Audrey McLaughlin Victory - 20th Anniversary

I was there too and voted for Dave Barrett on every ballot.

What a tragedy that convention was for the NDP. For the sake of being able to say that we elected the first woman leader we chose someone utterly without any political talent and doomed the federal party to a decade of impotence.

After Audrey's vacuous speech to the convention she was bleeding support. The party establishment pulled out all the stops to prevent Barrett's election because they knew that would have curtailed their influence. They successfully sold the line that Ed Broadbent made the worst speech at the convention that chose him and turned out to be a good leader, as if mediority at the podium was a guarantee of succes.

I remember watching the next leader's debate as McLaughlin receded into tongue-tied invisibility and grieving over what a difference it would have made to have a magnificent campaigner like Dave Barrett instead. He would have dominated the campaign. He would have expanded the NDP's populist flank instaed of having it poached by the Reform Party.What a squandered opportunity.

The sad thing is everyone at the convention with eyes to see and ears to hear knew that McLaughlin was a thorough mediocrity. If she had been a male she may have run dead last. But electing a woman leader was the only thing of importence to all the lemmings who voted for her.

Who were these people?

Michael Lewis and Lynn Williams to name just two. Lewis had warred with Barrett in the BC NDP leadership race with Tom Berger in 1969. Lewis had been a top bureaucrat in the party and was accused of lack of neutrality in turning out a maximum union vote for Berger. Barrett in those days had spoken publicly about cutailing labour's influence in the party.

When premier, Barrett threw Williams out of his office when he demanded to be able to dictate labour law changes.

Bob Rae also threw his influence against Barrett. Rae had wanted to run for the federal leadership and and solicited Barrett's support. In fact Barrett had alredy decided to run and coopted much of the support that Rae thought was his due. Rae worked furiously against Barrett at the convention. When he contratulated Barrett on his campaign after the final vote, Barrett who saw through Rae much sooner than most of us, is reported as saying, "Bob, go fuck yourself."

The Lewis family generally opposed Barrett. Barrett had signed the Waffle manifesto and his stance for reduced labour influence would have limited the block vote that traditionally has kept the party establishment imn control.Barrett intervened to prevent a Lewis family coup to force Tommy Douglas from the leadership. There is a rumour that he dragged Stephen Lewis into a back alley in Gastown and slapped him around when he heard that he was trying to ease Douglas out.

Gerry Caplan certainly backed McLaughlin. I am not certain that Stephen Lewis did in the end beacuse he gave a famous interview on TV after her speech lamenting about how vacuous it was.

I only know the tip of the iceberg. In a private speech to supporters after his defeat Barreet referred to the campaign obliquely. I remeber him saying "sure we got screwed but we have to show unity."

It's hard to say that 1993 wouldn't have been a disaster for the NDP even with a better campaigner like Dave Barrett at the helm. Between Bob Rae in Ontario, Reform in the West and Liberals riding high almost everywhere there wasn't much chance.

The NDP was doomed either way at that convention. It wasn't long after that that Bingogate blew up in BC, and that would have torpedoed a Federal NDP under Barrett's leadership.

Interesting... thank you Nicky, was in Sask at the time of the '69 BC NDP leadership race...

Was living in BC by the time Barrett was Premier, and knew about the throwing of Williams out....

Never knew the part the Lewis family played, how disappointing, was out of political awareness, again at that time. But knew that the western NDP were pissed at the eastern, yet again...

In December 1989, Reform was still a fringe party and the Bloc Quebecois wasn't even a gleam in Lucien Bouchard's eye.  Quebec was seen a great source of potential support for the NDP (borne out by the Chambly by-election a few months later).  One key factor in McLaughlin's win was that she was bilingual and that Barrett was seen as anti-Quebec.

Audrey has most likely been the most ineffective leader the CCF-NDP has had to date. Barrett would have been great in the debates.

It did not blow up...it was exposed...

....and Stupich was the reason why I was not involved in NDP politics, for a long while...was happy to finally epose him for the corrupt piece of shit he was...even though the outfall is still being being felt....

The english debates perhaps.

Exactlement!

I remember the campaign--

The NDP was loaded with talent but unfortunately all male in the leadership race--

Howard McCurdy, Steven Langdon, Dave Barrett.

I have always been a huge fan of Langdon and he was my choice in the end but McCurdy and Barrett both impressed me and I hoped for Barrett in the last round of voting after Langdon was out--

In his financial speech Barrett said, I may be a little fat but please give me a slim margin- for some reason that line stuck out.

I liked McLaughlin but never thought of her as leader- she was no Rosemary Brown and she got the post because the party knew she had earned it and was denied. Inasmuch as Broadbent was a great leader the party could have had Brown and she, I believe would have been outstanding and that was a monumental lost opportunity.

I had hoped Judy Rebick would run to replace Broadbent but I guess she decided she did not want the job. I think it would have been hers for the asking- what a leader she could have made- another lost opportunity.

Today, the party is changed. To its credit, if the party wants to choose from exclusively female talent it has some wonderful choices- the talent on the female side of the caucus is very, very deep right now. Judy W-L is but one example.

    I must say this is a very interesting thread indeed. Of course I was not in attendance, after all I was four years old, and as such

more interested in Raffi and The Polka dot door than politics. I had always I have pondered the  "what if" scenario of a Barrett

victory. I must say that I agree with what nicky has stated. Barrett was then/probably still is  a spell binding orator and a hell of a

fighter. Had a ton of experience, both in opposition aswell as government, say what you will about his three years but his

government did bring in two crown corps that no right wing government that followed would scrap. Also he spent his entire political

career on battling  Social Credit  which  Mr. Manning was brought up in. I would have voted for Dave in all four ballots.

