Canada: The Difficult Legacies of Left-Wing Populism

During the 1997 campaign Alexa McDonough, leader of Canada’s federal social democrats, announced her ambitions for the election. She did not expect to form the government nor even to become the official opposition. Her first goal was simply to make a respectable showing, so as to allow the New Democratic Party to move beyond the disastrous 1993 results that took it from forty-three to a mere nine members of Parliament (MPs). By dropping below twelve members, the NDP had forfeited its “off...