On the 40th anniversary of the expulsion of the Waffle from the NDP

This past June 24, marked the 40th anniversary of the expulsion of the Waffle from the NDP.

The Waffle, (actually the Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada), for those who do not know it, was a grouping of socialists, nationalists, feminists and activists that was formed in 1969 within the NDP. It was, broadly speaking, led by James Laxer* and Mel Watkins.

The Waffle was ahead of its time in many respects. In one instance, spearheaded by Krista Maeots*, the Waffle was the first group to propose the notion of gender equity within the governing structures of the NDP. Even though it was only proposed in a limited form, it was opposed and voted down by the party hierarchy, including the eventual Lewis leadership.

The Waffle also fought for the nationalization of much of Canada's resource sector and American-owned industries, sought to fight continental economic integration and sought to work towards a radically socialist Canadian economic and social strategy.

Beyond that, whatever the movement's failings may have been, the Waffle also represented the attempt of a new generation of socialist activists to have influence and a voice within the country's established socialist party. It expressed and advocated the idea that members of a socialist party should be allowed to, and have a right as members to, question the party leadership, the leadership's ideas and to dissent vocally and democratically.

After Laxer, a relatively unknown 29-year-old university lecturer won a very surprising 37 per cent of the vote for the leadership of the party against its standard-bearer establishment candidate, David Lewis, the reality that much of the membership of the party was seeking new directions and strategies, became a threat that the party's first family felt it could not ignore.

In Orillia, Ontario on June 24, 1972, the ONDP's Provincial Council at the behest of ONDP leader Stephen Lewis, David Lewis' son, voted to order the Waffle to either disband or to leave the NDP.

Recently, in an interview on CPAC (the full part about the Waffle starts at 14:00 approximately, while the Rebick-Lewis part begins at 17:00) during a special dedicated to the history of the NDP, Stephen Lewis, after a segment showing Judy Rebick stating that the expulsion of the Waffle had been a serious and hugely damaging error on the part of the party leadership, essentially takes credit for the entire future "success" of the NDP, both in Ontario and everywhere in Canada, by having pushed the Waffle out.

He claims that what Rebick says is not only "palpably wrong" but that "history has proven her wrong" and lists a, to be blunt, rather short number of  "victories" after June 1972, culminating with Jack Layton and the federal NDP becoming the official opposition 39 years later as if the two events are directly related, an obviously specious and ridiculous claim.

With all due respect to Lewis' attempt to preserve his legacy within Canadian social democracy, what he leaves out, rather notably, are the NDP's  many defeats over those 40 years, as well as the broader defeat of the social democratic idea itself during the same time.

He fails to note that after the relative federal NDP success of 1972 came the defeat of 1974 that saw his own father lose his seat in parliament. While implying the expulsion of the Waffle resulted in the ONDP becoming opposition in 1975, he does not mention that they fell back into third place in 1977 and he himself resigned as leader. While raising the Rae victory of 1990 and the victory of the NDP in B.C. in the same year, he, needless to say, does not bring up how those years in government turned out, nor how any of the limited reforms these governments introduced were later dismantled by reactionary successor governments.

He entirely ignores the wilderness years of the 1990s, the reduction of the party to single digit popular support at that time, the loss, in 1993, of every single federal seat in Ontario, etc.

More significantly, of course, is that Lewis does not note at all that over that same period Canada has witnessed the dramatic rise of neo-liberalism as our country's governing ideology and that in every single meaningful respect Canadian unions, workers and the poor have undergone a relentless retreat in their political power and rights with the dismantling of the post-war "compromise." Economic inequality is far higher then in 1972, corporations are less regulated and have more power than they did in 1972, free trade and continentalist economic integration succeeded, we now live under the most right-wing federal government in modern Canadian history, and, from a left-wing perspective, the "programs" that the NDP runs on, provincially or federally, such as they are, reflect this retreat fully.

If Rebick was "palpably wrong" as proven by "history," it is difficult to see how. To say that the legacy of the Waffle's expulsion might be more nuanced than the Long March to victory that Stephen Lewis would have us believe would be an understatement.

