If the NDP had reached its 50th anniversary a few months ago, most of the columns to mark the occasion likely would have reopened the decades-long debate about how to renew the party, or whether it had any future at all.

The NDP’s great surge in the 2011 election put an end to those questions for now and shifted the focus to the enormous opportunities — and risks — that come with being the official opposition and holding 59 seats in Quebec.

Still, the NDP’s recent success has made another age-old debate more pressing than ever: whether the party should shift to the centre or hold to its traditional leftist principles. There is clearly strong support at the top of the party for moving to the mainstream. As the Star’s Thomas Walkom noted recently, this is especially evident in the NDP’s effort to keep the public from even seeing the party’s constitution and main policy statements. In the media, any notion of the NDP adhering to its established views is often met with smug disdain. The Globe’s Jeffrey Simpson, for instance, casts it simply as a question of whether the NDP is ready to grow up.

Given all this, you’d expect that most of the NDP’s core policies would appear hopelessly out of place in today’s world. But a quick look at the sweep of current affairs, especially on a global scale, shows this is hardly the case.

The financial meltdown vindicated the NDP’s suspicions of deregulation and laissez-faire economics. The effectiveness of subsequent bailouts and stimulus packages in warding off a full-blown depression helped prove the value of aggressive government activism in the economy. Wherever neo-liberal policies have been embraced, the long-term stagnation and decline of living standards for middle- and lower-income earners has confirmed the party’s position that delivering prosperity for everyone cannot be left solely to the market.

The experience in Afghanistan has justified the NDP’s support for peacekeeping and skepticism about joining U.S.-led military ventures.

Domestically, the continued popularity of the Canada Pension Plan and, especially, public health care (which was just coming into being in Saskatchewan when the NDP was formed in 1961) have proven the importance of effective social programs.

Dropping long-held positions might also make sense if it was clear that it would bring some great reward. But the NDP’s breakthrough in the May 2 election shows just the opposite. Much of Jack Layton’s success was because his health problems actually helped him get out of his own way: He did not have time to develop the too-clever-by-half campaign pitches of earlier elections (like “give the Liberals a time out”). Instead, he fell back on the party’s established values and looked comfortable doing so — and voters liked what they saw.

Indeed, when you look at the common ground between the NDP’s policies and many Canadians’ views on social programs and the economy, the surge was long overdue. So why insist on remaking yourself when falling back on your most basic values just produced your biggest success? If Layton’s popularity rested largely on his image as the “happy warrior” who kept marching forward even in tough times, what will happen if he promptly changes direction and abandons many of the principles he just fought for?

And now that the NDP has more seats than ever, it should consider whether a dramatic shift is what all those new constituents actually want. In English Canada, the NDP won most of its seats in urban and/or working class areas where it has been traditionally strong. In Quebec, most of the ridings the NDP won are used to being represented by social-democratic parties on the federal and provincial level. The protest votes for Layton in Quebec were hardly driven by a desire to support another federalist party that just ends up embracing the status quo.

Finally, the NDP needs to ponder how difficult it might be to gain acceptance in the mainstream, especially given the current orientation of the Canadian media. Despite the Tories’ incessant whining about the media, 28 of Canada’s 30 major print outlets endorsed the Harper government — a level of conformity reminiscent of 1970s Poland. The NDP achieved its breakthrough without much media support. Indeed, Layton was being written off early in the campaign, and as Chantal Hébert has observed, most of the media was “too conservative to acknowledge” the NDP’s surge even as it happened.

It is often taken for granted that moving to the centre is the “realistic” or “pragmatic” route for the NDP. But a lot of the party’s established positions do not look at all that unrealistic in light of recent events. Considering how the NDP achieved its success this spring, the practical benefits of giving up on its principles are very hard to see.

David Goutor is assistant professor of labour studies at McMaster University and author of Guarding the Gates: The Canadian Labour Movement and Immigration, 1872-1934.

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