At the 2025 Progress Summit hosted by the Broadbent Institute, a panel titled “A Stronger Canada: Building Our Economy in Uncertain Times” featured a discussion on the future of Canada’s energy infrastructure. There I argued that replacing fossil fuels will require Canada to double its electricity supply by 2050 — and that public ownership of the electricity sector is the most cost-effective way to achieve this. I made the case for prioritizing highly unionized, dispatchable hydro and nuclear power rather than relying on low-union, intermittent wind and solar. But beneath the technical questions lies a deeper political challenge: the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) must rethink its electrification policy in the wake of its disastrous results in Canada’s recent election.

The NDP’s collapse was not just the product of international headwinds or shifting personalities. Postelection analysis confirms a long-running trend: the party has lost the support of rural and suburban blue-collar workers. Its base now lies mostly among urban, white-collar professionals. This shift is electorally disastrous. These two groups — blue-collar and white-collar workers — have different outlooks and class interests. The NDP has increasingly tailored its policies to the latter, further alienating its traditional working-class base. As blue-collar workers abandon the party, their perspectives disappear from NDP priorities, creating a vicious cycle of decline.

Public ownership of electricity was once a signature achievement of Canadian progressivism. Visionaries like Adam Beck in Ontario, Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan, and René Lévesque in Quebec ensured Canadians had access to cheap, abundant, publicly provided power. This model, unlike the US system dominated by private utilities, or the UK’s post-Thatcher privatizations, delivered high union density and stable, well-paying jobs for generations of Canadian workers.