The assumed implication of the New Democrat’s pending resolution to strike the term ‘socialist’ from its constitutional preamble was that some kind of chasm would open in the floor of the convention centre, separating the ‘real’ NDPers from the noobs who tagged along after 2011, riding the wave. Whatever would the NDP do? This was about their ethos. This was about who they are.

And, early on, it looked like all those prayers for outright party division were about to be answered. The socialist “caucus” (with no real, official standing in the party) did kick up a fuss. They openly and loudly railed against the presence of Jeremy Bird, a man who worked on President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, calling the U.S. Democrats the party of Wall Street and, apparently, booing the rather impassioned – and very pro-NDP – speech Bird inevitably gave. This was the fight everyone was waiting for: the one where the NDP’s potent activist, socialist past comes up and punches its watered-down, centrist future right in the face.

Two things, however: One, the actual debate over whether to adopt the new preamble effectively never really happened. Or, rather, it did, but it was over so quickly, that if you’d walked out the doors of the Palais des congres to hit up the Starbucks three blocks away on Sainte-Catherine, it would have been over before the barista finished frothing the milk for your latte. The convention heard pro and con arguments from exactly five people before another asked to call the motion to question. It actually took longer for the New Democrats to decide whether they wanted to vote on the motion than it took to listen to the debate on the motion itself. And it would likely be difficult to find a single person in the room who could claim they saw that scenario coming.

The final result wasn’t even close. Though the opposition speakers had been passionate and, interestingly, quite young (they, each clutching a Marxist Fightback magazine, argued that the new wave of the politically engaged, economically depressed youth was to the left, not to the centre, and the preamble change would thus alienate that base), the delegates decided 960 to 180 that the preamble was worth changing. That it was members of the party’s old guard, including Bill Blaikie, who argued in favour of the preamble change was also probably contrary to expectations. There was little in the way of digging-in of heels. You might have been forgiven for wondering where the leftists were.

This is probably the second part worth noting. The leftists were all right there, in the room. A quick rundown of most, if not all, of the resolutions put forward and that passed reveals one thing: all of them keeled decidedly to the left. There were calls to strengthen employment insurance, implementing a national social housing strategy or for proportional representation, that were adopted by the delegates. Others, on legalizing prostitution and marijuana weren’t, but had been certainly listed as possibilities, had there been enough time. In other words, probably the kind of policy ideas you’d expect to see if a bunch of socialists got together and talked for a while. It’s almost as if the word doesn’t matter anymore at all.

So, maybe the existential crisis everyone was looking for this weekend in Montreal at the NDP policy conference already happened when nobody was watching. Either that, or it just hasn’t happened yet. As it looks to making itself truly the only progressive choice for Canadian voters in 2015, and looks to basically just ignore what appears at the moment to be a fairly significant building threat from the Trudeau Liberals, the NDP better hope it’s the first one.