The following is an excerpt from The Left in Power: Bob Rae’s NDP and the Working Class by Concordia University professor Steven High. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, the book revisits the heartbreaking years of Bob Rae’s Ontario NDP government to uncover what we can learn from one social democratic party’s mistakes about how to govern from the left.

The rise of the populist right in deindustrialized areas, like the US Rust Belt, is a legacy of neoliberalism and free trade. We need to break this cycle. If we want to turn the tide of deindustrialization and create manufacturing jobs for the economy of the future, we need to be bold. And it starts now, not in some distant future.

We can expect the Conservative Party to wrap itself in the Canadian flag and fire-up the culture wars. The hotter it gets, the better, for Erin O’Toole. To respond to this political challenge, now more than ever, those on the left need to find ways to bridge the politics of recognition and redistribution—and to re-engage with working class communities.