NDP leadership candidate Yves Engler made a stop in Kingston, pitching a campaign he described as anti-capitalist.
His Kingston stop was part of a broader Ontario tour that started on Aug. 31 in Toronto. It involved visits to Hamilton, St. Catharines, and London, before wrapping up in Kingston. The event started at 6:30 p.m. at the Spire, with roughly 35 individuals in attendance to hear a speech about his platform and partake in a question-and-answer period.
At the event, former Canadian Union of Postal Workers president and Engler’s campaign communications director, Mike Palecek, spoke about Engler’s platform. He discussed Engler’s ideas of turning Real Estate Investment Trusts into social housing, forgiving outstanding student debts, and making university tuition free.
Engler confirmed these priorities in an interview with The Journal, linking them directly to questions of federal spending.
“We need to get rid of tuition, and we need to abolish student debt; it’s something like 23 billion,” he said. “Just this year, it’s about $12 billion in added military spending just this one year. $9 billion on top of what was already a $3 billion increase. […] I prefer allocating resources to education [rather] than bombs and tanks.”
“Massively increasing investment in public and social housing and turning the corporate-owned and mutual fund-owned housing into co-ops is going to be particularly beneficial to younger people.”
He also criticized the NDP’s previous electoral strategy while emphasizing his goal for more progressive change.
“The NDP went with a very conservative platform and disposition and was basically crushed,” he said. “There’s an appetite within the party of questioning the political direction in Canada and Canadian foreign policy generally.”
Engler connected his leadership run to Canada’s role in international conflicts, arguing for Canada to end its alleged complicity in Israel’s war in Gaza, adding “our government is completely enabling these horrors, this live stream Holocaust, really. We need to stop that, we need to oppose that, we need to end that,” Engler said in his speech.
He later pledged to confront Canadian military spending and what he described as bipartisan consensus on foreign policy, citing his plan to “[call] for the Canadian government to stop treating Israel as this unique special case.”
Another theme Engler focused on during his speech was housing affordability—something he also touched on in his interview.
Engler also spoke to the race itself, adding he feels he’s well-positioned to meet the party’s nomination requirements.
“I’m very confident that we’re going to fulfill the requirements to be nominated,” he said in the interview. “We’re far past the signatures, and I think we’re going to have no problem getting the first installment of $25,000 [through donations] to be part of the race.”
However, Engler acknowledged the party’s vetting process could prove challenging to getting him on the ballot for party leader.
“There’s a lot of power that’s just been kind of given over to the party to make [what] appears to be fairly arbitrary decisions. We know that there are people in the party establishment that are not keen on the campaign.”
The event wrapped up after about an hour of Engler speaking to the audience with a question-and-answer period.
The NDP Leadership Election will take place on March 29, 2026.
Tags
Federal politics, NDP, Yves Engler
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Zedrick Serson
Yves Engler followed a female Liberal MP to her car and screamed at her about Palestine despite her clearly being in distress. The NDP will lose all their seats if they elect him, and quite frankly they would deserve it for electing a misogynist pig.
Zedrick Serson
I’ve also been reminded that Yves Engler went on “MAGA communist” Jackson Hinkle’s podcast and then tried to defend willingly platforming a fascist. He is proof positive that holding progressive views doesn’t mean you can’t be a piece of shit human being.
Geoffrey Brown
Cheap shot, Zedrick. It was a perfectly normal interview. Hinkle & Engler discussed the Zionist lawfare campaign against Engler as well as Engler’s NDP leadership platform. For the open-minded, here is the interview link: https://x.com/legittargets/status/1961820960849338477?s=61
Geoffrey Brown
Zedrick, your little smear attack failed to include Engler’s own words about Hinkle and the interview. For the open-minded, here is Engler’s full statement: https://x.com/yvesforndp/status/1963833559032197280?s=61
Geoffrey Brown
Personally, I think Yves Engler is Canada’s finest foreign policy analyst/activist. Because he’s an anti-Zionist, anti-NATO, anti-corporate socialist, he has been effectively blacklisted by the MSM. For the open-minded here’s a list of his 13 books: https://yvesengler.com/yves-books/
Amir
Since my last remark would probably not pass the moderation I’ll put it in a way acceptable to liberal middle class ears – so your are upset that he yelled at a woman, but you are okay with a woman representing your foreign policy who is cool with the fact that 100,000 women have been murdered by the Israeli death forces? Fake feminism. Palestine exception yet again.