        The wonderful thing about "what ifs" is that if one does pose such a question, other such what ifs can follow suit. I will not

immediately jump forward to the 1993 election but, will remain in the year 1989, like Krago had pointed out Reform was still fringe

albeit with a lone MP, and the Bloc was non-existant. Additionally Bob Rae wasn't Premier, and neither was Harcourt ( though

granted there still were shady dealings going on with the NCHS courtesy of Mr. Stupich.) Turner was still Liberal leader (officially, but

on the way out and the race to succeed him very much was on. Also Mulroney was just freshly elected to his second term. So there

are many factors to (re)consider, in my big what if , prior to the 1993 big vote. Barrett is NDP leader, Martin wins the Grits' crown

(albeit in a super tight nail bitter of a race that caused scars deeper than what actually occured)

Mulroney is succeeded by Charest, or perhaps one of the many cabinet heavyweights that could have but didn't in run 1993.

      Also what if Bobby Rae had decided to run in the December leadership, or once again jump into the fray of federal politics,

perhaps hoping to groom himself to one day succeed the newly minted leader? or simply quit after the 1987 vote doing any one of

the previous hypotheticals or none I really don't care  Now in 1993 Peterson is on term two after waiting the max of

five years.

 Quebec is a whole other ballgame, as the provinical NDP cut the ties in the very year same year with a McLaughlin win. Phil

Edmonston who said he would quit if Dave won, quit anyways even though he didn't win. Quebec at this point in time was a lost

cause for the NDP IMO.

I believe the NDP wasn't necesarily "doomed" but simply a victim of circumstance, that circumstance chiefly being Bobby Rae.

Take him out of the equation and you really got to wonder.

Yes these are all what ifs and perhaps a shoddy attempt at revisionist history but I was simply attempting to expand on a point that

Nicky made in his original post regarding watching the leaders debate in 1993 and the difference Barrett's theorical preformance versus

McLaughlin. Also that if one scenario was changed why not a few.

The other factor everyone has left out here was Hargrove's all out campaign to destroy the provincial and federal NDP in Ontario during Audrey's leadership.  This had a lot to do with the disaster of the 1993 campaign.

Spme questions to Barrett supporters:  Had he won that year, would the party have a Quebec MP and the hope of electing more of them today?  Was Barrett actually that hostile to Quebec and, if so, why?  What did Quebec ever do to him?

In hindsight, and no disrespect to Ed Broadbent is intended here, there should NEVER have been an allout effort by the party inner circle(including the embarassing spectacle of both Tommy Douglas and David Lewis working the convention floor themselves) to stop Rosemary Brown winning the leadership.  She would clearly have done as least as well as Ed as leader, and might well have done far better(she had worked in Quebec at one point and this would have been useful in expanding party support there, and feminists would have been galvanized into backing the NDP.  And white male labor types didn't have any reason to consider her anti-union).  I wouldn't have wanted to campaign in black neighborhoods for the NDP in the election after Rosemary was stopped.  Why would they have listened to any argument that they should vote for the party after that?  A lot of them did, nonetheless, but the NDP had the chance to become the party of Canada's Rainbow(which would have cut much more heavily into Trudeau's support than anything Ed did)and chose to pass it up in the name of the bland safe status quo.

I voted for Audrey on the last ballot, succumbing to pressure from an army of party brass, and I regretted it almost immediatly.  I remember crying on the plane ride home.

The funny thing is, my view of her has mellowed over time.  I remember hearing interviews with her after her resignation and thinking that the woman had clearly learned a lot from her errors.  Looking back at the clips above, I think she had a lot of potential talent - but being federal party leader is not an entry level position.  Had we have all waited five years, she might have been a much better, more successful leader.

I'm not sure what she learned. In 2003, on the heels of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she installed herself in Baghdad as an agent of the National "Democratic" Institute (which she went to work for in 2000) to teach Iraqis about the benefits of U.S.-style democracy. Last I heard, she was still on the payroll of this front for the U.S. government. Her chief of staff, Les Campbell, became the NDI's regional director for Middle East affairs. Quite the little gig.

Barrett has told people that if he had to do it all over again, as Premier of BC, he would have listened more to Labour.

Do you mean if Marion Dewar(RIP)was elected in '88 that she would have ran for leader and won or if Audrey won she won't be taken seriously when compared to a more experienced politian like Dewar.

According to some of us, the NDP are only ever supposed to turn on, tune in, drop out, and protest it all from the sidelines.

A couple other points about Dave Barrett and the 1989 convention.

Thw supposed Quebec opposition to Barrett is exagerated, no doubt in part because Phil Edmonston had some inexplicable enmity towards him. Although most of the Quebec vote went to Langdon on the first ballot it was with Barrett on the last. I was told this by John Harney who was prominent in the NDP in Quebec at the time. Quebecers liked Barrett's populist style even though his French was non-existant. They were also not impressed by McLaughlin's French.

I remember Barrett saying in his peeech that you should not patronize a people by using a few words in French. It is ideas that count.

We should also remeber that Barrett was close with Rene Levesque. When premier he made an overture for Levesque to join a common socila democratic front. Although he rejected the proposal he treated it and Barrett with very obvious respect.

My second point is the Reform Party. Barrett won election in BC by prying away a large segment of the Social Credit populist base. And he largely kept it. We should remember that the two highest percentages ever achieved by the BC NDP, about 47%, were achieved by Dave Barrett in defeat,

At the 1989 convention I remember him specifiically warning the delegates about the growth of Reform which only had a single seat at the time. He said "there's something called the Reform Party out there." I have no doubt he had the instincts to protect the NDP populist vote from it. If he had been leader perhaps the extreme right wing would not dominate the Consevative Prty today.

One way he would have countered them was his constitutional stance. He was very sceptical of Meech Lake and would not have left the oppoistion to Meech theexclusive preserve of Preston Manning. At the convention he got great applause when he said, "Let's tell Mulroney to find another lake."

We should also remember that Meech lake was heavily defeated in the referendum in Quebec.

I was there as a Nova Scotia delegate who organized support for Ian Waddell.

