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FEBRUARY 2003 Graham Fraser

FEBRUARY 2003 Graham Fraser

THE NDP LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE—RE-CONNECTING THE LEFT TO THE MIDDLE

In the run-up to the NDP leadership vote on January 25, party activists faced a difficult choice between two apparent front runners, the well known face of NDP of , and city councillor , an interesting new face with national credentials as president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. While Blaikie represents the party’s deep roots in the West and the co-operative movement, Layton represents the possibility of taking the NDP back into the cities and union towns of southern , where it was strong during the era of from 1975-1988, a highwater mark in NDP history. columnist Graham Fraser, widely acclaimed for his books on Canadian politics, offers this situational update on a party confronting an agonizing choice. Graham Fraser En prévision du scrutin à la direction du Nouveau Parti Démocratique du 25 janvier, les militants font face à un choix difficile entre les deux candidats les plus en vue : le Manitobain Bill Blaikie, leader du NPD à la Chambre des communes, et Jack Layton, conseiller municipal de la ville de Toronto et un temps président de la Fédération canadienne des municipalités. Un premier visage très connu, donc, et un second qui gagne à l’être. Si Blaikie représente le profond enracinement du parti dans l’Ouest du pays et le mouvement coopératif, Layton incarne pour sa part l’espoir de lui rendre la popularité dont il jouissait dans les grands centres et les villes ouvrières du sud de l’Ontario, où le NPD a connu une période historiquement fastueuse sous le règne d’Ed Broadbent, de 1975 à 1988. Le réputé chroniqueur du Toronto Star Graham Fraser, dont les livres sur la politique canadienne créent toujours l’événement, fait le point sur l’état d’un parti aux prises avec un choix déchirant.

alking home from a meeting in in late to do, frankly,” he said. “Because Jack was not a friend. I did November, Ed Broadbent was reflecting on the not know Jack well before. Bill Blaikie was a friend, was a W leadership. Since sum- colleague. But you sit down and say who is the best person mer, the former NDP leader had been thinking of whether for the party at this time? And that’s exactly what I did.” to endorse a candidate in the NDP leadership race. A few minutes later, the difficulty of the decision “My particular dilemma, to be quite candid, at this showed through. moment in history, and as a member of the New “Being quite candid, it is my affection…” and Democratic Party, has been to decide between Jack Layton Broadbent paused for words, seized with emotion, as if real- and Bill Blaikie,” he told a news conference on November izing the wound he was inflicting on a loyal friend. 27. “Anyway, I had other personal considerations, but the polit- It was an anguishing decision; Blaikie had been a solid ical result was very clear in my mind. Jack, in my view, is the and loyal member of Broadbent’s caucus for years, and best candidate.” Broadbent barely knew Layton. But after meeting with The difficulty and the obvious emotional cost involved Layton several times, he concluded that Layton had a better was both revealing and reflective of the process that New chance to reach out and connect—or reconnect—with vot- Democrats will be making as they choose a leader in late ers that Broadbent described as “literally thousands of January to replace Alexa McDonough, who is stepping with social democratic values, of every age in down. every region of the country.” Unlike the Liberal leadership, self-interest is not a fac- It had been an emotionally difficult decision; Blaikie tor; it requires an enormous degree of self-hypnotic opti- had been loyal, and a friend. mism for an NDP member to believe that in casting a ballot “But in deciding who should be leader of the party, you he or she will be choosing the next prime minister, or even set aside loyalty, you set aside friendship, and that’s difficult the next leader of the Opposition.

