Hébert: After seven years, real power still eludes Jack Layton

That seems reasonable, and I won't argue against it. It only becomes problematic when everyone else doesn't really seem to be uptaking those views, and results in the polls suffer. Actually, I guess that's not the problem either, it's when these people decide instead that they want to win seats. Then the debate begins: will moving further left get us those seats? Will moving further right get us those seats?

I would agree that there's no use in being exactly like an already established party. But should the NDP become more like the Libs, in the hope of picking up swing voters in the gap, or move more to the left, and hope to pick up voters on the other side? I get the sense that NDP supporters already to the left of the NDP are pretty convinced that moving further to the left will be the magic bullet, and of course the rest are more likely to promote a shift to the right.

My original point was just that IMHO, the core group (and all I mean by them are the people who will vote, and perhaps verbally support, the NDP -- not necessarily card-carrying members) doesn't typically support a shift to the right, even though (and again, this is MHO) the pool of undecided voters would be much larger on the righthand side of the NDP, toward that hump in the bell curve.

By Liberal and Tory voters whose votes are wasted across Canada. Millions of votes are wasted every election. Whole regions of Canada are typically represented by MPs from one party alone and who rarely win their ridings by a majority of votes. More people vote against FPTP winners than for as a general rule.

One of the pieces missing in this discussion is the issue of party identifiers and how they vote.  I'm not the expert on this, but here's what I'm advised by a political scientist.

The Canada Election Study after each campaigns does a series of intensive interviews.  One are is to determine the individual's party identification as distinct from how they vote.  Of the three main national parties, the NDP has consistently had the lowest retention of those those who identify as New Democrats.

That is to say that a person who identifies as Conservative or a person who identifies as Liberal is more like to vote for the Conservative or Liberal party than a person who identifies as a New Democrat is to vote for the New Democratic Party.

The second part of this is that much of that lost vote is due to what my friend calls the "hygiene" issues - ie, the issues that make us too dirty to vote for for some voters - even voters who otherwise like us.

The hygiene issues principally have to do with economic / fiscal credibility.  We are not seen as people who can manage a budget or lead a government.

In part, this is because most Canadians haven't seen the effective job we've done in various provinces.  They've never seen it federally.  But they have seen the massive cock-up called Bob Rae.

We need to address the hygiene issues and we need to work on retaining more of "our" voters.

And, of course, we need to get more people to see themselves as NDP or potential NDP voters.  Which is what the NSNDP spent the 90s and 00s doing.

I lived in Hamilton throughout the Rae years, and I don't think it was a "massive cock-up" at all. To my eyes, it was a competent, progressive government, trying to do its best in a very bad economy. Predictably, it was knee-capped by a press that was exclusively Tory and Liberal. Too many dippers have bought into this phony story of incompetence. And unfortunately, Malcolm, you seem to be one of them.

It was a curious government which seemed to believe that Ontario New Democrats had nothing to learn from New Democrats elsewhere who had actually run governments.  The cold shoulder extended to people like Allan Blakeney and Howard Pawley is a matter of record.  Bobo even confessed to it himself in his first memoire.

I'm afraid I know nothing about the "inside baseball" of the NDP, since I am not a member of any party. I don't question your assertions about that. I'm merely stating how I perceived the performance of the Rae government as a resident of Ontario. It may be that they could have done better by learning from those western NDP governments that you mention, but I suspect the ultimate outcome would have been much the same.

The one thing I remember quite clearly is when Rae caved when the insurance industry came calling. It was a pathetic display of cowardice in my opinion.

Did Rae have the ONDP caucus tied up in the cellar or something? I mean, I know how important it is to let Rae take the sins and failures with him when he goes, but is it really realistic to pretend that he, alone, was responsible for the ONDP's performance?

I pointed out recently (and never fail to find amusing) that NDP supporters, looking back, can find a dozen reasons why the NDP failed to live up to their potential and their promises. Even after four years to find a way around their challenges, they're basically forgiven for not having done so. But Barack Obama is already being declared a washout, less than 1/4 of the way into his term. He didn't inherit an impossibly shitty financial environment and a deficit too? At the very least, let's be consistent and rip on the NDP for being a bunch of liars who said one thing and did another, and screw the "sun was in my eyes" aplogia on their behalf.

