With right-wing parties competing with each other over who can promise the biggest tax cuts and the governing Liberals borrowing fiscally conservative policy from potential challengers, and with the provincial Liberals lifting their political platform from the likes of Mike Harris and Ralph Klein, the NDP finds itself the sole defender of Canadians who believe that everyone should have an opportunity to find meaningful employment at fair wages, affordable education and quality healthcare. At the beginning of a new millennium, the NDP is the only voice in government that speaks out for policies that preserve our environmental resources for the future, an international community dedicated to collective security and common goals, and an economic system that serves the needs of people, and not the other way around. The philosophy of the New Democratic Party is democratic socialism. It is a philosophy based on the twin values of human co-operation and individual liberty. It is a philosophy New Democrats share with social democrats throughout the world.
Democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom, social justice and solidarity.
Its goal is to achieve a peaceful world where these basic values can be enhanced and where each individual can live a meaningful life with the full development of his or her personality and talents and with the guarantee of human and civil rights in a democratic framework of society. Individual rights are fundamental to the values of socialism. Democracy and human rights are also the substance of popular power, and the indispensable mechanism whereby people can control the economic structures which have so long dominated them. Without democracy, social policies cannot disguise the dictatorial character of government. Freedom from arbitrary and dictatorial government is essential.