Ontario New Democratic Party
The Ontario New Democratic Party (French Nouveau Parti démocratique de l' Ontario) is a social democratic political party in the Canadian province of Ontario. In contrast to most other Canadian parties, the Ontario New Democratic Party is an integral part of the parent party at the federal level, the New Democratic Party of Canada. This means that members of the provincial party automatically becomes a member also of the federal party, which usually is not the case in the political system of Canada. Since the elections in October 2011 put the New Democrats 17 of 107 deputies in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. So far, they once formed the government from 1990 to 1995.
History
The NDP was founded in 1932 as a Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF ), a party of democratic socialism. The Ontario CCF saw himself as a successor of the coalition of the Peasant Party United Farmers of Ontario (UFO ) and the Labour Party, which had formed from 1919 to 1923 under Ernest Charles Drury, the government in Ontario. While individual Members of the UFO changed to the Ontario Liberal Party, but the UFO as an organization involved in the founding of the CCF Ontario and was briefly associated with it. The compound was dissolved in 1935 because the UFO suggested a growing influence of the Communists. The CCF in 1934 for the first time took part in the elections to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. She reached 7% of the vote and won a seat in Hamilton.
1943 abolished the CCF breakthrough: it reached 32 % of the vote and 34 seats was the second largest party, only four seats fewer than the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, which formed a minority government. Before the election 1945, a Conservative Prime Minister George Drew, the Ontario Provincial Police to spy CCF MPs and to publish slanderous advertisements to then in the newspapers. Party leader Ted Jolliffe compared in a radio address Drew's methods with those of the Gestapo. Then lost slipped from the CCF to only 8 seats, but could increase the number of seats again in 1948 to 21.
Due to the economic boom in the 1950s and the anti-communist sentiment during the Cold War, the CCF lost its popularity. Under Donald C. MacDonald, the party was reformed in 1961 and changed its name to the New Democratic Party. They managed to increase its share of the vote continuously, reached in the elections in 1975 a share of 29% and urged the ruling conservatives since 1943 in a minority government.
In 1985, the NDP allied with the Liberals and crashed with a vote of no confidence Frank Miller's Conservative government. She tolerated the new minority government of Liberal Prime Minister David Peterson, but did not participate in the government. In the elections of 1990, the NDP was first voter strongest in its history, the party of Ontario and won with 37.6 % of the vote, more than half of all the seats. Bob Rae was premier of Ontario during the biggest recession since the Great Depression. For economic reasons, the NDP could not fulfill many of their campaign promises and angered by their electorate. In the elections of 1995, the NDP could hold only 17 seats and dropped back to third place. Since then, the NDP never found its way back to its former strength.
Election results
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Ontario New Democratic Party
Party chairman
P = Prime Minister
- Ted Jolliffe (1942-1953)
- Donald C. MacDonald (1953-1970)
- Stephen Lewis (1970-1978)
- Michael Cassidy (1978-1982)
- Bob Rae (1982-1996) P
- Howard Hampton (1996-2009)
- Andrea Horwath (since 2009)