I remember that within days of the NDP winning huge billboards went up in the GTA with the slogan "Taxed off at Bob Rae" The issue was of course the introduction of the federal GST but the smart Bay Street Boys were able to figure out that enough voters were stupid enough that they could pin that on a provincial premier because a tax increase has to come from a New Democrat not a Conservative. The level of dishonesty that followed was mind-blowing.

The NDP became the test case as to why you have to do a budget statement before you make any budget changes when you are a new government. The Liberals left the province in the black so they said but the NDP discovered on taking office that the province was already in the red by some 7 Billion in committed spending. To make matters worse the province had lost a pay equity battle the NDP were not going to challenge and had lost in court some land claims issues-- the settling of these two took another 1.5 billion. the changes to the economy due to so called Free trade and the recession brought the total over 9 billion. The NDP did not add anything of substance that was avoidable and they had a $9 billion deficit.

Thanks to Free Trade adjustments (enterprises being wiped out like Ontario's shoe industry) and a recession things got worse.

At the time Labour allowed no concessions having fought to elect an NDP government they did not want to take a hit from it.  Rae presented an extremely uncompromising and arrogant front (many people have reported how his people-skills (or lack thereof made things worse). In my opinion both Rae and the labour unions BOTH behaved very badly and unrealistically. I am also not against the concept even of Rae days as an alternative to mass layoffs (the Harris solution). Unfortunately Rae did not understand that he needed to prove that there was no other option (I hear he really did not try). As well, the unions had proposals on the table to save some money but the Rae government did not consider them according to some reports. I have heard that they would not have been enough, however. The impression I have is that both the NDP and the unions were in a terrible position and neither played ti very well-- both alternated between taking the other for granted and being offended by the position and realities of the other.

On balance, I don't think the Ontario was a bad government or the Rae was a bad premier not withstanding the above. The Ontario economy was in full recovery and headed towards a balanced budget when the NDP was defeated (few remember this but most economists acknowledged the NDP had steered the province through the bad patch and was coming out of it).

The NDP botched strategy, communications and its most important relationships. It chickened out on a couple fronts. However, overall the government was not incompetent and certainly not any worse than any other government Ontario had in management. That said no government of Ontario has ever had such challenges-- a bad economy, huge economic changes due to Free Trade, political attacks from everywhere, and critical priorities to balance.

A lot of people forget those days-- I remember them well they were very painful. To this day I think it was a terrible luck that the first Ontario government in the province's history to give a shit about the people of the province got elected in the worst economic client the province ever experienced -- of course now it looks like we may see a second chapter of misery coming to Ontario.

As for the Obama comparison there is far to little in common to make a fair comparison. I will not start to compare the circumstances of a US national government with a provincial Canadian one. I think an attempt to do so would be a distraction here.

Perfectly arguable position in a debate. However, an employer is allowed to conduct mass layoffs without union consent. It is NOT allowed to tear up negotiated signed collective agreements and impose "Rae days". Was this rocket science?

Also, I didn't hear your explanation as to why the NDP government broke its promise to institute public auto insurance.

While you're at it, explain why the government allowed a free vote guaranteeing the defeat of the bill on same-sex benefits.

In my biased opinion, the lesson of that period is important: Any so-called "ally" who reaches the heights of power and betrays those who put them there will be destroyed - and they may not recover for decades. That means we get Mike Harris instead? That seeming irony should help to drive the lesson home.

OK, so if you are the head of a public sector union, what do you do when the government says. "We have no money and we have two choices - either you agree to all of your members taking "Rae days" or we will have no choice but to lay off tens of thousands of your members. what do you choose?"

That is not how negotiations work.  There is always a compromise somewhere if people don't get entrenched and it usually involves trading in other areas of the CA if there is specific hot button issue.  Take or leave it offers are not in any sense a negotiation.

