Federal New Democratic Party members wrapped up their weekend convention in Halifax with no movement on changing the party name.

"It didn't happen today," the CBC's Alison Crawford reported on Sunday.

"The issue's dead for now."

The name change idea was to have been the sixth resolution for discussion in a one-hour time frame on Sunday morning during the annual meeting.

But the 60 minutes ran out before that was possible, and no action was taken.

There had been speculation the renaming issue might move ahead, Crawford said.

"There have been proposals in the past to make name changes but it's never got this high up on the resolution list," she said.

Now, with the name issue on hold, Crawford said party members were looking at other ways to rebrand the NDP.

After the Sunday morning session, party leader Jack Layton delivered a speech in which he talked about "a new vision and new approach."

Layton also attacked his political opponents, including the prime minister, and he denounced economic inequality and hardship in Canada.

"Mr. Harper's greatest legacy will be the impoverishment of our social programs that we created to help people in times of need based on those values," Layton said.

Attacks Bay Street's 'rose coloured glasses'

"We are in the midst of the worst recession since the 1930s, but they're already putting on those rose coloured glasses down on Bay Street and in some government offices — they do whenever there's a little upward tick in the stock market."

On Saturday a member of U.S. President Barack Obama's team told delegates they must forge relationships, share their stories and connect with voters at the grassroots level.

"Politicians have to tell a story of hope," Marshall Ganz, a political organizer with Obama's campaign last year, told the convention.

"In January of 2007, nobody thought a black man with a funny name had a ghost of a chance of becoming president of the United States."

But an army of organizers and volunteers played a pivotal role in changing that attitude, he said.

Betsy Myers, the Obama campaign's chief operating officer, told delegates it's important to embrace what she calls the qualities of the "new leader."

Obama used the internet to spread his message, but would never turn down an event just because of its small size, she said.

"Barack Obama worked his tail off," Myers said. "He never let up."