Why is the NDP so damn predictable? 

They fired Yves Engler.  Engler is a Montreal-based writer and a left-wing activist. He has written a dozen books about international affairs, Canada’s role in war-making and various culture issues. He has a Youtube channel, and writes a newsletter. He is the only fluently French-speaking candidate. So why did the NDP fire him? Not so unusual: the federal party disallowed Rana Zaman (here and here) from running in the 2019 election – despite the fact she handily won the nomination for Dartmouth Cole Harbour.  But she had criticized Israel for its ongoing war, or in Israel’s parlance, “mowing the lawn” (murdering thousands of Palestinians over the preceding decade) in Gaza.  The NS-NDP ripped the provincial nomination from Tammy Jakeman, a union stalwart who works as a teacher’s aide in a local school.  She too spoke against Israel’s genocide.  That was enough to prevent her from running.  And there are examples across the country of NDP nominees who were prevented from being on the ballot—because of speaking out for Palestine

They Fired Yves Engler too

The NDP disallowed him from entering the NDP’s leadership race.  They don’t like him; I get that. The NDP don’t like the fact he chases after MPs with his video camera to challenge them on a white lie, a policy about-face or something worse.  I wonder if the NDP has castigated CBC-TV’s flagship show, The Fifth Estate – they do the same thing! Those journalists frequently chase after those in power realistically or symbolically who don’t want to be interviewed.  I doubt the NDP has complained about the public broadcaster chasing people to hold them accountable.  But clearly the party does not like a wannabe leader doing it. 

It looks to me like the vetting committee first decided they didn’t want Engler in the race and then came up with reasons to justify that decision.

One of the three-person NDP vetting committee leaked an email to The Globe that stated the vetters were concerned about Engler restating “Russian state propaganda with respect to the Russo-Ukrainian war and Nato.” In response, Engler denied he was a fan of Putin, and said he was against Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.  

The vetters said Engler has made “comments consistent with antisemitic rhetoric.” Where are the examples? 

The vetters accuse Engler of being antisemitic, of using the term “the Holocaust Industry.” Well, NDP Apparachiks; maybe you should do some wider reading.  The expression was popularized by leading American political science scholar, Norman Finkelstein, in his bestselling book The Holocaust Industry (2000).  In it, Finkelstein contends that Israel and the establishment Jewish community use the memory of the Holocaust to exploit a political and financial relationship as the US chief beneficiary.  At the same time the Holocaust is used to lock in Israel’s “victim” status, and used as an excuse for their current genocide in Gaza, and the West Bank for example. 

Engler also supports doing away with Canada’s  Listed Terrorist Entities –something the NDP has not pronounced upon.  As Engler noted,

“…Canada’s terror list, which is a post 9/11 creation [is] bypassing the standard legal burdens of proof. In essence the government can just list a group and poof it’s a criminal association.” 

‘Canada’s Listed Terrorist Entities’

In Oct. 2024, the federal government put a left-wing, pro-Palestine group, Samidoun, on the anti-terror list. Why? asked Engler,  

“No one claims Samidoun has engaged in any violence. If Samidoun is a terrorist organization what is the Israeli military? Mossad? Likud? Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party? Sar-El? HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers? CIJA? Toronto’s Bnei Akiva high school?”  

The vetters decided it was another black mark against Engler I doubt the NDP has criticized or questioned our government for mindlessly aping the US and Britain’s anti-terror lists. But the NDP vetters want to retain the list “for security” reasons, despite the fact that some unions, human rights activists and civil libertarians agree that the very existence of the list “gives the government powers to ban an organization that cannot fairly mount a defence.”  

Where’s the beef?

But what concerns me and others watching the NDP leadership race is this:  why can’t Engler run and let the members decide?  Seems simple.  But of course it is not.  Engler’s and Avi Lewis’ campaign platforms are not dissimilar. 

Yet Lewis became a candidate and Engler was not allowed. 

Lewis is a socialist, an open supporter of Palestinians’ rights and a co-author of a new monograph, The CIJA Report, which shows the anti-Palestinian racism of Canada’s foremost and largest Jewish organization, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).  Lewis, along with MP Heather McPherson, are the frontrunners in the leadership campaign. 

Neither Lewis nor any of the other “official” candidates has said a word to help Engler

What bothers me is that neither Lewis nor any of the other “official” candidates has said a word to recommend Engler be allowed to participate in the debate;  Lewis and the others never insisted Engler (as other NDP members in Montreal) be admitted to the meet and greet in the Green Room before the debate.  And now that Engler has failed the NDP vetting, neither Lewis nor any of the others has the magnanimity to say “look, in the service of democracy, Yves Engler should be able to run for leader.” 

Before the Engler vetting decision, the other candidates said that Engler needed to go through the vetting procedure just like them. Fine. But now that the vetters have rejected Engler on flimsy grounds, are any of the other candidates going to call the vetters out?  

As Engler himself told one reporter, 

“What are they scared of? If no one supports these ideas, if everyone just thinks I’m a Putin asset that denies the Rwandan genocide, that is antisemitic, that is whatever they’re claiming, then let members decide, and I’ll get no votes.”

Painting at the top: Pudlo Pudlat, Winter Bird, 1984. Colour lithograph on wove paper, 56.7 × 76.6 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.