Were the unions willing to negotiate at the time or was their reaction take it or leave it as well? I don't know, I';m asking.

Ok-- I am not defending the Rae government for everything it did wrong. I am saying it was not the worst government ever and its failures were more in terms of relationships in part due to the arrogance of Rae-- you wanted more explanation than that? Rae was right I believe that the Rae days were a better option. They should not have been imposed. They were not negotiated.

As for the auto insurance promise-- this was a long-time NDP promise. The FTA was very new and the insurance companies were promising to sue the Ontario government for all their lost business. The government decided not to take on that battle on top of everything else. I don't know if the decision was simply to wait till later or to never do it. I do know the province was seeking legal advice at the time as to the meaning of those provisions. I did not see the legal advice they received as it was not public (and could not be made public without compromising the ability to try later). I understood that these clauses of the FTA had not been tested in the courts and the government of Ontario did not want to test them on auto insurance where a mistake would cost the people of Ontario billions. The NDP may have been right to postpone the decision and they may have been limited in what they could say but it certainly appears that they blew the communications on that one. I don't think that the facts behind that decision are in the public domain.

As for the same sex benefits debate-- I don't remember now why the NDP did that-- I do know the party was split. It was disappointing. There was a debate in the left at the time in terms of how far to go-- many people who in hindsight ought to have known better did not . Many NDP supporters were against adoption rights for example. Of course the premier and the government should have shown leadership and voted as a government for the bill.

I don't dispute that lesson as you put it but I think there were some lessons for all concerned as I don't think the NDP was alone in making mistakes. I do think that the public labour unions misplayed the situation to their own great loss. This does not excuse Rae.

My point here is this is not an exercise in black and white-- the NDP had some huge failures but let's not pretend that they were entirely at faulty for them or that they did not do some things well. While expectations were high and they did not meet them-- on balance they were not the awful worst government ever that opponents have made them out to be. I was angry with them on several counts as well-- but I still went and voted for the NDP in Ontario in 1995 because they remained the best alternative available and many people forgot that.

After thirty-four years of punditry, REALITY still eludes Chantal Hebert.

The unions were presented with an ultimatum not a negotiation and as Unionist point out-- even if Rae was right this was something that needed to be negotiated. -- Rae behaved very, very badly. This is not a black and white issue. My support for the concept of Rae days as a last option before laying people off is based on the concept of job sharing where there is no other choice.This needs to be negotiated following real disclosure that there are no other alternatives. That was not done.

I do not support unilaterally contravening collective agreements. I do not support the NDP's unwillingness to acknowledge that such a measure required an understanding that the NDP and the unions needed to go in as partners with other options considered first. Problem was that I remember several unions stating flatly that they would never, ever make concessions to the NDP and were prepared to fight everything the government proposed.

The unions ought to have known what the political alternatives were- problem is Rae made cooperation extremely difficult given the approach and abrasiveness.

So the NDP was wrong to force a concession rather than negotiating it and the unions were wrong not to understand that a negotiation of some kind was unavoidable if layoffs were to be avoided. The NDP at the time stated that it did not have the time to discuss the issues when the unions were stating that there is no way they would give up anything. The unemployment levels in the province were so high that something needed to be done and layoffs were not an option but neither was the union's position that the public would accept that the unions not be

Neither side did what was needed. I'll grant that the greatest responsibility was on the government as it was a government problem and a government initiative. But the unions coming out with flat refusals to consider anything other than business as usual in the circumstances also made no sense.

There was a lot of anger on both sides at the time. Surely enough time has passed for people to start to realize that there were problems on both sides.

You know, Sean, I plough through acres of apologia on this board over the years for NDP oppositions, and provincial governments, which have to make concessions to big business and preach and practise neoliberal economics in order to (get elected)/(stay elected).

It would have been really neat for the ONDP to have said: "Well, we can't quite get everything we need in bargaining with our employees, so we'll make a concession - we won't tear up your contracts, and we'll find the money somewhere else."

Instead, they plummeted from first to third party status, and have stayed there for 15 years.

