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On Saturday, the NDP faithful were presented with two very different politicians who articulated two very different paths out of the political wilderness in which the party now finds itself.

Rachel Notley, the premier of Alberta, used her early afternoon speech at the federal party’s convention to excoriate conservative ideology, offering the hope of success to a party disheartened by loss. Then she asked her fellow delegates to be more charitable toward the hundreds of thousands of workers who make a living in the resource sector, and to consider that with the responsibilities of government comes the ability to implement real, practical policy — on climate change, for example — while protecting the social safety net that social democrats hold paramount.

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Later that night, former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis offered a very different kind of barn burner. Lewis excoriated the governing Liberals in brutal, frank terms that sadly have been avoided in this country since Justin Trudeau came to power. Lewis presented a vision of perfect moral clarity for a party that has long taken pride in its role as the progressive conscience of parliament. Then, even while offering all sympathy due to Notley, he encouraged the delegates to endorse a discussion of the Leap Manifesto — a plan that would halt all pipelines and eventually force the end of all fossil fuel development, and one which counts Lewis’s son Avi among its foremost proponents.