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Canada must implement a “universal basic annual income.” Any and all fossil fuel production must be forced out of business within a generation. “All trade deals” must be ended.

The manifesto is essentially a shortlist of everything NDP leader Tom Mulcair has been carefully avoiding in his bid to convince voters that social democrats aren’t nearly as scary as the Conservatives say they are.

But nobody appears to have told that to the dozens of prominent NDP supporters who signed the thing. Or Lewis, who publicly said that the document is essentially NDP policy.

“For the New Democrats, it’s an extension of the kinds of things they’ve been talking about,” he said.

Altogether, The Leap Manifesto is essentially the left wing equivalent of a bunch of ex-Conservatives getting together to sign an open letter vowing to bring back the death penalty, reinstate prayer in public schools and extend “conscience rights” to all public bureaucrats.

And Mulcair, predictably, has stayed as far away from it as possible, saying on Tuesday only that he “welcomes debate.” Mostly, he stuck to talking about healthcare for mentally ill youth.

To be fair, Leap Manifesto author Naomi Klein isn’t tremendously charmed with the NDP, either.

When the party claimed in March that it would strengthen the Canadian mining industry, for instance, she penned a sarcastic note to her Twitter feed: “So great to have a real alternative to Harper’s extractivism.”