Did the unions do anything "wrong"? As a lifelong trade unionist, I would suffer cardiac arrest if I learned that they did not. But nothing justifies what the government did.

I think I mentioned that this is not rocket science.

Yeah, well I think the unions generally support the ONDP - no? How about the ONDP promising publicly that they will never do this again. Is that what you mean by people starting to realize something?

I think what Sean says makes a lot of sense.

As a youngish public sector union leader I was outraged by some NDP government actions and publicly left the party for a number of years.

What did we do to teach the NDP a lesson. 

Help elect Mike Harris. 

And I do mean help to elect him.  I worked in that election and the number of teachers, union members and political activists that voted for Mike Harris was astounding.  I remember the large number of people I was working with on social assistance who also voted for Harris because it was all the other 'welfare bums' who were ripping off the system- not them  (and yes that was the term I remember them saying).  Many outraged by Harris conveniently forget the role they themselves played in electing Harris.  The worse group for this of course is teachers, but public sector workers are not far behind.

Boy did it ever teach the NDP a lesson when we  woke up to a Harris government following the election.  Roll eyes here.

Looking back both the NDP and Labour made enormous mistakes.  And let's be honest.  No one expected an NDP win.  Going into that snap election call the buzz was about just how big and enormous a majority would Peterson get.  There were many people elected that were only doing the party stalwart thing and showing the colours and expected to be little more than sacrificial lambs  Once they suddenly became elected they were just plain not ready and they looked to Rae for leadership, that he unfortunately failed to provide on many fronts.  That left a number of MPPs just doing what Rae told them was the right thing, because they were naive enough to buy into it.

If I learned anything from those years is that perfection is rarely acheived and whining for it at the expense of what you CAN achieve has major costs (Harris) and that those in the NDP need to be far less naive about a lot of things, including the lengths to which the still existent family compact will go to to ensure their power and priviledge continues.  And finally I learned if you are going to be a candidate you better be in it to win and have a pretty solid idea of what specific things you want to work on and acheive, because weird things can happen.  It is advice I give anyone considering being a candidate.

Bringing this back to the point of the thread it is clear to me that Jack Layton gets this last part and has steadily working, within the restrictions placed on the NDP and the times we live in, to move the puck forward, to score a few times and we will see how things shake out when the game is actually done.  Hebert is prognosticating on a game that clearly has a least a 3rd period to play and maybe more besides.  It must be great to have a crystal ball.

It may be that Rae was probably more interested in showing that the NDP wouldn't be a "labour" government than he was in actually trying to work things out with the unions.  Perhaps we could also ponder if Rae had already secretly decided that his federal future lay with the Liberals (the party he had started in, years before) and hoped that it might impress them if he submarined his own government and thus made it easier for Chretien to get a majority in 1993(rather than being held to a minority and then having to work with the NDP on some issues).

Ken, your hypothesis depends on Rae being the sole decision-maker during that period.

We have lots of work to do.

NDP popular vote election results by province/territory

Party / 2008 / Position / 2006 / Position

CA - 18.2%, 3rd, 17.48%, 3rd

BC - 26.07%, 2nd, 28.52%, 2nd

AB- 12.71%, 2nd, 11.68%, 3rd

SK - 25.62%, 2nd, 24.05%, 2nd

MA- 24.04%, 2nd, 25.38%, 3rd

ON - 18.21%, 3rd, 19.45%, 3rd

QC - 12.18%, 4th, 7.49%, 4th

NB - 21.88%, 3rd, 21.92%, 3rd

NS - 28.93%, 2nd, 29.85%, 2nd

NL - 33.86%, 2nd, 13.57%, 3rd

PE - 9.75%, 3rd, 9.56%, 3rd

YK - 9%, 4th, 23.85%, 2nd - what's going on here!!!

WA - 41.45%, 1st, 42.16%, 1st 

NU - 27.62%, 3rd, 17.15%, 3rd 

As premier, he would have driven the process, wouldn't he?

