{"id":607078,"date":"2026-04-16T02:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607078\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T02:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:58:13","slug":"ndp-quietly-gets-670k-in-funding-despite-losing-official-party-status-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607078\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP quietly gets $670K in funding despite losing official party status – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NDP<\/a> has been quietly allocated nearly $670,000 in additional funding to carry out its parliamentary work, giving the cash-strapped party a financial lifeline after losing official status last year.<\/p>\n

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Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon stressed Wednesday that no new money was being used for the funding, which he said comes from a \u201creallocation\u201d of the existing budget for the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

A government official told Global News on background that the Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois agreed to a new funding formula that would allow the NDP to access a portion of resources available to the larger main parties, despite its smaller size.<\/p>\n

The official told Global News that such a funding formula for parties below official party status has not been done before.<\/p>\n

Yet questions remain about where exactly the money is coming from and whether it will impact other government operations.<\/p>\n

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NDP parliamentary leader Don Davies said in a statement that the money will be used to support the caucus\u2019 duties, mainly through hiring research and support staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the better part of a year, I have been advocating for resources to support the NDP\u2019s parliamentary functions,\u201d Davies said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will enable us to better fulfill our parliamentary duties and reflect the 1.2 million Canadians who voted for us in the last election. In our view, this will help make Parliament work better for all Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The NDP lost official party status after winning just seven ridings in last year\u2019s federal election, dropping from 24 seats in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

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Parties need at least 12 sitting members to gain official status, which grants them additional financial resources and committee assignments as well as regular allotted time for question period. The amount of funding allocated to each party increases based on its size.<\/p>\n

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Documents published earlier this month<\/a>, which were first reported Wednesday by Politico, show a section for \u201cadditional House officer budgets\u201d for parties \u201cwith six or more Members elected in the general election\u201d of 2025.<\/p>\n

That threshold reflects the current size of the NDP caucus, after MP Lori Idlout crossed the floor to the Liberals last month.<\/p>\n

The three official parties also received additional funding under the formula: the Liberals and Conservatives were each allocated $1,243,890, while the Bloc will receive $956,840.<\/p>\n

Those amounts, as well as the $669,780 for the NDP, are \u201cbased on the number of Members elected\u201d last year and are for the remainder of the current Parliament, the documents say.<\/p>\n

MacKinnon said Wednesday that the decision came from the Board of Internal Economy, the governing body of the House of Commons that oversees financial and administrative decisions, after discussions between the Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois.<\/p>\n

MacKinnon and Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer are co-spokespeople of the Board, which is chaired by Speaker of the House of Commons Francis Scarpaleggia.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll parties on the Board of Internal Economy opted to reallocate,\u201d MacKinnon told reporters in Ottawa while heading into Wednesday\u2019s Liberal caucus meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to stress there\u2019s no new funding involved here, and there was a reallocation that indeed gave some resources to the New Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He later said in French that the NDP made a \u201cpersuasive\u201d argument that it remains an established party with enough support across the country to receive a \u201creasonable amount\u201d of funding to fulfill its parliamentary duties.<\/p>\n

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Davies acknowledged the amount allocated to the NDP \u201cis not what we would receive as a recognized party but is pro-rated based on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo other party will get less because of this funding,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Global News has reached out to the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois for comment but did not hear back Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The government official who spoke to Global News could not say where the additional funding was being reallocated from within the House of Commons budget.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Speaker\u2019s office deferred questions to MacKinnon\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

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Davies served as the NDP\u2019s interim leader between last year\u2019s election and this past March, when the party elected Avi Lewis to replace Jagmeet Singh as its permanent leader. Lewis does not have a seat in Parliament and tasked Davies with leading the party in the House of Commons until the leader can run in a future byelection.<\/p>\n

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NDP officials said at last month\u2019s convention the party carries a $13-million debt, making the new funds a boon for the caucus.<\/p>\n

Davies\u2019 advocacy for NDP parliamentary funds does not appear to have been debated during the Board of Internal Economy\u2019s public meetings.<\/p>\n

Scarpaleggia mentioned a letter from Davies \u201cconcerning resources for the NDP caucus\u201d during a meeting in June last year, but a staff member indicated the matter was being discussed among party House leaders and that Davies would not be submitting an official funding request to the Board.<\/p>\n

At a meeting in December, while presenting main estimates for the House of Commons for the upcoming fiscal year, staff indicated that the shift from four to three officially recognized parties had resulted in a $4-million reduction to House officers\u2019 budgets and a $1.2-million increase to member operating budgets for \u201celectoral supplements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NDP has been quietly allocated nearly $670,000 in additional funding to carry out its parliamentary work, giving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[229117,48,43,120808,19954,44,714,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-607078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-board-of-internal-economy","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-house-of-commons","12":"tag-ndp","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}