Why did I support Waddell first, and Audrey on the last two ballots?

Because they were both opposed to the Meech Lake Accord, as was I!

I met Elijah Harper at the '89 Convention, and he was a hero to me when he showed such courage by opposing the Accord in the Manitoba Legislature.

The NDP lost most of our support in Western Canada when it went along with Mulroney on that, and we should have known that anything with Mulroney's hand on it should've been opposed totally.

Canada is made up of 10 provinces and 3 territories, NOT one province...and then everyone else!

I was also a Waddell supporter

These are all great insights,  thanks everyone, was wondering what I missed in the Stupich boycott years....

Definitely a fun race to play the what-if game with. I think McLaughlin wasn't a good political leader but Barrett definitely had several downsides. In addition to those already mentioned, Barrett has a much more abrasive, sound and fury campaign style. This sometimes helped him as BC Leader, when riding a populist streak, and sometimes hurt him, by polarizing the electorate. He also has a lot of the hallmarks of an older, Western-based CCF/NDP: he has/had a Western alienation stripe, is more socially conservative, and as mentioned doesn't speak French. Despite winning almost all their seats out in the vote-poor West, the NDP hadn't had a Western based leader since TC Douglas in '68 election. Barrett however, couldn't lay exclusive claim to the Westerner card because Audrey McLaughlin's Yukon seat was to all appearances out West too. Looking back, MacLaughlin probably seemed them safer choice, especially to those out East. I think in retrospect and in the future, the best guide to picking a leader may not necessarily be their at-the-moment advantages and disadvantages but rather a more underlying measure of political skill. It is the ability to stump, employ situational judgment, and roll with the punches that I think makes a good political leader. In this regard, Layton is good example of a NDP politician that can do it. It is also a reason why a lot of the potential suitors to Layton, IMO, appear rather unattractive. The final element I think a politician needs is vision, but this is always a very dificult and risky point.

No problem. Our stooges in the two old line parties haven't had real vision for our Northern Panama for a long time. And they still manage the odd phony majority government, or at least at the provincial level anyway. Canadians don't want vision for this Puerto Rico du Nord. About 25 percent of registered voters just want their old line party politicos to lie to and deceive Canadians at every turn.

A couple of the points made above were particularly salient: the potential of the Nanaimo Commonwealth story to contaminate the federal party was a definite factor for me at the time (and if Barrett had become leader, Stupich would have had control of the federal party's finances), along with Barrett's views on Quebec.  I think Audrey ran because she felt she had to, to give people a woman candidate to vote for, given that Marion was not a viable leadership candidate without a seat, and Alexa wasn't running.

In retrospect, Barrett would have been a more effective leader against the Reform Party in BC, but we would have had to run against the Charlottetown Accord.  As has been written recently, the NDP had tried to make such extreme demands on Charlottetown that they thought Joe Clark would never go for them.  That he did, meant that many felt we needed to support the resulting agreement.  Also, do not underestimate the concern for the country's future that people felt at the time.  Two years after the 1993 election, sovereigntists damn near won a referendum.  I wish Mulroney had never opened up that constitutional Pandora's Box, but I did support Meech Lake (although I thought the first nations were the only ones with the legitimacy to kill it if they wanted to), and I thought the Charlottetown Accord contained a lot of really progressive elements.

The first woman was always going to have some problems that no-one else would face.  I think it must have been a really lonely row to hoe for Audrey, and it's not like people were falling over themselves to offer her a job afterwards.  A lot of our folks have taken their skills to the NDI, which is one place that actually values the skills acquired by politicos and their staff.

There was certainly no ideal candidate in that leadership race, and I truly wish Broadbent had stayed on for one more cycle, and set up some stronger candidates as potential replacements.  But that's 20 years ago ... we're back on an upswing now under a really strategic leader, whose energy, unbridled enthusiasm, and creativity has still not even begun to reach its limits.

    As someone quite new to the party, and had only  become politically aware/savvy  when the NDP was at a very low point. It has always been a great pleasure for me to read about those heady days of the mid to late eighties. It has always given me hope, as well as a distraction when I should have been doing research about whatever BS I was supposed to be studying at the time. Also it would have been a blast to watch Barrett give Preston Manning holy hell in the '93 debate (on CBC archives of course) Hearing about this chapter of NDP history from all of you that where there/around at the time sure beats the hell out of reading about it in a book. I thank you for that.

I'm getting a little misty-eyed thinking about what a great speaker Barrett was. I have never seen anyone hold an audience like him. I think he was superior to Stephen Lewis because he could connect on a visceral level. He was also funny and extremely fast on his feet.

Two example of his wit, although not during speaches:

I was near him once as he entered a hallway to address a rally. A Trotskyite type who was selling a left-wing broadsheet jumped in front of him, thrust the paper in his face and said. "Here Barrett, read how the NDP is selling out the working class." Instead of ignoring him as most politicians would do, Barrett stopped, calmly took the paper, leafed through its 8 pages very quickly, thrust it back at the seller and asked, "where's your union bug?" The seller was dumbfounded and Barrett then laid him low with, "I'm not gonna buy any paper put out by a bunch of scabs."

Second one. Shortly after he became Premier, he held a press conference in which he was asked if there would be any pork-barrell politics in his administration. With the timing of a great comedian, Barrett fiegned disbelief and said, "In my administration? A little corned beef barrell maybe."

What a shame we didn't pick him.

Resepctfully OO, I do not think Stupich would have had anything to do with the federal party finances, had Barrett been elected.

the NCHS, aka Stupich, was already  having the light shone on it...and most Nanaimo members knew, at least behind the scenes, what was going on...well before it ever became common public knowlege..and were alredy backing away from Stupich.