The purge of 1972 pushed out intellectuals, much of  the party's youth (in fact, shockingly and tellingly, its youth wing was not allowed to reform until 1988), many of its radical feminists and began the final shift of the party away from its origins as a party that sought to be the expression of an ideological idea and popular socialist movement towards a party that has become fixated on its own power and whose ideas are dictated by short-term political goals and, at present, preventing the reemergence of the Liberal Party as a contender for government. While the Liberal Party richly deserves its developing status as a marginalized and irrelevant boutique party of the centrist elements of the middle classes, this last goal would be more laudable if there was any meaningful programmatic and ideological differences between the two parties that were not now matters of history.

Ultimately political movements and their electoral wings seek to change society and the civil discourse. Political parties seek to win  elections. These are not at all the same goal.

The NDP, to a large extent, has become driven by pollsters and places great emphasis on soaring but empty rhetoric meant to inspire without the need to really say much. The Obamaesque qualities of Layton's entire 2011 federal campaign were centred around tightly managed sound bites seeking to hammer home two or three points that have been chosen from a minuscule election "platform" for a variety of demographic reasons.

Shortly after the "victory"of the NDP in becoming the official opposition, the then National Director, Brad Lavigne, went on CBC to state that:

"We've been absolutely fixated on making sure that we run a first-rate campaign with a strong message, and we knew that message out there was, 'Ottawa is broken, it's time to fix it. It's time that it works for families to get things done.'
We attached that to the right demographics in the right ridings across the country, and the great thing about tonight is that the growth is everywhere. It's in Atlantic Canada. New seats in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Throughout Ontario and the West."

The problem with both this sentiment, and the notion of Lewis that his and the NDP's actions in 1972 are somehow farcically justified by the winning of opposition status, is that, sorry to point out, the Conservatives actually won the election in 2011.

While the NDP may be ahead in the polls now, and while they may yet win government, the damage that will be done by the Tories over the coming majority mandate is becoming very clear, and, given the political history of the last 40 years, and given the propensity of the centrist "left"  to seek to adopt the mantles of moderation and of eschewing radicalism, there is little hope that much of this damage will be undone in any serious way without the re-emergence of forces either within or outside of the NDP.

It would seem, using Stephen Lewis' bizarre logic, that the end result of June 24, 1972, given that Layton actually lost the election, was Stephen Harper. There is no refracted glory to be had here.

In a less fanciful sense, the real legacy of the expulsion, and one that is demonstrably clear, was the creation of an NDP culture that deeply distrusts it own membership and that has taken power within the party from that membership and given it over to a handful of people that consists of the leader and his or her entourage of bureaucrats, and sycophantic "yes" people.

In the wake of the purge, as already noted, the party disbanded its youth wing and disbanded the entire New Brunswick NDP. It pushed out a generation of activists and created a party environment that was inimical to many social activists. This remains true.

In the ONDP right now we have a party that violated its own constitution to ensure that a convention would not occur prior to the last election, that declared elections within its own youth wing that it did not like null and void and promptly, on entirely specious grounds, invalidated them, and that even went so far as to deny to the Toronto Star that policies passed by the ONDP's membership existed at all! (My favourite part of the article is the hilariously Orwellian claim by the ONDP representative that some membership resolutions "are out of date the moment they're passed")

Federally, the last campaign was notable for its tremendously centralized messaging. The platform contained nothing of substantive value and this can be quickly determined by reading it. It bears no resemblance at all to either the ideas of the membership as a whole or even to the ideas of the NDP that the Lewis' led. Uniformity of opinion within the caucus is total, in an outward way, and we have an NDP Opposition led by an MP from Quebec that has refused to take a stand on the greatest upheaval to hit his province in a generation. Nor has he allowed his large and neophyte Quebec caucus, some of whom were students prior to the "Orange Crush," to do so.

On the whole it would seem that the party within the party was and is the leadership itself.
*In the spirit of full disclosure, James Laxer & Krista Maeots are the parents of the author of this article!

