The New Democratic Party is poised to make a historic and likely divisive move next week to terminate the labour movement's special voting rights at party leadership conventions.
The possible move is the result, in part, of 2004 federal legislation that stripped the right of corporations and unions to fund political parties, ending labour's long-standing financial support for the NDP since the party's creation in 1961.
One MP said Friday that the removal of union special status will blunt allegations that the party is dominated by "Big Labour."
But the prospect is already causing division among senior party members, including the perceived top two contenders to replace the late Jack Layton as official Opposition leader.
"I support maintaining and building on our strategic partnership with the labour movement," said party president Brian Topp, who has acknowledged he is considering a leadership bid.
"I don't favour excluding them - they're part of our political family," Topp, who is also executive director of the Ontario division of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, told the Edmonton Journal in an email.
But Quebec MP Thomas Mulcair, living in a province where the major unions are not affiliated with the NDP, said he doesn't want a return to rules set out in the 2003 leadership contest, won by Layton, which reserved 25% of votes for unions affiliated with the NDP.
"If anybody in labour wants to sell cards on the shop floor, that's one thing. That would be great," Mulcair told Postmedia News.
"In the province of Quebec, we're the most unionized province in Canada. But you don't reserve votes for trade unions, specifically. If members of trade unions want to come and vote, that's fantastic. And if the reality is that trade unions are helping certain candidates to sell cards, that's also fine."
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