70 OPTIONS POLITIQUES FÉVRIER 2003 The NDP Leadership Challenge—Re-connecting the Left to the Middle

Rather, the challenge for the voter in the On the face of it, this ought to be possible. one-member-one-vote leadership selection The Romanow Report fits more comfortably with process will be to decide who can revive the fal- the NDP with the Liberal Party, and public sup- tering social democratic party which has never port for the , disenchantment fully recovered from the effect of the 1993 elec- with the deregulation that resulted in the water The challenge tion, when it fell from 43 seats in 1988 (and polls catastrophe in Walkerton, Ontario, and the earlier in the year which had suggested that Liberal clumsiness in managing an intervention- for the voter in Broadbent had a shot at forming a government) ist state should all provide an opportunity for the the one- to nine seats and the loss of party status. NDP to win back lost ground. Certainly, that has been one of the many member-one- n the decade since, the party has recovered points of agreement shared by the leadership I under McDonough’s leadership, winning 21 candidates, MPs Bill Blaikie, and vote leadership seats in 1997 and breaking through in Atlantic , Toronto city councillor Jack for the first time in decades—but sliding Layton, community worker Pierre selection back to 13 seats in 2000, just ahead of the Tories. Ducasse, and feminist Bev (Since winning the by-election last spring in Meslo. process will be , they have 14 MPs.) But Canadian public opinion has become Paradoxically, the NDP has been a victim of more fiscally prudent; balanced budgets are now to decide who the rise of the Reform Party and the Canadian a reflection of national values. can revive the Alliance. They have sucked away rural and work- The NDP leader will be chosen in a one- ing-class support from the NDP that was attract- member one-vote election during a convention faltering social ed to the populist anger of the right—an anger in Toronto being held January 24-26. which used to be expressed by the left when the Because of the selection process, it is virtual- democratic right was contained in and by the blue-blazered ly impossible to know how the candidates are Anglican good manners of the Tories—on issues doing. Blaikie is a widely respected MP; Nystrom party which has like crime and guns. has a solid base among the 16,000 members in At the same time, a significant part of the as Blaikie does among the 6,500 never fully progressive support for the NDP was scared into members in Manitoba; and a substantial chunk voting Liberal in order to block the rise of Preston of the 18,000 members in Ontario may be lean- recovered from Manning and : an important factor ing to Windsor MP Joe Comartin, a former the effect of the in the Liberals’ virtual monopoly in Ontario over lawyer. the last three elections. 1993 election, But some of the NDP’s wounds have been owever, early in the campaign, an self-inflicted. H Environics Poll question of 221 NDP voters when it fell from McDonough’s attempt to lead the party to (a subset of the 2,001 Canadians surveyed the economic centre (which she later satirized between September 20 and October 11) found 43 seats to nine herself by calling “the Witch Project”) that Layton was the preferred choice of 21 per- did not prove successful. Despite various MPs cent, while Nystrom was favoured by 14 percent, seats and the showing up in Seattle and , the party Blaikie 10 percent, while the others trailed: has not been effective drawing the anti-globaliza- Comartin with 5 percent, Melso with 4 percent loss of party tion movement into parliamentary politics. and Ducasse with 2 percent. Over 40 percent status. The NDP’s link to organized labour has been were undecided. a mixed blessing, and the internecine battles Later, a poll of 867 NDP members conducted between centrist pragmatists and the doctrinaire by Strategic Communications Inc. for the Layton left at the provincial level, particularly in Ontario campaign concluded that Layton and Blaikie and British Columbia, have left scars on the fed- were running neck and neck, with a tiny edge to eral party. And the NDP’s sometimes contradicto- Layton—suggesting that New Democrat voters ry and usually awkward handling of the thorny are going through a similar process of elimina- issues involved in the Middle East has driven tion as Broadbent did before settling on a choice. away some longstanding supporters. Comartin is a recently-elected Windsor MP, McDonough’s decency, empathy and hard and a long-time labour lawyer. The leadership work were not enough to overcome some of the debates have shown him to be thoughtful, intel- fundamental strategic problems the party faces if ligent and surprisingly fluent in French—but he it is going to regain the momentum it had in the remains relatively unknown outside Windsor late 1980s. labour circles.

