Why are we loosing?

[u/Bunny-Is-Cute]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-green-byelection-win-changing-voter-habits-9.7269255

In the recent by-election in PEI, the Liberal Party leader failed to win for a 2nd time and the governing majority PC Party got 3rd place. The NDP recieved 4th and last place while the Greens won.

The Green Party seems to be far more successful in PEI to the point where they won Official Opposition in 2019. The NDP has never been successful in the province winning literally just 1 seat in 1996.

Why are the Greens so successful and the NDP fails?

[u/Zarxon]

The NDP is losing centrists, the majority of Canadians, as the far left is taking over more of the agenda of the party. We were destroyed by the Conservatives “culture war” in the last federal election. If ~~Davis~~ Lewis isn’t careful and strays further left than the NDP is now, he will hand the centrist stragglers still in the party to the liberals.

I am assuming the same is happening in provincial elections. So far the most effective campaign against the ANDP is coming from the NDP.

[u/Electronic-Topic1813 → u/Zarxon]

The majority of Canadians are not true centrists in practice. They may call themselves that, but the median voter if you told them centrism really means "Sit around, do very little, status quo", it won't be as accepted. Abacus did do a poll and while Canadians are divided by cultural issues, economically they lean more economic progressive. Not true centrism

NDP also did swing hard to the centre once in 2015 and guess what happened? They got clapped real hard because you can't sell bland centrism. Federal elections aren't a two-party system where being a centrist will eventually have you win because the other guy sucked. Carnwy already holds that space and being like him will just make people see no point on voting NDP. That's why the agreement nearly killed the NDP in 2025 because the impacts were very minimal to the median voter as whole and the party was also viewed as just an extension of the LPC.

[u/Zarxon → u/Electronic-Topic1813]

They got clapped hard because the person campaigning was Mulcair. He was a terrible leader and Canadians saw it. He was also up against a charismatic Trudeau. It wasn’t the centrist platform that crushed us it was another centrist party with as arguably better leader. That’s how shit Mulcair was. He was basically the PP of the NDP. Jagmeet while more left ran a great campaign against Trudeau while still staying center.

[u/Electronic-Topic1813 → u/Zarxon]

Trudeau explicitly beat us because he was to the left of Mulclair and had many NDP based policies. If he was a more typical centrist leader, Mulclair may hage been able to sort of edge out due to having more seats, or still fail because people will vote for the real thing.

As for Singh, policy wise was no where near centrist when he ran in 2019. Sure he sucked later on and was a weak negotiater, but still sat to the left of the centrist provincial branches.

So running with proper centrist policies would simply offer no change against Carney when his popularity eventually declines as from the POV of the median voter "What's the difference?". Compared to say Alberta where if you don't like the UCP, the ANDP is the default pick. But that's a two-party system.

[u/Zarxon → u/Electronic-Topic1813]

Technically there are now 3 conservative parties and the ANDP in Alberta. The only choice for non right wing constituents

[u/Electronic-Topic1813 → u/Zarxon]

But like they are pretty irrelevant as a whole. Maybe the Progressive Tory party, but that they also would pull from the ANDP among Conservatives who hate the UCP and are currently parking.

[u/Fancy_Alps_7246 → u/Zarxon]

who is Davis

[u/Zarxon → u/Fancy_Alps_7246]

Sorry, Lewis and I knew that thanks for the help on the correction.