The federal NDP has not done any substantial fundraising in four of its five biggest donor provinces in the first two fiscal quarters of 2009 and still has a multi-million-dollar debt from the last election campaign.

But the NDP's national director says the party will catch up on fundraising in the third and fourth quarters, will pay off its debt "in a matter of months," and says the party's feeling "bullish" about its chances in the next election.

NDP National Director Brad Lavigne, speaking to The Hill Times last week from Washington, D.C., said the party is ahead of schedule to pay off its debt, and has secured financing to fight a federal election, whenever one is called.

"We're always ready in a minority Parliament. So we've gotten a commitment from a financial institution that we will be in a position to spend the legal maximum if a federal election happens this spring or in the fall," said Mr. Lavigne.

Fundraising results for the first quarter revealed that of the four federal political parties the NDP had the sharpest drop in dollars raised from the same period the previous year. The party raised $595,611, compared to $1,119,647 in the first quarter of 2008. The number of donors also dropped from 13,329, to 10,304.

The governing Conservatives were slightly down as well, but with more than $4-million raised they are still far ahead of the other parties. The Liberals managed to double their haul, taking in $1.8-million in the first quarter, as well as increasing their number of donors from 10,169 to 15,230. The Bloc Québécois, which relies almost entirely on the $1.95-per-vote subsidy from the federal government, which all parties receive, quadrupled its donations from the previous year to $122,842.

All parties receive the quarterly per-vote money from Elections Canada as well. The NDP will receive its quarterly allowance of $1,228,089, based on how many votes it received in the last election, on July 1. The Conservatives' allowance is $2,543,328, the Liberals get $1,773,903, the Bloc receive $673,781, and $457,790 goes to the Green Party.

The reason for the weak numbers is because the NDP "sat out" fundraising drives in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, said Mr. Lavigne.

The fundraising freeze was because of the provincial election in B.C., where the B.C. Liberals were re-elected, leadership races in the Ontario and Saskatchewan NDP parties, and another provincial election in Nova Scotia where the NDP is favoured to win.

NDP MP Bill Siksay (Burnaby-Douglas, B.C.) said that in addition to the freeze on federal fundraising because of B.C.'s recent provincial election, there is also a municipal NDP in his community and recent municipal elections have contributed to the scarcity of fundraising dollars available for the federal party.

"Sometimes it's not great timing," said Mr. Siksay, who since he was elected in 2004 has won his riding by extremely slim margins. "That's just the way it works with us when we have a party that functions federally, provincially, and municipally. We fundraise for whoever is engaged in the campaign at that time and then we get organized and get to work after those campaigns are over."

Mr. Lavigne said dollars raised in the second quarter, which ends June 30 with results made public in July, would also be down, but the gap between this year and last year would be less pronounced. Mr. Lavigne said the party will go back to fundraising "full steam" on June 10.

"Our goal is to catch up in the third and fourth quarters of 2009," said Mr. Lavigne.

Mr. Lavigne said the party carries a $3-million to $4-million debt, however, he refused to be any more specific, only saying that the party is "ahead of the game" in terms of paying it off. He also pointed out that the party is in a "unique position" because it owns the building where its headquarters is located in downtown Ottawa, and the party's debt is less than what the building is worth.

Therefore, if need be, the NDP could mortgage the building to pay off any debts, or to borrow more money.

A recent Ekos poll had NDP support at 15 per cent nationally, down three points from the percentage of the popular vote the party received in the last election, eight months ago. The poll is consistent with other recent polls, that indicate support for NDP Leader Jack Layton's (Toronto-Danforth, Ont.) New Democrats is either steady, or stagnant, depending on who you talk to.

In the lead up to the government's January budget, Mr. Layton and his caucus loudly proclaimed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and his government could not be trusted, and therefore they would vote against the budget before even reading it. The party even launched attack ads against the official opposition Liberals for supporting the budget.

Fast forward to today and a resurgent Liberal Party under new Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) has been sabre-rattling about forcing an election for weeks, while Mr. Layton recently announced he will not try to defeat the government and plunge the country into a summer election.

