It officially begins in September 2025 with a $100,000 entry fee.
Members will elect the next NDP leader in March 2026 at the party’s convention in Winnipeg.
McQuail is no stranger to Canadian politics.
His involvement spans 45 years and includes running five times in federal elections in the riding of Huron-Bruce. He last ran in 2019, placing third with 7,421 votes.
He’s also put his name forward twice for the provincial NDP in Huron-Bruce. In 1999 he placed third with 4,142 votes.
In addition, he served as the executive assistant to former Ontario Minister of Agriculture and Food, Elmer Buchanan, between 1991 and 1992.
“During that time, I was one of the people who helped work on the concept of an environmental farm plan to help farmers look at how they integrated their operation with the larger environment,” McQuail said. “We didn’t impose it on the farm community, we developed it with the farm community, and that’s why the program still exists today.”
That idea of collaboration is what McQuail hopes to bring to the federal NDP.
“I hear politicians say they’re going to be fighting for me,” he said. “I don’t want people fighting. I want you working for me, and more importantly, working with me, because we’re facing serious problems.”
McQuail’s overall platform focuses on four themes – Representation, Regeneration, Redistribution, and Redesign.
Representation refers to electoral reform to ensure Canadians are proportionately heard in elections.
“Our first past the post system means many of the votes that get cast during an election don’t earn any representation,” McQuail said. “So, you get these terribly imbalanced legislatures. So instead of creating places where we debate things properly, we get very divisive legislatures and Parliaments with false minorities who don’t work on behalf of all Canadians.”
This is something McQuail has brought to Ottawa through past communication.
It also ties into a main goal of McQuail’s.
If elected as new NDP leader, he wants to join with the Green Party to form a new party.
“I hear from people on the ground that they want a united green and progressive voice that addresses concerns about the future and has a positive vision of where we can go,” he said.
Regeneration means healing the damage done to the country.
This can be achieved through an idea McQuail says is de-growth.
“We have to look at what is essential and what is really important,” he said. “We need to learn how to take just enough to meet our needs, while leaving enough left over to start healing across our culture and society.”
Redistribution refers to changing the tax system to ensure everyone pays their fair share.
And redesign means changing behaviours.
“If we focus on sufficiency and survival, and regeneration, we can do that really quickly,” McQuail said.
And, as a certified holistic management educator, McQuail would bring that kind of approach to policy.
When it comes to policy at a federal level, business risk management (BRM) programs and supply management can be top of mind for producers.
McQuail’s philosophy on the BRM programs is to find a way to incentivize producers for what they’re doing.
“If we’re serious about regenerative agriculture, we need to find a way to reward farmers for planning cropping and livestock systems that spreads their risk, and make sure the programs don’t have a perverse effect,” he said.
This could include coming up with a program to protect net farm income if farmers want to try new things, he added.
When it comes to supply management, McQuail says he supports the concept, but changes need to be made to balance supply with demand to ensure production stability.
“Boom and bust works for speculators, it doesn’t work for people who want to have a long-term relationship with their land, crops, or livestock,” he said.