The Peculiar Case of Ruth Ellen Brosseau

First published just after the election this year. This one is totally unmodified and remains exactly how I feel about the subject.

There is not much to happy about in this election.

Stephen Harper got his long coveted majority and the damage that this will do to the country may take many years to repair. The NDP won political opposition on a sudden Orange Surge but did so on an entirely leader driven imagery and a policy platform not only bereft of anything meaningful in terms of transformative social policy, but actually to the right of the Liberal platform in certain key areas. While the obliteration of the Liberal Party by a more left-wing electoral force is of tremendous significance, in that no one can any longer doubt or deny that it is possible to do this, only the most partisan New Democrat incapable of distinguishing what is good for the party and what is good for the people, can think that this election result will have anything other than a catastrophic impact on the lives of working and middle class Canadians, and that it is, in a key way, a real defeat for the forces left, not a victory.

In a non-minority parliament the NDP will now have less influence than before, not more, on the actual governance of the nation and the nature of the system gives the forces of capital and reaction plenty of time to retrench and attempt to reverse NDP gains. This is especially true given that the party will not attempt the popular mobilization needed to stop Harper's agenda and the very high probability that having seen its strategy to squeeze the Liberals out by pushing to the centre of the spectrum bear fruit, the party brass will intensify this process, not lessen or reverse it.



But, as always in the great human endeavour that is democracy, there is a silver lining to all of this.



It is, of course, true that unexpected sweeps bring people into parliament that no one expected to see there. It is a great thing that Canada elected its first Tamil MP. It also very positive to see young people, students, and workers get elected. This makes the complexion of parliament more democratic and inspiring even if it does not result in its legislation being this way.

But to me, one of the most misinterpreted moments of the election is of even greater significance. It points to a very real democratic and popular yearning that lies just beneath the surface of our era's popular mood of discontent with our institutions of governance.

And it is the victory of Ruth Ellen Brosseau.

There can be little doubt that Canadians are broadly tired of our existing political culture and contemptuous of its entirely scripted and facile content. This culture, driven by the pollsters and spin doctors of the parties, celebrates the vacuous and places great emphasis on soaring but empty rhetoric meant to inspire without the need to really say much. The Obamaesque qualities of Harper's "Canada" ad, or, frankly, of Layton's entire campaign, is the high point of what are tightly managed sound bites centred around targeted messaging seeking to hammer home two-or-three points that have been chosen from minuscule election "platforms" for a variety of demographic reasons. People are being sold a bill of goods, a branded commodity. And they know it.

The parties even, when it succeeds, sometimes openly celebrate it, as in this rather odious little quote:

"We've been absolutely fixated on making sure that we run a first-rate campaign with a strong message, and we knew that message out there was, 'Ottawa is broken, it's time to fix it. It's time that it works for families to get things done,'" NDP national director Brad Lavigne told CBC Monday night.

"We attached that to the right demographics in the right ridings across the country, and the great thing about tonight is that the growth is everywhere. It's in Atlantic Canada. New seats in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Throughout Ontario and the West."-CBC News May 3rd 2011

Yes, Brad, it is great, but only for the NDP itself.

They justify such a philosophy with rubbish about "getting results", that getting elected is the "purpose" of political parties, etc., that this is the "job" of parties, without the slightest sense that this type of politics is exactly what is fuelling the long-term cynicism and anger of disenfranchisement that all too often finds expression in the campaigns of wealthy populists like Rob Ford.

The days of renegade MPs, serious discourse and visions for change in society and government that go beyond the merely cosmetic or managerial, to the extent that they ever existed, are gone.

Parties are terrified of moments going "off message" and they are mortified of independently minded candidates who might "say" or "do" "something" that might divert the media's attention away from whatever sound bite the leader is about to deliver. This is just as true, if not in some ways more so, in the NDP which has developed a new and repugnant tactic of blocking people that they feel might be worrisome and independent from seeking nomination at all!

