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The Hamptonization of Layton's NDP

Adam Radwanski, March 9, 2008 at 6:05 PM EDT

I promise not to devote all my time and energy to kicking the NDP. But there's something depressing about the party that was once (or at least once purported to be) the conscience of Parliament having lost its way as badly as the following from today's Greg Weston column would suggest:

"We are firmly focused on a mission to do what is best for Canada and for all Canadians," an NDP strategist says wryly. "That would be to take advantage of the current vulnerability (of the Grits) to achieve the marginalization and, with luck, eradication of the Liberal party."

As a result, the Dipster said, "we are not going to do anything that would give the Liberals a chance to score points, even if that means maybe pulling some punches with the Conservative government."

I recall writing a column, the weekend Jack Layton was elected NDP leader, about the challenges he faced making his party relevant to mainstream Canadians. For a while, he seemed to be on the right track - loudly focusing on populist issues that resonated with left-of-centre voters, including some erstwhile Liberals. It tends to be overlooked that he doubled the NDP's share of the popular vote from what it was under his predecessor, which is a pretty impressive accomplishment for the leader of any party.

But in the last while, he seems to have fallen prey to the same phenomenon that plagues the Ontario NDP - a hate-on for the Liberals that's so strong that it disconnects New Democrats from their potential supporters. And it's working about as well federally as it has provincially, where Howard Hampton's charges spent so much time playing nice with the Tories while they were in government that they wound up struggling to keep official party status.

If you're a party member, you have good reason to dislike the Liberals more than the Conservatives - they're the ones who steal your votes, and from your perspective it's because they run from the left and then govern from the right. But moderately left-wing voters don't look at it that way. To them, it's the Tories who are most objectionable; the choice is between the Liberals and the NDP. And if one of the latter two parties spends all its time beating up on the other one - at least if both of them are in opposition and the Tories are running the country - those voters are just going to get turned off.

I'll say it again, because nobody took much notice the previous time: The New Democrats are outsmarting themselves. With a weak Liberal party, they have a chance to position themselves as the country's strongest opposition party. But that means opposing the government, not opposing the opposition. 

  1. Catherine L from Canada writes: The NDP dreams of becoming the official opposition in the next election. As someone who has often voted NDP, this wouldn't bother me, except that they dream of being the official opposition to Harper. That's where they lose my vote. I plan to vote for someone who doesn't want Harper to be the Prime Minister after the next election.

    It seems that Harper, as well as quite a number of conservative bloggers, share this NDP dream. Even Angry White North ran a column a while back urging Canadians to ask the GG to apoint the NDP as the official opposition. Keep dreaming.
  2. Robert McClelland from London, Canada writes: "But that means opposing the government, not opposing the opposition."

    Lets see. The NDP introduce a motion condemning the government while the Liberals introduce a motion condemning the NDP and Bloc. Yup, the problem is really the NDP. Give it up, Radwanki. Weston's anonymously sourced gibberish is beyond foolish and nobody is buying this schtick.
  3. Thomas t from Hong Kong writes: As someone with center left values I think it is absolutely vital that the NDP focus on getting rid of the Liberals. On every issue from massive increases for tuition, the environment, the war in Afghanistan the Liberals and Conservatives are in lock step. By any rational measure the Conservative budgets are directly comparable to the Liberal budgets except that the Liberals were more damaging to social services. As long as people vote for the Liberals Canada will not move once ounce to the Left. I really have to laugh when I see the Liberals claim they had a 136 month plan to lower tuition, reduce child poverty, and withdraw from combat in third world countries but shockingly the NDP ruined everything in month 135....... Who believes that stuff anyway? Take child poverty for example the Liberals are yet once again claiming they are going to do something about it. They have been recycling this argument for over a decade and the only thing they did was slash social services and increase child poverty. You would really have to be a fool to think that having Liberals cutting social programs and giving targeted tax cuts to bay street is any better than having Conservatives cutting social programs and giving targeted tax cuts to bay street.
  4. Catherine L from Canada writes: Thomas T from Hong Kong, you should try to get your facts correct, rather than simply repeating current NDP slogans. On your example of child poverty, you should check out the data. Poverty 2000 shows data year by year, which shows that it increased quite substantially in the last years of the Mulroney government and the first few years of the Chretien government, and then declined steadily from that time. Much more needs to be done as it has only returned to 1988 levels. The Liberals have already had some effect on the NDP platform on poverty, as the NDP has started to talk about some targets as well.