Hear ya Nicky, on what Barrett was like campaigning

We should remember part of the appeal of McLaughlin had nothign to do with the fact she was a woman:

She had been a social worker and was new to politics. As an outsider she was considered to owe nobody and it was thought that she would be seen as having wider appeal. She also did not come from a big province so was the compromise candidate- not Western (even though Yukon is to the West), not Eastern etc.

When she took over there was a lot of hope for her in some circles. People did not want to pay attention to the fact that she lacked the ability to contect to an audience either on TV or in person.

She was on the otherhand a very intelligent person-- perhaps to nice to be in politics, without the skills we need in politicians that sometimes become annoying.

Remember the time-- Brian Mulroney was in power-- people had begun to hate him. They hated his smoothness, the very skills she lacked. She was the anti-politician. Yes it was a mistake, it turns out you need those skills. She was the NDP's Stephane Dion. the kind of person you would like to have in politics but who gets eaten alive. That she was also a woman had some people believing that women lacked those skills. As it turns out, they don't. Audrey was exactly what we thought we needed at the time. It is important that we remember the context.

If we speak of leadership, then maybe we should look at the skills generally. Layton has the smoothness of Mulroney and while he makes his point, for many he is not particularly liked or believed. Audrey was the opposite and lacked the skill to win people over by speaking (for the level she was at- she likely is better than most of us but politics is an elite sport). Barrett had the power and strength of oration but with a humility and humanity that engages so that you feel what he is saying more than be impressed at his skill. He made it look easy (Layton makes it look hard and that he is good at it). Layton I think is highly skilled but likely a little shy- the skill is a coping mechanism- at least that is how it seems to me.

People like Barrett, McCurdy, Langdon, Lewis they had the combination of confidence, skill and obvious humanity and humility. That is what you need and these gifts are rare.

What we'll never know is how well Audrey would have done if the B.C. and Ontario NDP governments hadn't imploded in the run-up to the 1993 election.  That accounted for 26 of the 34 lost seats right there.  In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, by contrast, where there wasn't provincial trouble, the party pretty much held its ground.

As a party leader, she's sort of remembered as Lester Pearson would be if he'd only fought the 1958 election.

  I get  your point Sean, "outsiders" are always appealing especially when the status quo is seen as tainted as the Mulroney gang was at that point. It's kinda like the selection of Obama over Clinton who was perceived as a Washington insider, or when a party elects a leader outside of their caucus. New Blood versus old guard. But in the end it's always a dice roll sometimes it works sometime it doesn't. I mean don't get me wrong I have nothing against Mclaughlin she's seems like a good honest person who was a victim of circumstances and ultimately paid the price for the sins of Bobby Rae and Dave Stupich (who also manage to destroy Mike Harcourt) Personally I have had a fascination with Barrett, he has a style and personality that I've never seen in a Canadian polititian before.

I must say that I'm really enjoying your stories nicky, I take it your a BCer?

Her leadership campaign was also the first time I heard (and used) the phrase "we're going to do politics differently". Kim Campbell's Conservatives picked it up next, followed by others including most recently Stephane Dion's Liberals.

Barrett was a charming and wily populist, but I sure didn't agree with him on every policy position. And I would not dismiss the concerns about Stupich so quickly, because they were shared by many who saw Dave's strengths, but worried about supporting him for the leadership.

Oh well, it's all water under the bridge now. We all learned a lot from that ... including debates we ought not to open up again ;-)

I supported Audrey and I don't regret it a bit. If you compare her first campaign as leader to Broadbent's or Rae's, I don't think she would come off too badly. What killed her was the unpopularity of two of our three provincial governments, combined with a stampede to the Liberals.

If we really want to rehash the events of convention, two things about the Barrett's campaign really rubbed me the wrong way:

1) Their overt sexism. To give just one example, Audrey's campaign was waving white towels with her name on them. Barrett's people had a great belly laugh every time they said "Audrey is on the rag".

2) Their overt homophobia. There was another candidate who was, at that time, not out of the closet. They went after his delegates saying that having a gay leader would hurt the party. The also used that against Audrey, as one of her biggest supporters was Svend Robinson (something that kind blows the establishment candidate argument out of the water).

I did find it funny that Barrett used "Rise Up" as his convention song ("Woman's time has come"). Of course, it was even funnier when the Reform Party used it at the first United Alternative convention.

On a more sombre note, four days later 14 women were killed by someone who hated feminists. It felt like a kick in the stomach.

What you say is true, Scott, although there were a number of strong feminists who supported Barrett (e.g., Joy MacPhail) ... and more than a few good ole boys who supported Audrey once they saw which way the wind was blowing !

I was a minor organizer for Barrett at the 1989 convention and am surprised at the two points Scott raises.

The Barrett camp was very deferntial towards McLaughlin. When she started to self-destruct at the convention as a result of her weak performance, the campaign cautioned its supportesrd not to be critical of her for fear of raising sympathy. There was certainly nothing I heard as crude as the rag comment. It is inconceivable to me that it was made by anyone on Barrett's behalf.

To the contrary, the McLaughlin camp played the sexist card against Barrett. Pauline Jewitt who was squarely in McLaughlin's camp, made a well-publicized allegation that Barrett was a sexist without giving specifics. This was countered by a statement by all of Barrett's former female cabinet ministers about what he did for women's rights as premier.

As for the anti-gay comments, this is completely new to me. I assume that Scott is referring to Ian Wadell who has since come out of the closet. Wadell in fact endorsed Barrett on the second ballot so I hardly think he thought he had been the subject of homophobic comments from the Barrett camp.

I have been asked the source of some of my knowledge of Barrett. I am in fact from Ontario.I was an organizer in the 1972 provincial election in which Barrett took WACKY Bennett apart with passion and wit. I developed great repect for Barrett's ability as a politician.

I also did a thesis on the NDP leadership campaign between Barrett and Tom Berger in 1969.

