Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) held its 2021 convention at the beginning of April. Although there were enough progressive resolutions passed to alarm Canada’s establishment media, there’s no guarantee that the party will actually follow the priorities set by its left flank. If party leader Jagmeet Singh and the NDP caucus neglect the new policy planks, they will alienate their grassroots members, take the wind out of the party’s sails, and enable Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to outflank them on their left once again.

Former NDP MP Svend Robinson has been a prominent figure of the party’s broad left since the late 1970s. Robinson was the first MP in Canadian history to come out as gay while in office. A critic of Canadian militarism and of Canada’s long-standing oppression of Indigenous people, an early proponent of environmental and LGBT rights, and a staunch critic of Israel, Robinson is the NDP’s longest serving firebrand. He recently spoke to Jacobin about the NDP’s past, present, and future, and the need for a socialist world.