"We won't be moving a confidence motion...I don't think Canadians would want us to [force an election]," Mr. Layton told CTV recently.

The NDP picked up eight new seats in the last election, one seat in Newfoundland, one in Alberta, and six in Ontario. The Conservatives held three, and five were Liberal seats.

The party made a breakthrough in Alberta, where NDP MP Linda Duncan (Edmonton-Strathcona, Alta.) is the only non-Tory in the province, and Mr. Lavigne said the party is targeting other Edmonton-area seats for the next election.

NDP MP Jack Harris' (St. John's East, Nfld.) victory in Newfoundland, where he is now the only non-Liberal in the province, was decisive.

The party's seats in Ontario were won by slim margins, however, and with the exception of MP Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.), who occupies the seat vacated by Joe Comuzzi, a former Liberal MP who was kicked out of caucus for voting with the Conservatives in 2007, former Liberal seats lost in the party's weakest national campaign in decades.

But Mr. Ignatieff is seen as a stronger leader than his predecessor, Mr. Dion, and the party's support in the Ekos poll, where at 33 per cent they have a slight lead over the Tories at 32 per cent, reflects this.

But Mr. Lavigne said he's not worried about the Liberals snatching back the NDP's Ontario seats because voters in those ridings will choose "active engaged" incumbent MPs from his party, over the "absentee" Liberal MPs that held the seats before.

The NDP will be in "growth mode" in the next election, and will be going after both Liberal and Conservative seats. The party sees room for growth in B.C. in particular, and in that province a reenergized Liberal Party, which recently held its national convention in Vancouver, might not be a bad thing for the NDP, said Mr. Lavigne.

"We will benefit from a stronger Liberal Party in British Columbia because when they tanked so badly in the last campaign, Liberal voters went Conservative in British Columbia and put out of reach seats we could have won had the Liberals had more support. In fact, a higher Liberal vote in key areas of the country means good news for the New Democrats because of the way in which those votes were split," said Mr. Lavigne.

University of Victoria political science professor Denis Pilon said the NDP has been successful in securing support in the northwest interior of B.C., and that in the last election the party countered a trend toward the Liberals in lower Vancouver Island.

He added that Conservative MP Gary Lunn's (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) riding, which ended up being a close showdown between Mr. Lunn and the Liberal challenger in the last election after the NDP candidate dropped out, could be within the NDP's grasp if they field a strong candidate next time.

The challenge for the NDP will be resisting the temptation to stray from their original social democratic tenets in order to appeal to swing voters, said Prof. Pilon.

"Some voters are quite committed to the traditional themes of the New Democrats, equity, government ownership, critical of business, and they want to see the party represent those issues. They don't have anyone else to vote for really, but they might not vote at all if they feel that the New Democrats moved too far from the things that they think they should represent," Prof. Pilon said.

Prof. Pilon said there is a "core constituency" of social democrats in Canada that are principled, as opposed to strategic voters, and that the national media and pundits have trouble getting their head around the fact that some Canadians are willing to vote for a party they know has no chance of forming government.

The NDP's breakthrough in Quebec, in 2007, when now Deputy Leader Thomas Mulcair won a by-election in the former Liberal stronghold of Outremont has encouraged the leadership of the party to pursue an ineffectual strategy to replace the Liberals as the left-leaning alternative in Canada, said Prof. Pilon.

"It's a foolish strategy. The New Democrats have been pursuing it now since the 1960s, and it's failed," he said. "They just won't give up the dream. So that's why you see the New Democrats positioning themselves attacking the Liberals instead of attacking the Conservatives, because they think that they need to defeat the Liberals to create the space for themselves. The problem is that if they were successful in doing that the pressure would be there for them to abandon a lot of the issues that their traditional voters support."

Prof. Pilon said the NDP would be better off entrenching itself as a third, or fourth place party that represents principled voters with social democratic values.

"They should speak to voters who want what they've been offering. I think those voters have a right to representation."

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