NDP’s rules prohibit collusion between contestants and lobby groups, but lack of disclosure law for lobby groups makes rules unenforceable, and other loopholes make it legal to bribe most contestants
Unlike in U.S., lobby groups allowed to secretly spend unlimited amounts and secretly fundraise and campaign for party leadership contestants, which makes foreign interference easy to do without getting caught
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch called on the federal NDP to establish a system to ensure that only citizens and permanent residents who are 18 or older can vote in its leadership contest to prevent foreign interference in the contest. The NDP does not currently have any process in place to ensure that foreigners don’t vote in their contest, and anyone age 12-14 or older is allowed to vote.
In addition, while the NDP’s leadership contest rules (p. 12, Part 2, sub-part F), prohibit contestants from colluding with interest groups and individuals who are trying to influence the contest (known as “third parties”), loopholes in federal laws covering third parties mean that (unlike in the U.S.) they are not required to disclose their activities, donors or spending during leadership contests (or nomination contests), which makes it almost impossible to track or prevent collusion or other unethical, undemocratic influence activities by third parties.
As well, only one of the NDP leadership contestants is an MP, and non-MPs are not covered by the Criminal Code anti-bribery provisions, nor are they covered by any ethics rules requiring disclosure of changes in their financial assets and liabilities, gifts they have received, etc. (though the federal MP ethics Code is also loophole-filled and weakly enforced). In other words, it is essentially legal to secretly bribe or buy-off party leadership contestants who are not MPs.
These loopholes also make it easy for foreign governments, entities and foreigners to buy off contestants and/or to use third parties as front groups to influence leadership and nomination contests (and there are also loopholes that make it easy for third parties to secretly, undemocratically and unethically influence elections and by-elections).
Democracy Watch called on all parties a year ago to work together to close these and other foreign interference loopholes before the federal election was called. The federal Liberals are the most to blame for the delay as they denied and tried to bury evidence of foreign interference for years, and then delayed for years, and tried to rig the inquiry, and then refused to disclose key information to the Hogue Inquiry that was finally held into foreign interference, which ignored key evidence and refused to call key witnesses and produced a negligently weak report that essentially amounted to a cover-up.
“If it cared about fair and democratic elections, the NDP should have established a comprehensive voter verification process by now to ensure that foreigners don’t vote in their leadership contest,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch. “And if they cared about fair and democratic elections, all federal parties should have long ago worked together to close all the loopholes that allow for secret, unethical and undemocratic interference, including by foreign government and foreign business-sponsored front groups and individuals, in party leadership contests and other Canadian federal political processes.”
Another comprehensive bill is needed to close the many huge loopholes ignored by Commissioner Hogue, and left open by Bill C-70, which was passed by the House and Senate in five weeks in May-June 2024, but is full of loopholes. Despite the Bill being rushed through Parliament, 20 months later the federal Liberal government has still not implemented the bill to require foreign agents to disclose their activities in the yet-to-be-established Foreign Influence Registry (FIR), overseen by the yet-to-be-appointed Foreign Influence Transparency (FIT) Commissioner.
Article III, section 1 of the federal NDP’s Constitution allows any resident of Canada to become a member of the party as long as they are not a member of another party. The NDP website’s “Become a Member” link leads to a membership form that does not require verification of any of the information entered except the credit card information provided, and only at the third step of the form does it require that a box be clicked for the statement:
“I’m a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident of Canada and I’m making this contribution with my personal account and not a corporate account. I understand that the NDP may follow-up with me to confirm the validity of the information I have provided.”
The NDP’s Leadership 2026 website has the same “Become a Member” link that leads to the same membership form. The link is still there even though the NDP’s leadership contest rules (p. 16, Part 4, section 1) state that anyone wanting to vote in the contest must have joined by Wednesday, January 28th.
Beyond being a citizen or permanent resident and making a donation, the only self-claimed qualification for becoming a member of the NDP, which is a federation of the federal party and provincial parties, is to be older than 12 or 14 depending on the province your residence is located.
None of the news releases about the party’s leadership contest issued by the NDP on September 2, 2025, September 12, 2025, October 21, 2025, November 17, 2025, January 16, 2026 or January 29, 2026 mention anything about the party screening or verifying that people who have joined are citizens or permanent residents.
A second leadership contestant debate will be held on February 19th, and the contest vote (by ranked ballot) will take place by mail, telephone or online (or a combination of those methods) over a period of no longer than 21 days, culminating on March 28 at the NDP’s convention in Winnipeg (according to the leadership contest rules, p. 17, Part 5, sub-part A, sections 6-7).
According to the rules (p. 17, Part 5, sub-part A, section 8), the party’s Chief Electoral Officer was required to communicate by December 30, 2025 to leadership contestants the schedule and methods of voting, but the party has not made the schedule or method public.
Under “How do I vote?” on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) webpage on the Leadership 2026 site, it only says “Further information on how to vote, including voting methods and the voting period will be made available in the coming weeks.”
In its leadership contest last year, the federal Liberal Party established a voter verification process to ensure foreigners did not vote in the contest.
Click here to see the Backgrounder that summarizes all the loopholes and weak enforcement problems that make foreign interference legal and easy to do across Canada at every level of government.
Click here to see summary list of 17 key changes that need to be made to stop foreign interference.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
Email: [email protected]
Democracy Watch’s Stop Foreign Interference in Canadian Politics Campaign