Campaigns, even such fatuous ones, when they catch fire can still stir citizens up in entirely unanticipated political moments of democratic outburst as happened with Rae in Ontario, or the ADQ and now the NDP in Quebec. These moments, when they happen, show that it is still possible for people to actually change things and assert their power, even if it does not always deliver what drove them to do it. In fact, the very failure of the banal rhetoric to produce meaningful results in their actual lives is entirely why the democratic outbursts so often do not last.

And this in turn leads even more citizens to feel that they have heard it all before, that nothing will change anyway, and that the "politicians" are all the same, power driven and plastic.

Then there is the peculiar case of Ruth Ellen Brosseau.

Brosseau, as you are no doubt aware, is the assistant pub manager and single mother in Ottawa who ran for the NDP in the Quebec riding of Berthier - Maskinongé and won. She did so despite the widespread PRE-election publicity that she not only did not live in the riding but may never have even set foot in it, that she barely spoke French and that she went to Las Vegas for the last two weeks of the campaign.

The insults were fast and furious. She was described as a "bimbo", "white trash", a "joke", and much worse. I read many comments about her, including one that stated "Now we know who will be serving the drinks at Jack's dinner parties". The inherent ignorance, elitism and sexism of the comments is a disgrace and exposes the dark underbelly of patriarchal condescension that lingers in the attitudes of all too many.

(I for one, think that the life experiences of a hard working single mother who quite rightly did not lose the opportunity to take a planned trip to Vegas because of an election no one thought she could win, have more bearing on the ACTUAL essence of why the NDP is supposed to be fighting for social justice than the life experiences of many in the party, including her leader's, but I digress).

This was a media moment, when revealed, that was certainly "off message"!

And what happened? She, despite these revelations, went on to win over her closest rival by 10% of the vote!

The cynics will say that these were votes for the party and Jack. There is, no doubt, a lot of truth to that. They will further say that this is actually what is "wrong" with our system, that people would vote this way in spite of these facts and that it reveals the average voter's lack of political sophistication.

I disagree.

I think that many political commentators and many of the politically minded grossly underestimate the sophistication of the average voter. They do so because this helps explain things when they don't turn out as they anticipated or as they wanted. Sometimes, as in the totally bankrupt visions of neo- vanguardists and others, it helps to justify their own "duty" to lead the masses out of the morass of their own ignorance.

When the citizens of her riding found out about their NDP candidate prior to voting, they had more than enough time to digest this and...they didn't care! Not because of a lack of sophistication or a blind impulse to vote NDP, but because, I suspect, many of them actually liked what they heard. And, in an entirely sophisticated way, they knew that she was, without doubt, a change!

Here, undeniably, was a "politician" who was not one at all. A bartender, a single-mother, and a person with the good sense to know that a vacation she had no doubt long saved for was important to her.

I have little doubt that, in reality, these facts helped to solidify the resolve of those who were going out to vote for her, not weaken it. That it fed into the overall sense that they were repudiating the politics that had dominated Quebec on the federal level for so long and that Brousseau was also a repudiation of this.

I suspect that many actually rather relished voting for her because of these "revelations" , not in spite of them. And rightfully so, in this case.

All too often when this happens people will express this anger through backing freeloaders from the upper classes like Rob Ford who mould themselves to appear as "men-of-the-people" despite lives handed to them by wealth and privilege. I don't think that those who support such figures are ignorant. I think they are angry. And justifiably.

But here they have elected a genuine working person who is like their neighbours. Who works at a real job, who has to pay the bills as a single mom, and who faces the same challenges they do.

And I for one, suspect she will be a breath of fresh air on parliament hill.

But even if not, her victory was a real victory for democracy. For all the reasons above, and if for no other reason than it proves the Brad Lavignes wrong. What it proves is that if an idea is strong enough, if a popular feeling has enough depth, our neighbours and fellow citizens will not have their desire for change stopped by straying "off message".

And one can only speculate what a real platform, full of real off-message ideas and built by real, open and honest debate might inspire in people.

And who might come forward to represent that platform.

Welcome to Canada's Parliament Ms. Brosseau. No matter how anything turns out, it was the better for you having been elected to it.