One more Barrett anecdote. When he was premier he attended a rodeo in the Cariboo in the Social Credit heartland. He participated in, and won, a "Bull throwing contest" which consisted of flinging patties of cow dung. He challenged to crowd to come back next year and try to take his Crown away from him. " But I warn you I'm gonna have a whole extra year of practice throwing bull in the legislature."

Beat that Audrey McLaughlin.

Wow, I just cannot imagine that on the behalf of Barrett supporters..and definitely not by Barrett himself....

Well, actually ... and lord knows I do NOT want to refight that leadership all over again ... but Scott's not wrong about his two points, at least in terms of who some of Barrett's supporters were in Ottawa and on the Hill at the time.  It's wrong to generalize from that to every single supporter, though, as many of you have pointed out, and it's wrong to paint all that onto Dave himself.

I agree. But, no one should generalize about Audrey's supporters either (and there was plenty of that going on in this thread).

Or in Manitoba's case, the ground was "pre-lost" in 1988, thanks to the Pawley gov't collapse + Carstairs mania.

Nicky, I respect your views but I have to correct several of your statements above. I was a McLaughlin supporter from Quebec at the '89 Convention (my first one and I was a youth delegate from NDP-McGill).

- The small Quebec delegation to Winnipeg was massively anti-Barrett, with a few exceptions, largely anglos from what I recall.  Edmonston was heavily courting the PQ nationalist vote in Chambly, which is over 90% francophone,  in Dec 89 (he won a landslide by-election victory in Feb 1990 under Audrey's leadership, so she clearly wasn't political poison in Quebec) and having Barrett elected on a strong anti-Meech stance would have likely killed Edmonston's chances in the by-election.  I'd say most of the Quebec delegation drifted to Audrey over the 4 ballots, as much to stop Barrett as because they favoured McLaughlin.  Audrey was also anti-Meech but specifically due to the issue of Yukon becoming a province - she supported distinct society and the other main provisions of Meech, IIRC.

- John Harney had virtually disappeared from the Qc NDP scene after the 1988 election - and as a very strong Qc nationalist at the time, I find it very hard to believe he would be supporting Barrett at the 89 convention.

- Meech was never put to a referendum in Quebec - you are likely thinking of the 1992 Charlottetown Referendum, where the NO did win in Quebec by about 53-47, from what I can recall.  To say that Barrett would have handled the constitution issue differently is bizarre as the BC NDP government in 1992 was totally behind Charlottetown, with Harcourt and Sihota playing a leading role in the deal - I have been involved with the BC NDP for over 10 years and there is absolutely no way that Barrett would have opposed the Harcourt government on Charlottetown, had he been federal NDP leader in 1993.

Audrey was the best choice at that convention - I was tempted by Langdon but he also had a weird Meech stance - he said he was privately against it but blasted Audrey and Barrett for being openly anti-Meech as they were breaching caucus solidarity! Audrey said she would cancell NAFTA the day after the election if she became PM, she later took a strong stance against the Iraq war and a brave stance in favour of Charlottetown - a woman of conviction and principle who got caught in the anti-Rae and anti-Harcourt backlash in 1993.  It's funny that posters say Barrett would have done better as leader, he lost his own seat in 1993!!!

Sorry to dredge up some old issues here, but I couldn't let those statements stand without challenge.

John Harney was the Quebec provincial leader of the NDP through most of the 1980s. I spoke to him at the 1989 convention where he was a Quebec delegate. I also spoke to him at length about the convention only a year or so ago. He very clearly told me that most of the Quebec delegates ended up supporting Barrett, in part because it was apparent to them what a weak leader McLaughlin would be.

Let's also remember that in 1988 the NDP got iits best ever result. In 1993 under McLaughlin it got its wosrst ever result. There may have been a few delegates who actually believed McLaughlin was the best candidate at the convention but the prevailing view was:

1. It was important to elect the first woman leader among the major parties and actual ability was secondary

2. Relief that she salvaged a win after  a dasasterous performance at the convention, and

3. We sure hope she grows into the job.

Unfortunately she never did. Anyone who thinks she was a good leader must have been out of the country during the 1993 election.

Although consider how she retained some "honeymoon appeal" into the Ontario provincial election, i.e. I recall some Rae soundclip to the effect that he was the only leader who could photo-op with his federal counterpart without embarrassment.  (Chretien still being "yesterday's man" and Mulroney being, well, Mulroney at the time.)

It may be a minor point, but I think that is quite a gloss on the relationship between Barett and Bob Williams [Lynn Willimas is the former USW head].

For one thing, when Barett lost his own seat, it was Bob Williams that resigned so that Dave could run in the by-election. When one of the VanEast seats opened before the following general election, Dave actively campaigned against Bob getting the nomination.

And thats probably a good example of why Dave had a number of determined enemies- he gave a lot of people good reason to grind axes. Conversely, he was fiercely loyal and relied much on Stupich, so I'll bet you he would have brought Stupich with him had he been Leader.

ETA: I never heard that about Williams allegedly making demands about labour law. Williams had been Natural Resource Minister and was one of the key flash points for opposition to the government. Dave just didn't want him and the memories of that back. And its highly unlikely that Bob would have had any leverage around labour law to be making demands on Barett, let alone expecting to "dictate changes". Noteworthy  that making demands like that is much more Dave Barret's style, than Bob William's style.

I was a candidate in both 1988 and 1993.

The difference between those two elections couldn't have been more stark. But, no one who slammed their door in my face in 1993 was cursing the name of Audrey McLaughlin. They were cursing that of Bob Rae.

If it makes you feel better to blame her for our result and comforts you to think that Barrett would have done better, go right ahead and do so. But, I don't think that you are basing your arguments on any kind of recognizable reality.

