I’m with Mr.Broadbent on this one.  Forget about changing the name.  Spend the time and the effort to reach more Canadians with the NDP’s message.  Let us focus on getting  Harper out of power and a NDP/Liberal coalition in.  The conservatives actively destroy Canada’s social programs, while the Liberals tend to do it piecemeal and quietly.  We need to reestablish the idea that the government works for the People of Canada as a opposed to the just the corporate elite of Canada.

Surprisingly I found this on the global website.  The full article is behind the link.

Former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent in a file picture.

Photo Credit: Brent Foster, Windsor Star

HALIFAX — Twenty years after he left the helm of the federal NDP, a greyer, more stooped, but no less feisty Ed Broadbent was back in front of his party on Friday, unleashing an angry attack on the Liberals and Conservatives and blaming them squarely for the current recession.

In an opening speech at the NDP’s national convention in Halifax, Broadbent said “the disastrous consequences” of two decades of budget cutting, tax cutting and of slashing social programs in Ottawa — accompanied by similar policies in other western countries — led directly to “last fall’s economic crisis.”

He also said Canadians should not delude themselves in perceiving a difference between the economic stewardship of recent Liberal or Conservative governments.

“There’s been a straight line from (former prime minister) Paul Martin to (Prime Minister) Stephen Harper, and don’t let the Liberals tell you otherwise,” said Broadbent, 73, glowering from the podium at 1,300 NDP delegates inside a Halifax hockey arena.

“There’s a fiscal link from the Liberals of the 1990s to Mr. Harper, and anyone who thinks there isn’t is off in cloud cuckoo land,” he added.

Broadbent said Canadian governments of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s believed in using government to spread economic wealth and promote equality, thanks to pressure from the NDP.

Since then, he said, the Liberals and Conservatives have sold out the legacies and principles of their past leaders.

“What modern Conservatives and Liberals have done is not only to reject the political legacy of the CCF and the NDP, but they have also rejected part of the political legacy of Lester Pearson, John Diefenbaker, Pierre Trudeau and Bob Stanfield — all of whom came to see the importance of social programs, and used the government as a stabilizing and equalizing force in the economy.”

“All across northern Europe, inequality is a serious topic of discussion,” he said. “Not so much here.”

Broadbent exhorted the party not to moderate its social democratic message in search of votes, saying the recession and the credit crisis make this the perfect time for the NDP to advance its traditional ideals.

“This is a social democratic moment in history,” he said. “Even governments of the right, who created the economic mess in the first place, have now had to say that some of the policies social democrats have been advocating all along are right.”

“I think the name of the party is the NDP isn’t it?” He asked delegates, to some applause.

“People want us to be focussing on real concerns, not symbols,” he added. “(Founding leader) Tommy Douglas once said, the New Democratic Party will remain the New Democratic Party as long as New York remains New York, and I think that’s a long time.”