Commentary Editor’s note: This is the first in a series examining the economic platform of each party ahead of the 2021 federal election. The New Democratic Party’s economic platform for next month’s federal election reveals profound contempt for economic rationale. The platform identifies some genuine problems, such as the lack of housing affordability and lockdown damage to families and small businesses. However, by ignoring root causes and obfuscating scarcity—the most elemental principle of economics—those writing the NDP’s 10 economic planks have liberated themselves from the consequences of their promises. This willful ignorance comes at the worst time for a nation in economic disarray. Canada is suffering from faltering investment, unhinged inflation, weak labour force participation, elevated unemployment, and suffocated economic activity. With deficit spending reaching 15 percent of GDP in 2020, the federal government has already thrown the Keynesian kitchen sink at the flagging economy. All that has done is …