It’s been a lousy, dispiriting couple of years for federal New Democrats. Justin Trudeau kicked them down the stairs in the 2015 election. Then they dumped their hapless leader but watched him stick around for one of the longest leadership contests on record.

This week, finally, they have a chance to turn the page as they start to vote for a successor to Tom Mulcair. It’s far from clear, however, that even after the winner is known the party will be much closer to answering the question that always dogs it: what does it want to be when it grows up? And does growing up have to mean selling out?

Eighteen months ago, when Tom Mulcair was told the party no longer required his services, it looked like the NDP might be ready for a rigorous debate on its future path. Those promoting a decisive shift to the left brought out the “Leap” manifesto and won support for at least discussing it. Those more focused on winning power lamented the obvious mistakes of the 2015 campaign.

Those are important debates to have. All Canadians interested in the health of our democracy – not just NDP members – have a stake in ensuring the party offers clear, constructive alternatives. A muddled, squabbling NDP isn’t good for our politics.

Disappointingly, then, the party’s leadership race has focused less on ideas and more on personalities. That’s what happens in other parties, too, but the NDP prides itself on not being like the others. It’s supposed to be the party of principles – and this campaign has been notable for a shortage of genuine debate on fundamental differences.

The closest it has come is the campaign of Manitoba MP Niki Ashton. She admires Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and says the NDP must not allow the Liberals to “out-left” them again, as happened two years ago when Mulcair stuck to his balanced-budget promise and watched Trudeau run away with the progressive vote.

Ashton gets marks for clarity, at least. There’s no question she would push the NDP further left than the other three candidates: Tax the rich, free tuition for colleges and universities, no pipelines anywhere, a new Crown corporation to promote green jobs, and a focus on connecting with grassroots activists.

But Ashton takes all this too far to make the NDP even remotely electable. Her emphasis on grassroots activism edges into the type of identity politics that divides people rather than unites them around common goals. And her role models don’t necessarily translate. Sanders and Corbyn rode waves of support specific to their own countries; there’s not much sign of similar political conditions in Canada.

Guy Caron was little known outside Quebec until the leadership race, but emerged as a viable contender who has actually put forward some of the “bold” ideas of the sort New Democrats often call for but just as often fail to produce.

For one, Caron proposes bringing in a “universal basic income” that would raise everyone to the generally accepted poverty line. There are a lot of problems with such schemes, but in the current context it certainly qualifies as bold. And he has an equally ambitious tax plan that would raise an additional $31 billion in revenue each year by targeting both high incomes and accumulated wealth.

At the same time, though, Caron stumbles by effectively abdicating the federal role in promoting and setting standards for universal national social programs like daycare and pharmacare. He would leave all that to the provinces, reflecting his background in Quebec. The NDP has always been a champion of such programs, starting with medicare. It would be a dramatic and unfortunate reversal for New Democrats to abandon those efforts in the name of currying favour in some provinces.

Charlie Angus, the veteran MP for Timmins-James Bay, has offered the most traditional pitch to New Democrats. He talks unabashedly about fighting for the “working class” and has the most nuanced position on pipelines and energy projects. Rather than simply saying “no” to everything, he understands that resource jobs can’t be easily dismissed in favour of a still-to-come green future.

That may do him no favours among hardcore eco-activists, but he’s right to leave open the door for big resource projects if they are consistent with national goals on carbon emissions and “social licence” can be obtained, especially from Indigenous groups. National leadership sometimes means making decisions that won’t please everyone, not just conceding vetoes to anyone affected.

But there’s a disappointing gap between Angus’s rhetoric about the need for “bold” action and his rather conventional policy proposals. And he offers no plan to pay for his promises, which undermines his credibility.

Jagmeet Singh, the MPP from Brampton, is the least conventional candidate. It’s not just his style and background as a turbaned Sikh with charm and flair to spare. He has put forward some genuinely bold suggestions, such as decriminalizing all drugs and putting the focus on harm-prevention. That’s way ahead of public opinion at this point, but all the evidence suggests that he’s right.

Singh’s opponents whisper that he’s not a genuine New Democrat, more of a left-wing Liberal. And he doesn’t appear to have a deep interest in policy issues; during a meeting with the Star’s editorial board it wasn’t clear that he fully appreciates the differences between policies aimed at eradicating poverty and those designed to fight economic inequality. They are different problems that imply very different solutions.

But as many have pointed out, Singh offers New Democrats the chance to get back into the political game, to compete for votes in the fast-growing ethnic suburbs. The alternative is irrelevance, as either a lefty splinter or the aging voice of the fading resource-industrial economy.

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There are big risks with Singh – not least the very real possibility that many Quebec voters (and some others) will turn their backs on a leader whose religious affiliation is obvious every time he steps out in public.

But at this point the NDP can’t afford to take the safe route. It needs to bet on the future, and Jagmeet Singh offers the better chance of a path back to political relevancy.

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