    Most center-left people do NOT want to see another Harper government even if some NDs thinks a Harper majority will be great for their future seat count. The Liberals, Green Party and Bloc have all made it clear they plan to fight the next election against the Harper Conservatives. Noticeably absent from the list is the NDP.
  5. Michele K from Ottawa, Canada writes: Thomas T - you're taking the same wrong turn as the NDP. I'm one of those leaning-left types, and I have voted NDP in the past - I don't care who it is propping up the Conservatives, but for sure I'm not going to vote for them.

    What I will remember is the NDP bringing down the Liberals and ending any possibility of a true national daycare program. What I remember is the NDP being instumental in bringing about and supporting this Con government, and regardless of how they may occassionally vote now, de facto supporting nonsense like GST cuts and like expensive $100 non-income-tested baby bonuses (in place of a daycare program), like slamming seniors and other retirement savers with their income trust 'strategy', etc., etc.

    Play it any way you like, but this is all sacrilege in the face of supposed NDP principles such that you won't soon find me voting NDP again. I don't care whether NDP is official opposition or not - I care that they're pushing for democratic reforms and people-centred policies, and they're not!

    That pretty much makes the NDP no different from the Cons or the Liberals, so why on earth would I vote NDP over the Liberals now?
  6. Kirk MacLeod from Scarborough, Canada writes: Actually it wasn't the NDP who brought down those programs, it was the Canadian electorate.

    The Liberals ran on those programs. If Canadians thought their proposals were so great they would have given the Liberals at least another minority.

    But they did not.

    The Liberals need to get over blaming the NDP for losing power.

    The Canadian people did that to them.

    And last time I checked it was the NDP and not the Liberals who were voting against the government.

    If Liberals think the Tories have been such a disaster they can bring them down and bring forth their own agenda on how they will "save" Canada from the evil Tories.

    BUt this time they will have to actually run on ideas instead of "Tories are evil", "soldiers on our streets", etc, etc.
  7. D. Hall from Wpg, Canada writes: I long ago stopped trying to second guess the electoral quirks of the 'first past the post' electoral system. I just vote for the party that sounds most in tune with my values. Traditionally this has been the NDP.

    In recent years, the NDP's hammering away at the Liberals, while making nice to the Conservatives, they no longer make it to the top of my list. I have voted green in the last couple of elections, and intend to do the same in the next one.

    My mother had a great description for the Jack Laytons of the world. He is "too clever by half". Indeed he is, and it has cost him my vote.
  8. Catherine L from Canada writes: I agree, Kirk MacLeod, Canadians, not the NDP, voted Harper in. Even though I voted NDP, I certainly didn't want a bonus over a national day care program, a GST cut over fighting poverty or climate change, or retirement savings to be hit with an income trust reversal.

    I think Michelle K is referring to when the NDP wants to bring governments down through non-confidence votes. Last time, their timing worked for them with an increased seat count. However, for people like me, who don't like what Harper is doing, their timing didn't work so great overall. I have no reason to think their timing is any better this time and given that it always seems to coincide with when Harper ramps up the confidence rhetoric as if to force an election, I think their timing in this round may be even worse.
  9. Trillian Rand from Canada writes: For the NDP to be the official opposition, it needs a leader who is interested in being a leader, not a spoiler. Mr Layton too often speaks of being an influence in Parliament, of being able to affect government policy, rather than offering his followers a vision of actually being the government and implementing policy. Instead of offering the possibility the NDP has the ability to govern, he too often suggests he and his party have the ability to oppose.

    Who wants to try hard to be second? Vote for me, I want to be the leader of the opposition, is hardly a ringing campaign slogan. If Mr Layton wants to be Prime Minister, he should concentrate on achieving that goal. If he is content with being second, of never forming the government, one has to wonder why he continues.
  10. Erik D. from Ottawa, Canada writes: For the fedral NDP to become the official opposition party they need to start to listen to the provincial NDP parties that have actually won elections and have managed the economies of a province. This valuable experience that the Federal NDP continually thumbs their noses to would provide them with a real life practicle economic policy, instead of the ideological driven policy they currently hold on to. Until they do so, they will never make it past their current numbers. This is also why they have been the "conscience of parliament" for all these years, as this conscienceness is essentially derived from holding an idealic ideological view, not from holding a practical view.
  11. Go Oilers Go! from Canada writes: Catherine L from Canada writes: "I have no reason to think their timing is any better this time and given that it always seems to coincide with when Harper ramps up the confidence rhetoric as if to force an election, I think their timing in this round may be even worse."

