The New Democratic Party met in convention this weekend. What happened and what did it mean?
A good place to start is that just shy of 98 per cent of delegates gave Jack Layton a vote of confidence. A not-inconsiderable thank you to the most successful leader in the NDP's 50-year (in its current form) history.
Then, there was quite a celebration. One hundred and three members of Parliament on stage, being rapturously received. A strong Quebec delegation right in front, setting the tone for much of the debate (the NDP has become the national political institution where French and English-speaking Canadians talk about this country and work together to get results). And a national team that looked at itself, gave itself a shout-out, and committed itself to do more.
There is an interesting issue embedded in this. We are in an age of Internet voting, which reduces political engagement to sitting alone at home in front of a screen. Conventions are the antithesis to this. They are tribal moments, bonding moments, when the core of a political party looks itself in the eye and re-commits to its work. I had a conversation recently with a member of the performing company at the Stratford Festival who put his finger on this matter. We were discussing the complexities of filming a Shakespeare play and broadcasting it on television and the Internet. "This stuff is interesting, but you know, nothing really is ever going to replace being there," he said. Those of us lucky enough to attend the NDP's convention in Vancouver this weekend will know what he means. One of the challenges facing all political parties is finding ways to broaden out the experience without losing it.
So then, to the convention's business.
Re-write the preamble to the NDP's constitution?
Delegates spent much of the weekend asking themselves if they wanted to do this. There was a lot to like in a draft amendment they found in their books. It talked about the party in more accessible terms; spoke about its key strategic partnerships; and put the theme of equality front and centre, where it belongs.
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But they voted, near-unanimously, to refer the matter back to the party's officers for more work. Because, I think, they wanted words that inspire as well as modernize. Because they wanted to think about it carefully and without haste. Because some elements were missing. And because they wanted foundational issues to be discussed in a way that is, well, foundational -- back to the theme of "being there" that my colleague the actor at Stratford was talking about.
Rule out merging with the Liberal party?
There was a very important discussion about this matter at this convention, and one that needs to be listened to carefully by the NDP's leadership. I think delegates could not have been more clear in their minds about some elements of this issue and were open-minded but prudent on others.
Points of clarity: New Democrats are not Liberals, and are not going to allow their party to be converted or merged into an orange Liberal Party. Canadian voters have overwhelmingly rejected the Liberal Party in its current form. New Democrats aren't going to become what Canadians have so massively, and possibly definitively (although the Grits are never to be underestimated), turned the page on.
On the other hand, I would say, delegates know the power in Jack Layton's open-handed willingness to work with others to get things done. The power of his Quebec campaign slogan, which was "Travaillons ensemble" (let's work together). Progressive-minded Canadians make up more than 60 per cent of the electorate in Canada. As the Official Opposition and mainstream alternative to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government, Mr. Layton and his party owe Canadians more of what they like -- which is an open-minded determination to get the job done, including the task of replacing this government with something better. So delegates to this convention voted to keep an open mind about the future, mindful of the point of clarity above, to which they hold and will continue to hold with granite determination.
The last thing I'll offer about this convention was that the New Democrats are overrun, nay infested, by a tidal wave of smart, bright, eager and determined young people -- francophones and anglophones, new Canadians and members of First Nations -- a not inconsiderable number of whom are members of Parliament. I've been attending NDP conventions since the mid-1980s. I've never seen anything like it. Winning 103 seats is a fine contribution. But recruiting and inspiring this new reinforcement of young leaders and activists is a gift to the New Democrats from Jack Layton that the party will benefit from long into this century.
This article was first published in the Globe and Mail.
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Brian, I was at the Convention and share your view of the enthusiasm and commitment expressed by the delegates. However, I'm concerned about process of renewing the Constitution. It's too bad that the party didn't adopt a more inclusive approach to developing the new preamble. Dropping it in the laps of delegates at virtually the last minute with no input from ridings or individual members was not a good way to garner the trust and support of New Democrats across the country.
As for the content of the preamble, rather than simply dismiss the idea of socialism altogether, I would like to see the party have a discussion of what socialism (or democratic socialism) means in the 21st century and how it can best be expressed to Canadians. It would be a mistake to turn our backs on our roots in a transparent attempt to troll for votes. Then, we really would be no different from the Liberals.
May I suggest that ridings be engaged in the process of renewal and that the Constitution reflect that engagement. Please don't turn it into yet another top-down bureaucratic exercise carried out in the name of the membership, awaiting only our rubber stamp of approval.
As someone who attended Convention, it was clear to me that the draft preamble was disliked by a clear majority of delegates. Most delegates I spoke to found it uninspiring and platitudinous, if not a wholesale sell-out of the NDP's democratic socialist priniciples. When Pat Martin variously compared the current preamble to an anchor or a rusted ship that was impeding our progress, he was roundly booed. In contrast, Barry Weisleder got a thunderous ovation when he spoke in defence of the current preamble. In other words, opposition to ditching the preamble went well beyond self-identified supporters of the Socialist Caucus, even though the corporate media had falsely characterized the divide in that way.
When it became clear that the new preamble would fail to obtain the necessary two-thirds majority, Party President Brian Topp moved to remove it from the Convention floor with a motion to refer it back to the Executive. It was a face-saving manoeuvre by members of the Party's governing elite, who had badly misjudged the mood of the membership.
By the way, many members were furious that the Executive, which had had two years in which to prepare a revised preamble, chose to keep it under wraps until mere days before the Convention. And when they did unveil it, they provided no background paper or statement setting out the rationale for the proposed changes. As a result, there no opportunity for adequate discussion among members and delegates. Instead, most members read about the preamble resolution for the first time in the mainstream media, which predictably approved the new language while expressing mock surprise that the NDP remained formally wedded to an "outdated" ideology like democratic socialism. As a result, instead of affording party members the chance to debate these issues among ourselves, the Executive evidently intended the terms of the debate to be set by our perennial critics in the corporate media.
On the merger question, I think Topp mischaracterizes the resolution as one that would have ruled out any cooperation with the Liberals. In fact, the resolution plainly and exclusively addressed the prospect of a formal merger of the NDP and the Liberal Party. It neither said nor implied anything about forms of collaboration falling short of an outright merger. Why Topp and a number of MPs, including Peter Stoffer and Carole Hughes, would want to "keep the door open" to a future merger is something that requires a fuller explanation.
In my opinion the anti-merger resolution failed because Peter Stoffer, in his forceful intervention in the debate, successfully muddied the waters by claiming the resolution would prohibit any kind of cooperation with the Liberals or even any talk of cooperation. In fact, he went so far as to claim that if passed the resolution would preclude cooperation between the two parties in the House of Commons on bills favoured by the NDP. That was a deliberate misreading of the resolution, which quite plainly was restricted to the question of a formal merger of the NDP and the Liberal Party.
I suspect that many delegates who voted against the anti-merger resolution didn't actually read it but relied instead on Stoffer's apparent paraphrasing of it. That, combined with the deference that many delegates ordinarily accord to MPs, explains the result of the vote. Defeat of the resolution cannot therefore be considered to have authorized the Party leadership to enter discussions with the Liberals on a merger of the two parties. If the leadership thinks otherwise, they'll face a backlash from the membership of epic proportions.