Dominic Cardy

Dominic Cardy
Leader of the New Brunswick New Democratic Party
Incumbent
Assumed office March 2, 2011
Preceded by	Jesse Travis
Personal details
Born	(1970-07-25) July 25, 1970 Oxford, United Kingdom
Political party	New Brunswick New Democratic Party
Occupation	Leader, New Brunswick NDP

Dominic Cardy (born July 25, 1970) is a Canadian politician. He has been the leader of the New Brunswick New Democratic Party since 2011.

Early life

Born in the United Kingdom, Cardy's family moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick when he was a child.^[1] He attended Dalhousie University and graduated with a political science degree.^[1]

Cardy worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2000 on projects to increase public support for the banning of land mines^[1] and for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) between 2001 and 2008. He served as a senior staff member and then country director for NDI in Nepal, Bangladesh and Cambodia.^[2]

Political career

While a university student at Nova Scotia, Cardy was elected President of the Nova Scotia NDP's youth wing. He then worked as a party campaigner, political assistant to an NDP MP in Cape Breton, and managed several campaigns at the municipal and federal level.^[1]

In 2000, Cardy co-founded NDProgress, a pressure group within the NDP that advocated the modernization of the party's governance structures.^[3] In writing about the debate within the NDP prior to its 2001 convention between the New Politics Initiative and those such as NDProgress, Cardy wrote "Some want to see the NDP recreated as a mass party based on the ideas of the traditional left, but infused with the energy of the new social movements and the anti-globalization activists. And there are those pushing from another direction, taking inspiration from the European socialists. If I had my choice I would fall firmly into this camp, those who want the party to follow the path laid by social democrats like Gary Doer, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder."^[4]

Cardy was campaign director for the NDP in the 2010 provincial election.^[5]

NDP leader

Cardy was acclaimed party leader on March 2, 2011 after the only other candidate for the position, Pierre Cyr, was disqualified from the party's 2011 leadership election.^[1] At the 2012 New Brunswick New Democratic Party convention, Cardy received an 82% vote of confidence in his leadership from the assembled delegates.^[6]

During the 2012 federal NDP leadership race, Cardy backed Thomas Mulcair, and was one of the introductory speakers at his campaign launch.

Cardy was the NDP's candidate in a June 25, 2012 provincial by-election in Rothesay, coming in third with 27 per cent of the vote.

As leader, Cardy recruited a slate of candidates that included several prominent former Conservative and Liberal politicians including former Liberal cabinet minister Kelly Lamrock in Fredericton South; Bev Harrison, a former Conservative and Speaker of the legislature, in Hampton; former Liberal MLA Abel LeBlanc in Saint John-Lancaster and former Liberal candidate John Wilcox in Rothesay. The move was criticized by some New Democrats, such as Chris Rendell, who had intended to run as a candidate, as evidence that Cardy was out of touch with the party's grassroots and was a contributing factor to the defection of some NDP supporters to the Green Party of New Brunswick.^[7] Former party leader Allison Brewer endorsed the Greens due to the policy positions of Cardy's NDP.^[8]

In the 2014 provincial election, Cardy ran as the party's candidate in Fredericton West-Hanwell.^[8] During the election campaign, NDP candidate Paul Musgrave, running in Kent South, said he was "uncomfortable" with the party's support for the shale gas industry's use of fracking under certain circumstances.^[9]

Though it received 12.98% of the vote in the 2014 provincial election, an all-time high for the NB NDP and its predecessor, the CCF, the party won no seats in the provincial legislature. Cardy himself lost to Brian Macdonald in Fredericton-Hanwell, and announced in his concession speech that he would resign as party leader effective at the party's next convention,^[8] which has been postponed to January 2015. Cardy faced pressure to rescind his resignation and run in the Saint John East by-election which was called following the surprise resignation of newly elected Liberal MLA Gary Keating on October 14, 2014.^[10] Cardy announced on October 21 that he would be standing in the by-election, scheduled for November 17,^[11] and delayed his resignation.^[12] Cardy placed third in the by-election with 21.88% of the vote.^[13]

Cardy agreed to remain as leader after the party's executive rejected his resignation on December 10, 2014 and a letter was signed at the party's provincial council by supporters and former candidates urging him to stay on. The party also offered Cardy a "livable" salary beginning in 2015 due to its improved financial position. Cardy had been working as leader on a volunteer basis since assuming the position in 2011 and had no legislative salary as he is not a member of the provincial legislature.^[14]

In early 2015, federal NDP MP Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst) criticized Cardy's leadership and its conduct in the election campaign saying that Cardy had moved the provincial party too far to the centre. “The problem, I think, with the provincial party, with Dominic, was that I think he was too much to the right to even be in the centre, and I think people read into that," said Godin who added: “I think it did hurt the party. People were looking for the NDP, they were doing really well, and [voters] wanted change from the existing parties that we have now, who are serving the big corporations and forgetting about the people. I think that’s what happened.”^[15]

Electoral record

References

External links

• Dominic Cardy
• Dominic Cardy Biographical Video

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