    One can only hope.
  12. Phil M from Toronto, Canada writes: The NDP is the one making nice with the conservatives? The NDP?!

    Who's been condemning the conservatives, but voting all their bills into law? The liberals.

    And who's been condemning the conservatives, and then actually voting against them? The NDP.

    Layton and his bunch are rightly critical of the liberals for giving up all pretense of opposition. When the Official Opposition sides with government, not out of ideological alignment, or a genuine spirit of compromise, but out of jaded expediency, they are deserving of all the scorn heaped upon them by their "peers" from the centre-left.

    I think if Canadians don't want a conservative government, they're better off not voting liberal either. For once, the dippers will be the ones who can claim that a liberal vote is a vote to prop up the conservatives, because that is the only thing the liberal mps have been doing since the last federal election.
  13. EJ Ravensbud from Canada writes: Keep up the good fight all you dippers and liberals. The more you squabble, the better chance my boy Stevie has to form a majority government and govern without the restraint of all the lefties.
  14. Robert McClelland from London, Canada writes: You have to love the lib apologists. When the Liberals are not in power they cry that the NDP spends too much time attacking the opposition. But when the Liberals are in power they cry that the NDP doesn't spend enough time attacking the opposition.

    What they should be crying about however, is that after 2 years their party isn't ready for an election.
  15. Paul F. from Toronto, Canada writes: Adam Radwanski seems to get everything backward. How does he propose the NDP act as the party of conscience? Voting against the budget or the Afghan deployment? They have done both. Who continues to vote with the government and make deals with the government to keep it in power? The Liberals. Yet Adam Radwanski blames the NDP for keeping the Tories in power, and accuses them of cutting the Harper government some slack to go after the Liberals. By what leap of logic does he make that conclusion? It doesn't even make sense. Harper has stayed in power because the Liberals are plagued by weak leadership. This is obvious. Harper is clearly exploiting differences within the Liberal caucus on the budget and Afghanistan to keep his minority government running. Granted, the NDP has made tactical errors, like for example making a big deal about the "leak" on NAFTA discussions with the Obama/Clinton campaigns. This was a non issue. The Afghan mission is a complete squandering of government resources, as were many provisions of the Tory budgets. This should be the main message. Not to mention the growing list of incidents where the Harper cabinet has deceived the Canadian public. Taking out the Harper government should be a turkey shoot. Unfortunately, the Liberals are afraid to run an election campaign, generally undermining any idea of political opposition in this county.
  16. David Smith from Toronto, Canada writes: I think it was around the 1980 election that I finally faced up to the truth that the NDP will never form a federal governmentment in my lifetime. I quietly turned my support towards the Grits as the next best option and have continued to do so over the years. Nothing is going on "in the here and now" which disputes my basic premise other than me being hit by a truck at lunchtime! And said "basic premise" would survive my demise quite nicely.

