The NDP’s interim party leader announced he’s having “fruitful discussions” with other parties to retain privileges usually reserved for official parties in the House of Commons, despite being denied a request to be granted official party status.
The party’s interim leader, Don Davies, said that despite the Government House leader denying his request to retain official party status, he has already secured certain privileges for his party that they otherwise wouldn’t have without official status.
He argues that the official party status set in the Parliament of Canada Act, which requires 12 elected members to obtain, is “only in the context” of the salaries of its members.
Davies said his party would “never ask” for a pay raise and would refuse it if offered, but that other benefits allotted due to holding status would help the seven elected NDP MPs. He noted that the Board of Internal Economy sets its own bylaws and can choose to allocate resources to the NDP.
“We’ve already made some progress. For instance, we have access to the lobby. We’ve kept our offices. We have access to the onboard voting dashboard,” Davies said in Ottawa on Monday. “These are all little privileges that are only afforded to recognized parties, but we should be able to get those because it’ll help us do our job better.”
He said the NDP’s priority is to obtain resources to help the NDP more effectively “carry the voices” of the 1.2 million Canadians who voted for them nationally.
Losing official party status means the NDP will have less speaking time during Question Period in the House of Commons and will not be guaranteed spots on parliamentary committees.
During the press conference, Davies signalled that he would be abandoning the path his predecessor, Jagmeet Singh, had taken the party. Instead, Davies will be modelling his own leadership after the party’s late leader, Jack Layton.
Davies said he would keep Layton’s ideals and values in mind as the party “moves forward.”
“He’s someone that I’m going to use as a model as I move forward for whatever period I have as leader of this party,” Davies said. “I remember Jack saying that there were two very important things to remember. One is that it’s every parliamentarian’s first job to make Parliament work for Canadians. And second, he said that a good opposition doesn’t just oppose, it proposes.”
He also laid out the NDP’s priorities for the upcoming session of Parliament.
Davies said affordability and healthcare would be the party’s driving force and aimed at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement to cut federal operational spending.
“He intends to find $28 billion in cuts to the federal budget. Now, New Democrats don’t believe that cuts to public services are wise at this time or at any time, and we will be scrutinizing those extremely carefully to make sure that we protect, as New Democrats, the services that Canadians rely upon,” Davies said. “But absolutely, we want to make sure that those cuts do not come at the expense of Canadians’ health.”
He said the NDP believes in expanding spending in public healthcare, which he says would make Canada “independent.”
Though Davies argued that the country needs to expand its healthcare system, Canada spent more on healthcare than 30 high-income nations with universal healthcare in 2023, despite ranking among the lowest for wait times, access to doctors, and hospital beds.