I was and it was pre-Internet times, so this stuff is mostly new to me ... but on return to the country A.M. did seem in over her head, yes, maybe like Dion, but without his grasp of policy details

I don't *entirely* agree or disagree -- having a weak federal leader did not help.  A strong federal leader with a strong personal brand might have differentiated the brand somewhat while a weak leader could not help the problem at all. It is unknown to what degree a stronger leader might have done to counteract the problem. I recognize Rae was not an asset at the time but given Rae's own numbers that does not explain the single digit performance of the NDP in Ontario in 1993. The NDP scored just 6% in Ontario. This was no doubt affected by Rae's unpopularity but clearly there was more than that to explain this result.

It is essential to remember that Rae in the 1995 election got just over 20% of the vote for his party. This was two years after the 1993 debacle. Had there been an election in 1993 provincially, the party likely would have done better than that as Rae's popularity (if you want to call it that) was sliding all through that time. I seem to remember the provincial NDP polling around 24% at the time because I remember being shocked that the federal party could not manage more than 25% of the unpopular provincial party.

Upon reminder and reflection-- I'll have to amend to say I disagree-- a strong leader could have avoided that catastrophe-- perhaps 12% and a few seats but not a blow-out of 6% and no seats. The NDP federally is usually closer to 20% in Ontario.

the 1990s were also sui generis with the explosion post-Meech of the old 3-party (or 3 1/2 party) federal system into a 5-party system, which  for a while naturally lowered every party's average,

plus the scare of Lucien Bouchard and the 1995 referendum which played to Nation Saver (tm) Chretien for a while ...

Yeah, and people don't realize how strong the antipathy towards Charlottetown, Quebec ("kwee-beck"), and native rights was across the west, while the resource economy was tanking, and environmentalist were making claims to set aside land while the forest companies funded on-side corporate citizens' movements (staffed by prominent Reform party members) to fight them and the first nations.  Regardless of the position the BC NDP government took in the Charlottetown negotiations, they were well aware of the populist backlash across the province; and don't forget the very hostile media in BC (who dubbed Harcourt "Premier Bonehead" for supposedly not getting the number of BC Senators right in a very hostile scrum) who fed into all of it.

Audrey's association with the so-called "special interest" groups meant it was a virtually impossible sell in our rural seats in BC, and Saskatchewan seats without incumbents (John Solomon in Regina being the exception who proved the rule).  I recognize that Scott was having a completely different experience in Ontario, which actually cared about national unity, although it hated Bob Rae.

To answer Ken S I was in fact referring to Lynn Williams of the Steelworkers and not Bob Williams the former cabinet minisister. Lynn W and most of labour backed Berger in the 1969 leadership struggele which was quite bitter. A long story that still needs to be told in detail.

When Barrett was premier there was a very confrontational meeting with Williams whom Barrett threw out of his office. He demanded that Barrett make certain changes to the labour code that Barrett resisted.

To answer Scott S, to suggest that Barrett would have been a far stronger campaigner than McLaughlin is scarcely avoiding "recognizable reality." Barrett was one of the great crowd-pleasers of all time in Canadian politics. His rallies were always packed in BC because people knew he would give them a show. He was also a formidable debater which is why both Bennetts always avoided debating him.

Audrey on the other hand was just woeful. It may be true that no one cursed her name but that was because no one knew her name. Once she was chosen leader she just dropped out of sight. She seemed to have nothing to say and no facility in saying it. I can't think of of less effective leader of any of the major federal parties, Dion included.

I'd like to weigh in briefly on this topic.

I wasn't that heavily involved in politics back when Audrey became leader - and my recollection is a bit vague. I agree with a lot of the points that have been made about how many of the qualities that Audrey had seemed like the right qualities at the time she was chosen and that no one in 1989 could have predicted how drastically the Canadian political scene would change by 1993 etc...

I agree that she wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, but i think she also gets a bit of a bum rap because she was very much (to say the least) in the wrong place at the wrong time politically and the NDP got crushed in that election for many reasons that were very much beyond her control. It should be recalled that for a period of about a a year and a half in 1990-1991, she was regularly leading the polls as "best person for PM". In fact I think she was a more appealing and a better politician in many ways than her successor Alexa MacDonough - who tends not to be seen as such a total failure because of her Atlantic breakthrough in 1997.

I recently talked with a highly placed Liberal who was involved in the 1993 election campaign who told me that the Liberals were aware that when voters were actually exposed to Audrey - they liked her and her performance in the leaders debate was quite good and some polls had her as one of the top performers.  In fact, the Liberals had a whole strategy to make sure that Audrey was marginalized as much as possible because their research indicated that the more people saw of her the more they liked her.

Anyways, I'm not trying to be an apologist for Audrey McLaughlin - but I think that there is room for some "revisionism" about her performance and she may not have been as bad as many people assume.

So true.

I was there. And torn.

I voted on the first ballot for McCurdy, who seemed the most inspiring contender at the time but later deserted to the Liberals. A lot of Ontario party insiders were with him, so I was quite surprised he only got 10.7% and stood fifth. Maybe some people knew he was not to be trusted? 

Steven Langdon was always great, but his familial tremour made me nervous about his stamina, and I imagine it did others too. But I stuck with him on the second and third ballots. His support from Quebec looked very solid.

Barrett made me nervous as a loose cannon, and had no visible Quebec support -- not one single endorser from Quebec going into the convention. I thought that ruled him out. I assumed Phil Edmonston had good reason to oppose him.

I didn't vote for Audrey just because she was a woman. I voted for her because she had a lot of support, having stood first on every ballot, and seemed to be a viable candidate, more viable than Barrett. But "viable" was hardly good enough, was it? The fact is, there was no really good candidate on the ballot. I don't know why Ed hadn't done more succession planning.

Even though Audrey looks bad after 1993, she looked great initially. Everyone has forgotten her first tests. On Feb. 12 Phil Edmonston not only won the Chambly by-election, but did so with an astonishing 68% of the vote, crushing the respected Clifford Lincoln. The Oshawa by-election was an easy win for Mike Breaugh, who got 48%, up from Ed's 44% in 1988. Then the two by-elections in December 1990 were great: we came a strong second to the Liberal in the hostile territory of York North, and that might have been partly Bob Rae's Ontario honeymoon, but we also got 37% against Jean Chretien in Beausejour, where you would have expected him to waltz home with only token opposition.