    And as for "Handsome Jack"... no way I want him running a two car funeral much less the 8th largest economy on the planet.
  17. Kevin Desmoulin from Toronto, Canada writes: I used to vote NDP, they lost me mainly because they are blinded by their views on issues that they do not seem to want engagement unless it is to further political gains.
    They seem to exist on appointments, I am not saying what appointments are merit less, but the process is not right or representative of a true democratic party.
    I have the them to be the most partisan and the most unforgiving to others that do not share their views on matters.
  18. C. Giles from Canada writes: Radwanski is right. A Vote for the NDP is the same as a vote for the Conservatives. As others on this board have already mentioned, they're campaigning hard for second place, which given the voting patterns in this country is about a far as they will ever get and even just to get there will take a miracle. Its hard not to laugh when I hear NDP supporters go on about being "principled". As I recall Mr. Layton and his party joined Harper in 2006 and helped cast the non-confidence vote that led to the 2006 election. Why? well it was because old Jack sensed he could get more seats. So much for principles! This on the eve when we were finally going to get a national daycare, the Kelowna Accord etc. And to top it off old Jack and the gang went so far as to help the Cons by releasing false allegations regarding Ralph Goodale and Income Trusts and trumped up charges of corruption on another Liberal candidate in BC (which they were recently forced to apologize for). So instead what did we get? A $100/month taxible baby bonus, the Kelowna and Kyoto Accords shredded, the income trust promise shredded, the promise not appoint senators shredded, two useless GST cuts, attacks on the federal civil service, attacks on Ontario, all notions of Cons being clean and accountable shredded thanks to the Cadman Affair, the NAFTA Affair and the worst of all the ongoing reduction of the federal government's ability to create or even maintain national programs. So thanks a lot Jack! And you want to be the Official Opposition? Just tell me how are you going to prevent more of these attacks on our society by the neo-cons if Harper gets a majority? I'll take the Liberals warts (i.e.: Dion) and all.
  19. Norman Petit from Calgary, Canada writes: Michelle K's scathing rebuke of where the NDP have presently lost themselves in the wilderness of their own half-baked ambitions are even more telling because they're true. To pull further support from the Canadian electorate the NDP must either sway Liberals voters into their camp of somehow drive Liberals to vote Conservative, thus achieving a "participant" ribbon in a winner takes all game. The former seems unlikely considering their own stance that Liberals are their sworn enemy. But the latter is so self defeating as to be funny. In order to puff up their self-image, the NDP have prematurely announced their opposition to everything the Conservatives plan to do (which ironically the Conservatives consider lack of leadership if Stephane Dion doing it or excellent strategy if it's Jack Layton). This makes a mockery of the concept of a minority government working for Canadians and instead puts all parties into permanent electioneering mode. There might have been a time (abundance of cheap labour, smaller, more local markets for manufactured goods, robber barons) when the NDP could have achieved dominance in Parliament. Those times are gone. Employers need not just a labour pool to draw from - they require a stable, well-trained and well educated workforce to compete in today's world markets. To quote a tidbit from a debate years ago - Jack Layton's future is our past.
  20. Peter S from Toronto, Canada writes: The hypocrisy of the NDP spokeman Greg Weston is laughable. He says the NDP is committed to what is best for Canada and Canadians, and then outlines a purely partisan strategy to "to achieve the marginalization and, with luck, eradication of the Liberal party". Now some may argue that would be a benefit for Canada, but it sounds a heck of a lot more beneficial to the NDP than to anyone else.
    Political parties are ALL self serving by definition. We should acknowledge this, instead of acting like cheerleaders for "principles" when its clear none of our so called leaders have any.
  21. Charles Learmonth from Canada writes: Enough with the self-serving Liberal apologism. In January 2006 Canadians made a choice. A choice helped by the corruption and culture of entitlement of the LPC. Boo hoo. Instead of re-fighting the 2006 election and blaming the NDP for everything the Liberals failed to deliver in 13 years of goverment, Dion and Co would be better served by growing a backbone and actually fighting the Conservatives. Right now the NDP is rightly eating their grass as the official opposition. Dion is effectively giving Harper his "scary" majority with which to impose whatever lunacy he likes. The latest installment will come tonight with a vote on the NDP's opposition day motion AGAINST the Harper government's handling of the environment--a marked difference from the Dion Liberals who made laughing stocks of themselves last week by using theirs to pass a vote of non confidence AGAINST the NDP. The NDP motion clearly shows where Layton has his sights set--on the Harper government, not the Liberals. So enough about some unnamed Layton "adviser" wanting the party to settle for official opposition. In the Liberal's absence, the NDP is manouvering to be the only viable alternative to Harper. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Stephane Dion.
  22. Matt Toma from Vancouver, Canada writes: It always amazes me how commentators on the right spend their time waffling between completely hating the existence of the NDP, and waxing philosophical about the NDP acting as parliament's conscience. I doubt any of them care about the fate of the NDP. The Liberal Party of Canada is not progressive, no matter how much they want to try and brainwash Canadians with their rhetoric. Their record hasnt been progressive since the Constitution arrived and the Charter was enacted, and like most progressive issues, it didnt sail through the Liberal Party with anything like full support. The party was divided, as usual, on what was a no-brainer issue for progressives. Much like same sex marriage. Much like the evisceration of the EI program, discontinuing pulbic housing support form Ottawa, or talk a lot and do nothing about Kyoto, even though you signed it. If you vote NDP, you came to the conclusion a long time ago that expecting the Liberals to do anything progressive, without the gun of a minority parliament at their heads, is at best a hit or miss process. You also understand fully that the NDP has to fight a political war on two fronts, something they have been doing since their existence. In this parliament, the NDP has been opposing the Conservatives at every turn, while the Liberals cant seem to stand up to Harper lest theu enter an election they lose over their principles - and we all know that the Liberal Party of Canada has always put their political fortunes over all other concerns. Canada currently has a Union government, for the first time in almost a century, if not formally then in practice. Which isnt all that different from what we usually get, Liberals in power opposing Tory policy, and then quietly accepting it (free trade, GST, etc) once in power. The NDP, to grow beyond its ceiling, needs to hammer the Liberals and tarnish their "progressive" brand when they can - which is now.

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