The election unleashed a tsunami. The determination of a large majority of Canadians to throw out Stephen Harper and his government became an unstoppable force.

Canadians chose Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party to get the job done. They were not interested in the niceties of how the next Parliament would look or whether it was wise to entrust Trudeau and those around him with all the power that comes with a majority.

One vessel that was wrecked in the storm was the federal NDP, which ended up with 44 seats after winning 103 in 2011. The party was returned to third place.

There is considerable unfairness in what happened to Thomas Mulcair, the NDP leader who took on Harper in the House of Commons and did so much to prepare the conditions for the defeat of the Conservatives.

But major political changes in the life of a country are not about fairness.

The members of the NDP will have to pick themselves up from this shattering defeat and rethink the strategy of their party. And there is no doubt they will do this. The NDP and the CCF before it have been a national force in Canada for over 80 years. They have had their share of successes and have presided over transformative changes in the country, most notably the first launch of a medicare system.

There will, though, be a demand among New Democrats everywhere for a rethink about their party and that is as it should be. One thing that is bound to come under scrutiny is what the party actually stands for.

The fact is that the NDP, the party that has historically presented itself as offering basic change, has itself changed over time. As the NDP has journeyed toward power, or the possibility of power, it has dropped much of what it has advocated. Scenting victory, the party has shifted to an acceptance of the reward systems that are at the heart of our present society. The balance, which once existed between social movement and party in the NDP, has been lost along the way. Pollsters and back room operatives guide the party and hone the platform it offers, leaving party members and their conventions without much say.

There was a time when New Democrats believed deeply that our economy, and a social system that produces vast inequalities of income, wealth and power had to be fundamentally changed. No one watching the campaign the federal NDP just ran could possibly claim that the party was offering fundamental change. Indeed, Justin Trudeau and the Liberals managed to a very considerable extent to outflank the NDP in claiming to be the truly progressive party.

For the NDP to run on a cautious platform, on the assumption that it was the party best placed to defeat Harper, has been shown to have been completely wrong-headed.

It’s not as though we are living in a placid age in which there is no need for basic change.

The shift in Canada toward yawning gaps in income and wealth did not begin with the Harper government and the gaps will grow wider under the incoming Liberal government.

Canadians find themselves in the confines of a global economic system that is centred in the United States, a system in which the avarice of the few dictates priorities for all of humanity. Short-term aggrandizement at the expense of the ecosystem of the planet and the threat of crippling climate change haunts our collective future. A newly released report from Credit Suisse revealed that 1 per cent of the world’s population owns 50 per cent of its wealth.

Not since the days of the Great Depression of the 1930s, when socialists first took the stage as a national force, has this country so needed a political party that confronts the system in which we live.

Women and men who are on a treadmill, with real incomes that don’t rise, while CEOs take the lion’s share, know the system doesn’t work for them. Vast numbers of young people are aware that their futures are being blighted as higher education grows less accessible. Aboriginal communities are mobilizing to reclaim their rights, affirm their cultures, and take control of their futures. There is growing awareness among immigrants and the second-generation offspring of immigrant families of the hurdles they face. Especially exploited as members of a precarious workforce are women and minorities.

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Canadians who aspire to the creation of a green economy that serves the whole of the population need a political vehicle that fundamentally challenges the status quo. Can the NDP remake itself as that vehicle?

James Laxer is a professor of political science in the Department of Equity Studies at York University. He ran for the federal leadership of the NDP in 1971 and served as the party’s research dir‎ector in the early 80s.

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