The rise of Reform polarized Ontario voters into voting Liberal in 1993, and Bob Rae had wrecked the party by then anyway. Not Audrey's fault, perhaps, although one wonders how Ed would have handled both situations. 

Audrey's problem wasn't unlike Kim Campbell's problem, in the end: she wasn't just a "first female leader", she was the female-leader-as-exotic--and to be bedazzled by exoticism isn't enough when the political savvy doesn't add up.  (Also cf. M. Ignatieff.)

In light of some of the recollections mentioned above about Audrey McLaughlin's performance in the 1993 election I have consulted Frizzell et al: "The Canadian General election of 1883."

A Globe and Mail poll on "best performance" in the leader's debate gave her 7%, last place among the leaders (Chretien 36, Manning 16, Bouchard 13, Campbell 9)

The same poll gave her 5% as best Prime Minister (Chretien 31, Campbell 24, Manning 10, Bouchard 7). A Gallup poll just before the election gave her just 4% as best PM.

The NDP got 6.88% of the popular vote in that election and just 9 seats. This compares with the Green percentage of 6.78% in the 2008 election.

One problem with some of the arguments here is that people are trying to come up with "the" reason for the electoral failure and debating if it was McLaughlin or the provincial issues. Politics does not ever work that way. One problem or advantage makes a moderate change to a result. When you have an extreme result you should always look for several factors working in concert. If any one of those factors had been different the extreme result would not have happened.

The NDP failed then because it had a weak leader unable to address the serious problems facing the party. These included the unpopularity of two NDP provinical governments, the appeal of Chretien to the people who normally voted NDP (what a disapointment he turned out to be for them but the appeal was there at first), the appeal of the Reform party to those who wanted a shake-up (before that the NDP had been the only populist party with any following), A desire to bury the Conservatives that caught fire in the latter part of that campaign,Meech Lake-- where Chretien had been seen as the opponent (many NDPers opposed the deal due to its risk of making future consitutional change impossible and the fear that it would make any new national social program impossible as well as First Nations concerns and social equality issues), the NDP failed to put together a coherent platform for that campaign while the Liberals put out the very populist red book, the NDP had also just lost a popular leader, the Cons attacked Chretien's face in the campaign causing a wave of sympathy for him.

The party could have managed with a weaker leader had those problems not all existed. The party could have managed those problems had it a strong leader (in terms of communications) but the combination was overwealming.

My personal feel was that with Barrett the party would not have suffered so much the way things went. That said he did not have theability to put the party over the top either-- due to enemies he had-- at that point we may as well have kept Broadbent as Barret was not going to take the party anywhere Broadbent could not. If the party had recognized that it needed a leader to help them survive then he would have been the best hope- he was a great fighter and would never have lead the party to a single digit showing. But the party wanted to build on Broadbent's success-- in part he stepped down for that. McLaughlin was not safe but it was hoped she could go to the next level and with a strong party she might have been able but she did not have the wherewithall to deal with a defensive campaign.

So this is much more complicated when you look closely as some seem to want to do.

You can deconstruct the Dion situation in exactly the same way-- with a good platform, good organization, a united party and a good campaign playing to Dion's best attributes he may have still lost but not as badly-- but all those factors went against him and they were added to a well funded NDP campaign, a hostile media-- and he did not have the communications skills to turn it around.

Let's just imagine some of the "what ifs" for the NDP 1989-1993. What if Elijah Harper and Clyde Wells didn't pull their stunts and the Meech Lake accord had passed in early 1990? The BQ would have had no raison d'etre and the NDP would have momentum after winning the Chambly byelection - with no BQ the NDP could conceivably have been well positioned to fill the vacuum in Quebec as Mulroney became increasingly unpopular. If Meech had passed there would have been no Charlottetown referendum and the Reform party probably would have been nothing as well. Also, imagine if the NDP had NOT won that upset election in 1990 in Ontario and so in 1993 the NDP did not have to deal with the Rae fiasco?

The NDP under McLaughlin could have have won 50-odd seats - despite her less than stellar performance.

  David Peterson should saddle some of the blamefor the blowout of 1993 too, after all if he just called a proper election after four years or hell even the max five. He might have weathered the Starr affair and won another term in either 1991 or '92 albeit with a reduced majority. (he did after all score a huge effing win in '87) Rae would have resigned and who knows maybe we'd never have would have known of a Premier Harris but might have heard of a Premier Grier or Lankin or (Richard) Johnston or Wildman or Laughren winning in '96 or '97. Obviously wishful thinking, any scenario minus Bobby Rae is awesome cause I really dislike that man, to use civil language.

The Left was quite divided over Charlottetown.  There were some socialist groups that gave "critical support" to it and the NDP officially supported it, as did the CLC.  But there was opposition from Judy Rebick and the NAC and Mel Hurtig as well, and Barrett himself said that the NDP's support for it was a mistake.  This was way back before I could vote or I had come to my current political consciousness, but I'm curious how others here voted in the referendum.

And Mario Dumont would still have been a Liberal. And the 1995 Quebec referendum would never have happened.

I campaigned for Charlottetown. But I had a feeling of impending doom, that it would not pass in Quebec. The moment when Meech might have been the answer had been missed. Charlottetown was a bit inadequate as a Meech 2.0. So it was, in the end, just as well that Quebec wasn't isolated in rejecting Charlottetown. (Even Nova Scotia rejected it, along with the West -- I don't recall why it didn't fly in Nova Scotia). 

