It’s no secret that the past year hasn’t been good to the NDP. The party that was polling as a government-in-waiting just a year ago now tracks a dismal 13.7 per cent in recent surveys. The Trudeau honeymoon still has NDP voters charmed and the New Democrats’ leadership race still hasn’t left the starting gate.

After a disastrous 2015 election campaign and a party convention that saw Thomas Mulcair tossed to the curb on a narrow vote, it was almost surprising that the NDP survived its recent caucus retreat in Montreal with minimal drama. The question of whether Mulcair will stay at the helm until the leadership convention in 2017 now seems shelved — but the lack of open conflict shouldn’t diminish anyone’s sense of just how far the party has wandered into the wilderness.

Mulcair has always been at his best in question period, so one could argue the NDP’s focus for now should be on challenging the Liberals in the House. But how much damage is Mulcair — a leader on his way out — likely to do to a rock star prime minister during a ‘phoney war’ period when neither major opposition party has a permanent leader? Calling Trudeau “Harper lite” might be entertaining, but until the Liberals make a spectacular misstep, New Democrats will have to wait until the leadership race is over to begin any 2019 election-related political jockeying in earnest.

The major wild card here is electoral reform. If the Liberals honour their election promise, each party will have to adopt new strategies to accommodate a new set of rules. Playing for the centre might not matter under a new electoral system in the way it does now.

Ashton’s using this time to talk to young people about something that matters to them — instead of harassing them about who they plan to vote for in 2019. Ashton’s using this time to talk to young people about something that matters to— instead of harassing them about who they plan to vote for in 2019.

What New Democrats need to remember is that this leaderless period, with a prime minister as popular as Trudeau is now, can be an opportunity — if they play it right. If they spend the coming months whining about how they blew it in 2015, calling Trudeau names and playing Commons politics under the current rules, they won’t do themselves any favours.

Instead, they should think of this as a sabbatical. While the Liberals worry about the problems of governing and implementing an ambitious first term agenda, and while Conservatives struggle with the inherent ideological conflicts in their base, New Democrats should attempt to step back from the fray, get out of Ottawa and focus on building a movement around issues that matter to those on the left.

Since March, Niki Ashton, Member of Parliament for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski and NDP critic for Jobs, Employment and Workforce Development, has been doing just that. She has been travelling across the country, holding town halls with millennials and talking to them about the precarious nature of the job market they face.

“Young Canadians bear the largest burden of precarious work,” says a release on the NDP website, “and are more likely to be forced to take unpaid internships and part-time, casual or temp work. In fact, 39 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 15-29 are precariously employed.”

Ashton’s campaign is tapping into a well-known fact about millennials — they care about issues, not organizations.

Ashton isn’t letting the NDP’s current lack of a leader slow her down. She’s using this time to talk to young people about something that matters to them — instead of harassing them about who they plan to vote for in 2019. She is doing the hard work of movement-building in a way that works for millennials — which makes sense, since she’s a millennial herself.

The media can speculate all they want about how and when the Liberals’ honeymoon period will end: They don’t know any more than Trudeau does, and 2019 is still a long, long way off. The mudslinging going on in the Commons now will be a distant memory by then. Now is the time to do the groundwork — to connect with voters in a way that allows parties to tailor their platforms to what people want.

That’s where the next election campaign really begins. Ashton is wise to get an early start.

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