The Nova Scotia NDP has been stuck in neutral since losing power nine years ago. But the party’s next leader believes she can move it forward with a strategic shift in focus.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations and we know the path to government is through rural Nova Scotia,” Claudia Chender told the Sidebar. “And we know the party needs a lot of rebuilding outside of (Halifax Regional Municipality).”
The NDP finished third or worse in every rural district on the province’s mainland in last year’s election. Five of its six seats are in metro Halifax. The other, which it held by just 121 votes, is on Cape Breton Island, the party’s traditional heartland.
“We know that rural Nova Scotians don’t have the same access to services that urban Nova Scotians do in many cases,” she said, pointing to smaller communities’ challenges around things like health and education.
The NDP needs to expand its outreach operations, improve communications, and “be present” in rural parts of the province, Chender said.
“It’s about trust in the end. People will vote for the folks that they trust,” she said. “And so, we have to earn that trust. And we have to earn that trust by being in the conversation in a way that makes sense to people.”
Chender intends to begin earning that trust by advocating for the creation of a dedicated rural affairs department, something the province had until 2015.
“I really want to bring back a space that is dedicated to that,” she said. “Because it comes up everyday. You know, it comes up in terms of agriculture, it comes up in terms of capital, it comes up in terms of health care.”
In addition to the renewed focus on rural issues, Chender hopes to bolster the NDP by improving its standing with workers across Nova Scotia.
“We’ve spent a lot of our time, since I’ve been elected, arguing for good jobs and good benefits and good wages.” Still, she said, the party’s relationship with workers is not as close as it should be.
“We have lost touch with labour, and labour has lost touch with us, in a lot of ways.”
A lawyer who has been the MLA for Dartmouth South since 2017, Chender ran unopposed for the party’s leadership. She will be formally elevated to the post at a convention later this month.
She believes the lack of competition to replace outgoing leader Gary Burrill will help the NDP “hit the ground running” following that convention.
“The party has been through a fair bit of tumult, I would say, in the last decade,” she said. “I think what we saw in the last leadership, which was contested and also had a fair amount of vitriol, was that it took a long time then to get our footing back after.”
But the “organic consensus” around her leadership bid doesn’t mean party members are of one mind on all the issues, Chender said.
“This uncontested nomination doesn’t mean everybody agrees on everything. We know that,” she said. “There’s still a lot of disagreement, I’m sure, as there is in the democratic life of any institution. And so, we need to make sure that we have all those conversations and that we make space for those as we build towards the next election.”
While Burrill is a self-described socialist who some have compared to U.S. senator Bernie Sanders, Chender positions herself differently on the political spectrum.
“I would say I’m a social democrat,” she said. “At the end of the day, I’m me and Gary’s Gary.”
Chender said she and Burrill, who is staying on as an MLA, enjoy a good working relationship and are both committed to rebuilding the party.
“I don’t see that we’re taking any huge departure here,” she said about her plans as leader. “I think it’s just continuing the project.”
June 4, 2022
Scott Costen 