The party failed to win a seat in the 2015 federal election, and both its sitting MPs were defeated.[4] Fortin announced his resignation as leader on January 3, 2016.[5] The party was deregistered by Elections Canada on September 9, 2016.[6]
Fortin, who had run for the leadership of the Bloc Québécois (BQ) in 2011, had left the BQ in August 2014 to sit as an independent MP citing disapproval of new BQ leader Mario Beaulieu.[9]
The party announced that it would run candidates outside of Quebec in the 2015 federal election under the name "Strength in Democracy", and its first candidate, Toban Leckie, was announced in Peterborough—Kawartha.[3] Jennifer McCreath, who ran for the party in Avalon, was the first transgender candidate in a federal election.[10]
Independent MP Manon Perreault, who had been expelled from the New Democratic Party after being convicted for mischief, was announced on August 12, 2015, as the Strength in Democracy candidate in Montcalm where she sought re-election.[11]