Vancouver Province
for June 4, 1999

It's not just the "right" in Canada that's in trouble - I would argue that the Liberals poach more on the left's turf. This isn't new. Going back to the days of the CCF Liberal governments have stolen ideas from the left and implemented them as their own. But it is extraordinary that the CCF/NDP haven't come close to power in Ottawa. How is it that the Labour Party in Britain first tasted power 75 years ago and our left hasn't had a sniff?

There are substantial historical reasons, of course. When the Conservatives, in that famous meeting at the Carlton Club in 1922 broke up the coalition with the Liberals it exposed a very fractured Liberal party, one faction led by Lloyd George, the other by Asquith and so the practical alternatives were quickly reduced to Labour and Tory. The Liberals haven't recovered to this day. But for all that, the Labour Party had to make severe structural changes before they could become seen as a viable alternative to the Tories.

The first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald damn near destroyed the Labour Party when in the late 20s he entered into a "national government" with the Tories who, in the next election swamped the Labour Party and only indulged Macdonald as Premier for a couple of years. The post-war Labour governments of Attlee, Wilson and Callaghan were more protests against the Conservatives than voter affection for Labour and it wasn't until Tony Blair won in 1997 that it can be said that Labour really won its own mandate.

The NDP should look at why that happened. How did Labour suddenly become the party of the center-left where most voters are?

It did this by reinventing itself from the bottom up. The major move was removing the stranglehold the Labour unions exercised over the party. This wasn't easy. It probably killed John Smith, the leader who had most to do with it. And it may have cost Neil Kinnock the 1992 election. But it did the trick and when Blair took over he had a party that the labour unions had no alternative but to follow even though their influence therein had been drastically reduced.

Can the NDP accomplish in Canada what Labour did in Britain? Can it become a modern social democratic party and elbow the Liberal party out of its traditional territory on the left and even capture some of the center?

I somehow doubt it. Alexa Mcdonough made some noises about doing this and then Canadian Labour Congress president Bob White dumped all over her, forcefully pleading to the troops that while reforms should happen they ought not to be imported from other countries. Decoded, that says "if you think you're going to do what John Smith did and kick us out of the driver's seat, think again, lady."

Certainly the NDP leadership in Ontario and British Columbia, where they must revive their fortunes both federally and provincially, show no sign that the leadership is prepared to tackle big labour head on. Indeed, if anything the unions have even greater clout than ever. Even though unions have lost ground with diminishing membership, their leaders have spooked the NDP into believing that union people all vote NDP. They don't. Not by a long shot. There has always been a strong "conservative" vote amongst union members. I can tell you from my own political experience that this is true - in 1975 one of my strongest polls was in Logan Lake, then peopled almost exclusively by mineworkers in the nearby Highland Valley and their families.

As it stands now, the NDP is in worse trouble than it has ever been. It's true that Ms Mcdonough engineered a small comeback in 1997 but it really wasn't much. Of greater worry is that the NDP owe much of their caucus to the personal popularity of the MPs. Take Kamloops, for example. That is not a NDP constituency but Nelson Riis is very popular. Svend Robinson, Lorne Nystrom and Alexa Mcdonough are also examples where the popularity of the MP outruns the popularity of the party by a wide margin.

To win a chance at government, Alexa Mcdonough must take on Ken Georgetti. I don't think she has the jam to do it and I'm not sure she could win if she tried. Thus you can count out the NDP for some years to come.

For Bob White is wrong - the solution to the NDP's problems does rest in the British example.