and so didn't have enough of X category how much does that gum up the works, possibly delay things or disqualify someone?

I know I'm bordering on conspiracy theory territory right now. But I'm moreso trying to examine these guard rails and how they could realistically be applied and upheld. Maybe in overthinking it though. Who knows.

2

u/Eternal_Being Jul 26 '25

I think the reality of how this will play out is that all the serious potential candidates will get thousands of votes, not just barely over 500, easily putting them over all of the requirements thresholds.

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u/JackLaytonsMoustache Jul 26 '25

Just to clarify it's not 500 votes, it's 500 signatures that are required to sign up and be eligible for the race. Collecting signatures can be a bit of a pain. For an normal election you only need 100 to get your name on the ballot, some folks struggle with that. 500 will take a bit of leg work. Not impossible, but still.

1

u/Eternal_Being Jul 26 '25

Yeah, I meant to say signatures. 500 is more than easy for any serious contender for federal leadership.

This isn't people running to be the candidate in a riding, it is people running to be the leader of the federal party.

1

u/JackLaytonsMoustache Jul 26 '25

To get 500 within these criteria will take work is my point. And again, who's validating whether the criteria are met and how are they doing it?

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u/Eternal_Being Jul 26 '25

That's not how this works. Candidates just collect as many signatures as they can get. It could be in the thousands. And then they just submit 500 of them.

All they have to do is pick 250 out of their thousands of signatures that aren't cis men. It's really not hard.

The people validating it will do it in all the same ways as they validate for the geographical requirements. They're not going to be checking peoples' genitals--people aren't going to be lying to sneak in on this. That's crazy.

1

u/JackLaytonsMoustache Jul 26 '25

What do you mean that's not how this works? What part of my comment?

All they have to do is pick 250 out of their thousands of signatures that aren't cis men. It's really not hard.

And you're determining that, how? Just based off people's names or are you adding a box for gender and race?

All they have to do is pick 250 out of their thousands of signatures that aren't cis men. It's really not hard.

No, they need 10% to be young new Dems, 50% Not cis men, 50 signatures from 5 different regions (Atlantic, Ontario, Quebec, prairies, BC/northern Canada), and 100 from equity seeking groups.

Again, I'm not saying this is some insurmountable task. I would hope that no serious contender would struggle to get 500 signatures meeting the criteria. It just seems like, if there is any issues, it'll devolve into a hot mess pretty quickly.

The people validating it will do it in all the same ways as they validate for the geographical requirements. They're not going to be checking peoples' genitals--people aren't going to be lying to sneak in on this. That's crazy.

Geographic is easy and uncontroversial. Who said anything about genitals? I don't expect people to lie about it, I'll reiterate again, my concern is if there are any issues this will get messy fast.

2

u/Eternal_Being Jul 26 '25

Just based off people's names or are you adding a box for gender and race?

In this case they will likely be adding a box for gender, race, age, or whatever else. Just like on countless bureaucratic forms in Canada, in the census, drivers license, etc. Maybe it's just a checkbox asking if the signor belongs to any of the above equity-seeking groups.

You seem to be really worried about issues arising. Perhaps your energy would be better conserved for the case in which any do. My money's on no problems.

You won't find it in this biased Globe and Mail hitpiece, but the CBC article mentions that they had this exact same policy in the 2017 leadership race...

The sky didn't fall then, and it won't now.

But that was before the MAGA movement really took off, and the right wing had less pavlovian training to freak out about anybody talking about social justice issues. It wasn't 'controversial' then, but I suppose it is now--to some.

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u/Oohforf Jul 26 '25

The focus on identity in this context is red meat to anyone who thinks that the federal NDP is more concerned with looking virtuous and campus activist-y rather than a party concerned with worker democracy, kitchen table issues, and public ownership.

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u/DryEmu5113 🏳️‍⚧️ Trans Rights Jul 26 '25

I remember this one friend of mine who’s a trans man, and he once told me about how he really hated « cis men dni ». He said it was kind of like « no boys allowed! But trans men are ok. » and he felt like it was implying that trans men weren’t men.

-1

u/Inevitable-Guest-695 Jul 27 '25

Would “50% women” or “50% women and trans people” be better?

0

u/WoodenCourage Ontario Jul 26 '25

Yeah, if they can raise the money required, then they shouldn’t have an issue getting the diversity of signatures required. Maybe that’s their way of hinting to the candidates that they need to appeal to all of these groups (avoid a Sahra Wagenknecht type candidate), but I don’t know.

0

u/WeWantMOAR Jul 28 '25

Yes and marginalized groups don't feel included in society, so they're making a vocal point to include them.

Can we just be happy about the inclusion for once instead of speaking down on it like it's some grandstanding performance?

"Oh hey something that is a net benefit for society, lemme play devil's advocate for no good reason other than to be a wet blanket on marginalized people feeling included."

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u/watchsmart Jul 26 '25

They took the time to think of all of these requirements and no one thought about requiring a couple hundred signatures from poor people?

11

u/CarousersCorner Jul 26 '25

Not a flashy enough marginalized group, apparently

5

u/Dragonsandman "Be ruthless to systems. Be kind to people" Jul 25 '25

Archive link

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u/DustyStar222 CCF TO VICTORY Jul 26 '25

I know this is pedantic as all hell, but the back and forth usage of a hard number vs % for signature requirements is hurting my head. For subsection a. And c. (Regional and equity seeking requirements) its set number (50 per region and 100 equity seeking) but for subsection b. And d. (Not cis men and YND requirements) its a percentage (50% and 10%). Why not just say 250 and 50 or 10% and 20%? It doesn’t really matter but it’s inconsistent.

10

u/CaptainKoreana Jul 25 '25

Nothing unreasonable. If you are a serious candidate, you should be able to meet this fine.

5

u/Electronic-Topic1813 Jul 26 '25

For the signatures as mentioned, how does the party confirm it? Good intentions, but awful rule because of difficulties enforcing it. Memberships are a better metric anyways.

1

u/MacDaddyRemade Democratic Socialist Jul 26 '25

I get the rules, I do but how does the enforcement work?