By barring Bianca Mugyenyi, NDP shows it’s not interested in renewal

This leadership race is about far more than choosing the next leader of the NDP. After the so-called Red Wave allowed the Liberals to cling to power, the party has been effectively dead in the water. The race has become a conduit for members to express their desire to rebuild the party—to renew and transform it.

And yet, the decision to bar Mugyenyi suggests the opposite: this is not a party genuinely interested in renewal. By preventing a candidate from even clearing the vetting stage, the NDP leadership constricts who is allowed to participate, which ideas may be debated, and which political tendencies are kept safely out of the spotlight.