POLICY OPTIONS 71 FEBRUARY 2003 Graham Fraser

Pierre Ducasse has revived the hopes in the is articulate and effective in both French and NDP that the party could find a place for itself English—the most bilingual of the MPs who are with progressive voters in Quebec as the polariza- running, and more comfortable in French than tion between sovereignists and federalists wanes. Layton, who grew up in Quebec but whose McDonough’s Eloquent in both languages, the native of Sept-Iles French is rusty. who works in a community development project He is the most centrist of the candidates, argu- decency, in Drummondville reminds of the ing that the NDP has to come to terms with eco- empathy and deeply-held dream—rebuffed so often that it is nomic realities, and has thrown his energies behind almost repressed—that the party could some day a number of interesting reform proposals: propor- hard work were win support in Quebec from voters who now vote tional representation and abolition of the Senate. for the Parti Québécois provincially and the Bloc With his years of experience (he was first elect- not enough to Québécois federally. ed in 1968), his bilingualism, centrist message, a That dream is as old as the party itself, when preferential ballot and strong membership in the overcome some the New Democratic Party first recognized party in Saskatchewan, his candidacy should not be Quebec as a nation at its founding convention in written off. But there seems to be a quiet consensus of the 1961 (thereby driving the late to that Nystrom’s time has come and gone. the Liberals). Then, in 1968, Robert Cliche led fundamental the party’s Quebec wing under . he choice that the party is wrestling with strategic The Liberals recognized the threat Cliche posed, T seems to be the one that Broadbent took a even in that spring of Trudeaumania, and threw long time to make: between loyalty and hope for problems the everything into defeating him in the suburban growth, between Parliamentary experience and riding of Duvernay—running Eric media-friendly charm, between French-lesson party faces if it Kierans against him. Cliche, who once famously French and Quebec colloquialisms, between a referred to as Quebec’s revenge on known quantity and the gamble that change will is going to Canada, retired to the Quebec bench where he work—between Blaikie and Layton. presided over a 1974 royal commission into the Blaikie is fighting for politics. Federal poli- regain the construction industry, in which future political tics. Parliamentary politics. And in a world of notables and slick, camera-ready politicians, he is an anomaly. momentum it made their marks as a commissioner and chief He is a bear of a man: tall, bulky and bearded. had in the late counsel. He rejects the politics of image-making, and is run- Two decades after Cliche’s candidacy, the ning for the leadership of the New Democratic 1980s. But prospect of a breakthrough in Quebec was briefly Party on the basis of his years in the House of dangled before the NDP in the spring of 1988, Commons as a representative of the underprivi- Canadian public when Broadbent led all leaders, and all parties, in leged, and the underrepresented: a defiant voice of the polls, a lead that melted like a snowbank in moral indignation and moral values. opinion has May. Had Rémy Trudel, the star NDP candidate in Blaikie, in the phrase of political scientist Quebec in that election—and now a PQ cabinet Alan Whitehorn, is “another minister in the become more minister—won his seat, Broadbent might have social-gospel tradition”—as were many of the stayed on as leader. (However, it is difficult to great figures of the NDP and its predecessor the fiscally prudent; imagine Trudel, or any of the other leading NDP CCF: J.S. Woodsworth, M.J. Coldwell, and balanced candidates, staying in Ottawa after the death of Tommy Douglas. Meech Lake in 1990.) He was born in Transcona, Manitoba, a CNR budgets are The results of the December 9 by-elections suburb of —and a photograph of the in Lac-Saint-Jean-Saguenay and Berthier- town, nestled beside the rail yards, hangs in his now a reflection Montcalm, where the NDP got 1.4 and 3.5 per- office. Three generations of Blaikies worked for cent of the vote respectively suggest that the the railway; beside the photograph, there is his of national Quebec breakthrough is not about to occur any- grandfather’s certificate as a railway carman, and time soon. his father’s certificate as a machinist. As a stu- values. Bev Meslo has been running as a symbolic dent, Bill worked for the CNR himself. candidate for the left-wing of the party, but has In 1971, Bill Blaikie—then 20—was in been unable to participate in all the debates for Halifax, on his way to Europe and several months lack of funds. of backpacking, when he watched a New Lorne Nystrom’s campaign is more difficult Democratic . to characterize. This is the third time that the While in high school, he had been an active Saskatchewan MP has run for the leadership. He member of the Young Progressive Conservatives,

72 OPTIONS POLITIQUES FÉVRIER 2003 The NDP Leadership Challenge—Re-connecting the Left to the Middle

Blaikie is a bear of a man: tall, bulky and bearded. He rejects the politics of image-making, and is running for the CP Archive THE CONTENDERS (Left to right): Jack Layton, Bill Blaikie and leadership of Lorne Nystrom share the stage at an NDP leadership debate the NDP on the but he was transfixed. “I was watching David This is the discourse of parliamentary poli- Lewis, M.J. Coldwell, Tommy Douglas,” he said, tics, reflecting his deep belief that, like his former basis of his referring to the newly-elected leader and his two Winnipeg colleague and mentor Stanley predecessors, all powerful orators. “I thought Knowles, he can best fight for social change on years in the ‘Wow! This is my political home’. ” the floor of the House. Until then, Blaikie had intended to study And, as a Parliamentarian, he reacted defen- House of political science and then go to law school; sively to one of Jack Layton’s rhetorical riffs dur- Commons as a instead, when he returned to Winnipeg after his ing one of the debates. Layton had been using as months in Europe, he decided to study philoso- a mantra the phrase that “politics happens” out- representative phy and religion—and join the NDP. side the parliamentary arena: politics happens Blaikie’s political and religious commitments when a mother takes her child to emergency and of the were, as he put it, “not unrelated”; after the can’t get the care she needs. University of Manitoba, he won a fellowship to study “Politics also happens on the floor of the underprivileged, for the United Church ministry in Toronto, and, after House of Commons!” Blaikie snapped. he was ordained, returned to Winnipeg where he and the worked in an inner city ministry at the Stella Mission, he challenge—and the hope—that Layton underrepresented. one of the missions where the first leader of the CCF, T offers is to bring the politics that is happen- J.S. Woodsworth, had also worked. ing on the streets and in the neighbourhoods In 1979, at the age of 27, he was elected as a into the New Democratic Party. —and became deeply One of his mentors, former Toronto mayor involved in the fight to preserve and strengthen John Sewell, argues that Layton has been the public health-care system. Blaikie quotes extremely innovative, and very successful in from memory Monique Bégin’s reference to his bringing diverse groups together, and in mobi- campaign on behalf of at the time that lizing the previously inert and ineffective the Liberals were considering what became the Federation of Canadian Municipalities into a . potent force that got the federal government “ ‘Parliament re-opened October 27, and Bill to invest $250 million into a green infrastruc- Blaikie, my NDP counterpart, immediately ture program. Those who are less admiring see launched a guerrilla attack to force me to act’. ” Layton as, in the scornful words of one veter- he recites from her memoir “Medicare—Canada’s an of the battles of Canadian labour and the Right to Health. “ ‘I stalled him to gain a little NDP, as “a rich man’s son playing at radical time, but I was backed into a corner’.” politics.”

