Does the NDP have to shift to the centre to form government?

NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp has rehashed an age-old debate that has consumed left-of-centre political parties across Canada for decades.

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Topp said that party members will have to decide at the leadership convention on March 24 between his vision for a "clear and principled social-democratic" agenda and Thomas Mulcair's centrist approach to government.

"That may well be what the choice comes down to," Topp said.

"[Mulcair] wants to move our party to the centre, which is entirely consistent with his background and his experience as a principal architect of the early Charest [Liberal] government [in Quebec], which was very conservative."

For his part, Mulcair hasn't directly responded to Topp's attacks but if he wins, most analysts predict he would move the party towards the centre of the political spectrum.

Other left-leaning parties have used the same formula for success.

In England, Tony Blair's Labour Party ditched many of its far-left policies and moved the party to the centre resulting in three consecutive election victories.

Closer to home, Manitoba's Gary Doer became the most successful New Democrat premier in Canadian history because of his centrist, pro-business policies that had little in common with traditional NDP sentiments.

Joan Grace, a University of Winnipeg politics professor, told the Uniter social democratic parties worldwide have had to shift much more to the centre, or even the centre-right in some areas.

The reasons, she said, include the rise of neo-liberalism, criticism of government debt and deficits, and criticisms of the welfare state creating too much dependence on government programs.

Some of the leadership candidates have weighed-in on the 'shift to centre' debate.

In a recent interview with Yahoo! Canada News, leadership candidate Paul Dewar said the party is fine where it is.

"I think we would do a disservice, just for crass political purposes to water down our values or principles," he said.

"What I think we need to do is ... take [the current NDP] messages to [groups] we haven't taken them to before."

NDP MP Nathan Cullen thinks it's a topic not even worth discussing.

"I think [politics] is about representing yourself on the key issues of the day — the economy, the environment and how our economy functions," he told Yahoo! Canada News.

"If people want to apply labels as to which candidates sit on which part of the spectrum — the only politics I know is pragmatic. I just want to get something done. I want to get it done well and in such a way that Canadians are proud of."