The president of Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party says the party fell from the official opposition to third-party status in last October’s election because the party played things too safe.
After winning 103 seats in 2011, the NDP won just 44 seats as the Liberals supplanted the Conservatives as Canada’s government.
The Liberals under Justin Trudeau won 184 seats to take power while the Conservatives won 99.
NDP President Rebecca Blaikie said Tuesday the Liberals took bolder steps to convince voters they were the real alternative to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
In a report, Blaikie said one of those steps was promising to run deficits while the NDP promised a balanced budget.
However, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair on Tuesday refused to concede that the balanced budget pledge was a mistake.
Blaikie and a committee are expected to release a final report in March about what went wrong. That’s a month before an NDP convention in Edmonton that will decide if Mulcair stays as party leader.
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