POLICY OPTIONS 73 FEBRUARY 2003 Graham Fraser

Layton makes no secret of his background. White Ribbon Campaign—men against violence Indeed, he talks more about about his formative against women—he will be able to reach outside experiences growing up in Hudson Quebec, an the traditional base of the party and, at the same affluent suburb outside of Montreal, than he does time, get some media attention for a party that The challenge— about his 20 years on . has been largely ignored. His father, Robert Layton, was an engineer, Layton’s emphasis on the need to get the and the hope— first a Liberal and then later a member of the party covered by the media resulted in one of the that Layton Mulroney cabinet, and his grandfather had been rare personal criticisms in the leadership cam- briefly a member of the Duplessis cabinet. paign, when Nystrom warned against the NDP offers is to bring As a teenager in the 1960s, Layton became selecting another Stockwell Day: all photo ops, aware simultaneously of the discrimination no content. the politics that against French-Canadians (he recalls quitting the Already, he has quietly brought together Hudson Yacht Club in protest when the club some of the disparate, previously antagonistic is happening complained that he had invited Francophones to elements as part of his campaign: from Svend a club dance) and the political ferment of the Robinson to Ed Broadbent. Indeed, veterans of on the streets Quiet Rrevolution. the NDP civil wars noted that at Layton’s cam- The first election he was involved in was in paign launch on in July, the last and in the 1962, when he helped put up signs for Paul two supporters who spoke on his behalf were neighbourhoods Gérin-Lajoie, the Liberal who went on to create Janet Solberg, a former president of the Ontario Quebec’s Department of Education, and his first NDP, and , a former candidate for into the NDP. demonstration was in 1969, when he marched the party in Beaches-Woodbine. at the McGill Français rally. His first intellectual It was an unmistakable signal of . For mentor was McGill philosopher Charles Taylor, Solberg is the daughter of former leader David who had run for the NDP against Pierre Lewis, and the sister of former Ontario NDP Trudeau. leader , while Watkins is a former And his first leadership convention was the leader of , the group of left-wing 1970 Quebec Liberal convention that elected nationalists who launched an assault on the tra- Robert Bourassa—“my Dad was active and I was ditional leadership of the party in the early curious”—where Layton met one of the leader- 1970s. For a party that is often torn between the ship candidates, Pierre Laporte, and spent an idealism of its radicals and the pragmatism of its hour chatting with him. Ten months later, leaders, it was a reassuring message. Laporte, who had become Bourassa’s Minister of The leading candidates face challenges. In an Labour, was murdered during the October interview on her last day in the House as leader, Crisis—and Layton decided to join the NDP. Alexa McDonough reviewed some of her own Pierre Trudeau had introduced the War shortcomings when she won the leadership: her Measures Act, and NDP leader Tommy Douglas French was inadequate, she didn’t have a seat, opposed it. Impressed at the political courage and she had no experience in the House of that Douglas had shown, Layton joined the NDP Commons. when he moved to Toronto to do his doctorate at The only candidate who does not have any York. of those weaknesses is Nystrom. If Blaikie wins, When he finished, he began teaching—first he will have to overcome the perception that he at Ryerson, and now at the is a throwback to an earlier era, and prepare for —and fell in love with Toronto’s communities. the prospect of a national TV debate in French— The result was a 20-year career in city politics. an ordeal that seriously hobbled Ed Broadbent. And if he becomes leader, Layton will have to win n his campaign, Layton is careful to say that he a seat—something he has tried and failed to do I does not see an ideological distinction between for the NDP twice before. the candidates, whom he praises as parliamentar- Choosing a leader will be only a first step to ians. His liability—being from outside the caucus, solving the problems the NDP is wrestling with, without experience in Parliament—he spins as an and reviving federal social democratic politics. asset, arguing that the grassroots of the NDP are leaving the party to join social movements, no Graham Fraser is a national affairs writer and longer seeing the party as relevant. weekly columnist for the Toronto Star, and the He argues that with his experience as a city author of Playing for Keeps: The Making of the politician, and in creating movements like the Prime Minister (1988).

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