Given that a few pages back people were wondering whether the NDP would have been doing better if Layton were still alive I dug up the 2011 NDP platform to have a look at how it differed from what the NDP is proposing under Mulcair. You can read the platform in PDF form
here. 2015 platform available
here.
What's remarkable is that it's
nearly the exact same platform.
The 2011 platform promises to
- Lower small business taxes
- Raise corporate taxes
- Enact a cap and trade system
- Abolish Senate
The "cautious, sensible change" terminology from this campaign is all over this document.
...
For too long Ottawa has focused on the priorities of the well-connected, not the priorities of your family. Together we’re going to fix that.
Today I’m releasing my affordable plan to get Ottawa working for your family - one practical step at a time.
...
They even promise to balance the budget.
7.5 balancing the federal budget
• We will maintain Canada’s commitment to balance the federal budget within the next 4 years, as per the Department of Finance projections.
So much has been written about how the NDP has shifted right under Mulcair in an effort to capture the centre, but the fact is when you look at these platforms next to one another there's almost no difference. If anything I think with the addition of $15 day care, Mulcair's platform feels more progressive than Layton's. In general though I'd say that the NDP really hasn't changed their platform that much at all.
The big change between 2011 and 2015 comes from their relationship to what the Liberal Party was doing. In 2011 the Liberal Party under Ignatieff was still hugging the centre, positioning themselves as a sensible alternative to the Conservatives. In 2015 the Liberals stopped being deficit hawks and cranked up the left wing rhetoric.
Given that the NDP are essentially running on Layton's 2011 platform, it's possible that Layton would have also been caught flat footed by the Liberal change in strategy the way that Mulcair has.