I remember Judy Rebick's news conference on Parliament Hill before the terms of Charlottetown were even negotiated.  She was setting herself up to oppose any Accord regardless of what was in it, and I remember being so disappointed in her (god I was young and naive then), because I had supported her as provincial party president.  Dawn Black booked Room 200 West Block for the National Action Committee to debate their position on the constitution, and because Dawn took a different position got swiped by the same 12-white-guys-in-the-same-room brush from NAC.  There were feminists who supported Charlottetown, but apparently not pure enough ones.

In terms of what the Accord could have accomplished in bringing first nations into the governance of our country, I am very sad to have lost it.  But that referendum was a landmark: it marked the moment that elite politics was forever replaced by populist politics.  Marjorie Bowker's paper on Meech Lake (which was so wrong-headed, but there you have it) was considered more authoritative than anything any politician or lawyer said.  New Democrats in BC were asking me why we weren't supporting the very progressive Clyde Wells (I lost my lunch on the spot).

The Reform party opened up a lot of national wounds during that time, the results of which we're still feeling.  Chretien was wise to shut down all constitution talk after that, and although he also dropped the ball on the 1995 referendum, we're just lucky we came out of that whole period unscathed by civil war.

Thank goodness, is all I can say, that those days are behind us.  Let's all take the lessons not to descend into any such awful morass again.

let"s not forget the famous trudeau speech at "la maison egg roll" as well.

I voted NO.

I voted Yes to Charlottetown. It wasn't perfect, but it had some good things in it including a social charter etc... and at the time I just wanted the 6 year constitutional nightmare to come to an end. I found a lot of the criticisms of the accord by people like Judy Rebick were these typical useless "the perfect is the enemy of the good" -type arguments (i.e. unless the accord has everything but the kitchen sink in it and single handedly solves every inequity in the country with the stroke of a pen - let's ditch it and go back to the status quo).

The problem with these constitutional packages are that in order to get past the federal government and all ten premiers, they have to become these incredibly complex jerry-built structures with hundreds of provisions. Then you have referenda in every province and in a document with 200 provisions - most people only need to find ONE thing they don't like to make them vote NO - then it does a death of a thousand cuts.

Yup.

I voted no on Charlottetown.

I too was at the convention in Winnipeg.  I voted Langdon on my first ballot and McLaughlin on the others.  No regrets.

I went to Winnipeg because "identity politics" was/is important to me.  I felt it was time to elect a woman leader because, in time, we would be able to elect a gay leader.  Had I known that Ian Waddell was gay, he would have gotten my vote.  Such is the price of staying in the closet...

The thing I remember about Winnipeg is that it was unseasonably warm for early December and that Glen Murray, who at the time was a New Democrat, took some of the gay delegates to a couple of gay bars.

It just goes to show that the worst thing you can do is to pick a leader purely because of their demographic profile as opposed to their political skills. The Tories made the same mistake. They looked at Kim Campbell and thought She's a woman - check, she's from the west - check, she's bilingual (maybe to someone who doesn't speak French well enough to notice her dreadful accent)- check - and OK, she has all the check marks - let's make her leader! No one bothered to look at her total lack of political skills or the fact the she apparently had a horrible personality and would regularly have temper tantrums and hurl typewriters at people (shades of George Smitherman) and that she had been a disaster in each cabinet portfolio she occupied.

Let's not forget that around that same time the Ontario Liberals picked that bread-dead homophobic zombie Lyn McLeod to be their leader for no other reason than that she was a women (and if you saw McLeod in action you would be hardpressed to find a single solitary redeeming feature in her apart from her gender - she had NOTHING to offer as a political leader NOTHING). She also flopped and we got Mike Harris.

The job of party leader is one where having absolutely top-notch political skills is of critical importtance. When parties get carried aay with identity politics and start picking leaders for no other reason than that they are women or from some other equity seeking group - they not only lose - but they set the cause of equality for women way back since a mythology get created that women can't win etc...

Unfortunately by 1996 that mythology began to set and so when the ONDP was looking for a successor to Bob Rae, many delegates turned away from Frances Lankin - even though she was vastly more politically skilled than Howard Hampton. People looked at the Campbell/McLaughlin/McLeod fiascos and concluded that "women can't win" - and they rejected the one woman who actuall should have won!!

I agree with most of what you say, Stockholm.  However, identity politics wouldn't have been necessary if politics weren't such a straight, white, male domain.  

Don't forget another symbolic "woman leader fiasco": none other than the first "woman premier", Bill Vander Zalm's successor Rita Johnston...

OCSI, I now make a distinction (didn't back during that leadership convention, mind you) between "identity politics" per se, and the need to ensure participation from a more diverse group of backgrounds.  The identity can't stand in for the actual policy positions and political skills, the way I now look at things.  Before it used to be enough for me if the candidate was a woman.  Now I'm looking for a capable politician who can advance the agenda I support.  We just improve our chances of finding those people, if we don't limit ourselves to straight, white, able-bodied men, and thus we should do everything we can to encourage and assist folks from other backgrounds to break into the field.

For me it wasn't just identity politics.  Of course the person had to be a New Democrat and preferably a socialist if they wanted my vote.  Twenty years ago such a distinction was very important.  Today, it's not such a big deal and I can again focus mainly on the politics and their positions.

That wasn't a factor for me or anyone else I remember. For our area, the Rae government had been a disaster twice over. Even before the Social Contract. It had closed several agencies in our riding and we had no recourse because no one in authority had the job of speaking with "opposition ridings." It was the most Toronto-centric government any of us had ever seen. Frances Lankin may have had good skills for Toronto, but not for ridings like ours. Howie at least knew what we were talking about.

Except for not being Murray Elston, who might have been a fine leader but was even more uninspiring than her. There's a reason she overtook his 73-vote lead on the first ballot to beat him by nine votes on the fifth ballot, even though Sorbara's delegates split 48/33 in favour of Elston: delegates for David Ramsay, Steve Mahoney and Charles Beer all split in McLeod's direction. They were objective delegates who concluded she had more to offer than Elston. I doubt any significant number of them chose her "for no other reason than that she was a woman."