The New New Democratic Party
An Equity Queue Documentary: Where Every Voice Is Prioritized, Ranked, Recalibrated—and Occasionally Deferred. A satire, but satire and reality seem to be shacking up.
I arrived in Winnipeg for the NDP convention expecting a political convention and instead found a loyalty program for grievances—complete with tiers, upgrades, and endless bickering about what rung everyone stood on the growing grievance ladder.
This, I was assured, was the New Democratic Party—though the branding now feels off.
The New Democratic Party has become the New New Democratic Party.
The central innovation was the equity card: a colour-coded credential functioning less as identification than as a points engine.
Green for this, pink for that, yellow for the richly intersected—each colour having a value, a multiplier in a system where fairness had been translated into arithmetic.
Not crude arithmetic. Moral arithmetic.
Delegates did not so much line up as run the numbers. Phones came out—not for texting, not for news—but for calculators.
“I’ve got ten points.”
“Have you added intersectional carryover?”
“Only partially.”
“Well then, you’re undercounting.”
A pause. A recalibration. A faint sense that one’s position in line might be improved by a deeper reading of the loyalty program fine print.
Then came the promotions.
“Wait—there’s a bonus this afternoon.”
“What bonus?”
“Non-binary gets double credit after 2 p.m. Plus a coupon for an upgrade to a frap at the coffee bar.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does—it was announced earlier.”
“That was amended.”
“No, the amendment was referred to the non-binary committee.”
“Well then, what about the racialized weighting?”
“That only applies regionally.”
“What region?”
“Anyone with ancestors - maternal line only - from North Africa, I think.”
“No, that’s not right. Nigeria was reevaluated. Lagos only.”