As I understand the parliamentary system, the head of government(a premier, in this case)is "first among equals", which means he takes input from others but it's his call in the end.

Who else within the ONDP would have wanted to push for a politically suicidal confrontation with the unions?  Who else, in the end, gained from it?

I'm willing to listen to other evidence, but Rae's path since 1990 seems...well, awfully CONVENIENT for the guy.  A little weird to think it just happened to work out this way.

Unionist's approach makes more sene.

Even in our leader/premeir focused political system, a Premeir's 'secret agenda' hidden from his clleagues just isnt feasible.

Give me a minute.

So do I BA and well said.....especially the "perfection" portion, it seems some people use this extremism all the time in order to 'supposedly' vilify, frankly it says more about them.

Unionist, you don't get to just let that hang out there (the bold part).  You have to say where you would have found the money; what else you would have cut.  I get all the part about how it should have been negotiated and the two should have worked in partnership.   But you gotta say where else the money to pay for it should have come from.  And it's got to be reasonable AND progressive.

Or, if you want to run up the deficit to pay for public sector wages and benefits, you gotta fess up that this means letting the bankers and the bond-holders call even more of the shots in terms of provincial government public policy, and paying higher interest costs.

I've probably ploughed through an equal amount of left-wing self-righteousness about the so-called concessions made by their partners in social democratic political parties.  But really the two outfits have different roles to play.  Governments must allocate the people's resources equitably amongst the people.  All of them.  When those resources are in sharp decline, it's obviously going to get heated.  I don't claim that Bob Rae had the best relationships with people, but the position that many of the unions took at the time was completely counterproductive to their own members' long-term self-interest, which is what often happens when people act out of spite and revenge instead of an appeal to a greater public good.

Combining Rae's capitulation to the insurance industry, with the attack on organized labour, the NDP never stood a chance. And not only that, let's face it, the NDP has never ever recovered in Ontario. If someone had purposely set out to destroy the NDP they could not have done a better job. And OO there is always $ for the rich people's games, it's just when there is some attempt at redistribution of the wealth that the money well dries up.

No, you totally missed the point. It's the government's job to solve fiscal and budgetary problems. If the only way they could possibly do it is by draconian actions to deprive workers of fundamental rights - which I don't believe for an instant - then they should still not do it. They should resign in failure. It's like saying, "well, for social peace, we needed to tell Muslims they couldn't build any more of them mosque things for a while". Unless you deeply fail to believe that workers have rights, you will grasp what I'm saying.

No, that's crap. I never said they "should have worked in partnership". They did friggin' "work in partnership" when they freely negotiated collective agreements with specified terms. The workers were entitled to have those agreements respected during those terms - were they not? What would they have done if they didn't like the wage increases or benefits they had bargained - tear them up and go on strike? No, that would be unlawful - a concept that you should really reflect upon.

The position that the unions/workers decide to take on any issue whatsoever is their business. Sort of like your decision as to whom to marry or what groceries to buy or what God to believe in or not. You are fully entitled to your own opinion as to whether the unions are right or wrong. But you are not entitled to impose your opinion on those who have to live with the consequences of your no-doubt brilliant and elevated ideas.

Governments should not do so either - but the government of Bob Rae and his cronies betrayed their promises and their legal and moral obligations, because they chose some illusory "greater public good". Having done so, they should live or die with their decision. They have died with it. For 15 years. And unless and until they reject notions like yours, they will continue to languish in their richly-deserved wilderness.

It has already been pointed out that mass layoffs is less draconian than the Rae Days were. That is because collective agreements anticipate layoffs but not job sharing.

Because of this fact, it is a bigger deal that Rae did what he did than even what Harris did even though the damage to people's lives was more serious from Harris' actions.

I can not accept that job sharing in a crisis is worse than layoffs but I can accept that unegotiated it is. The reason of course is where do you stop -- what other rights could they take away and what is an agreement worth otherwise?

I am not defending Rae for having imposed the Rae days even if in the end they might have been a fair result if negotiated.

I also think the government could have given up something in exchange for those Rae days (something that would have kicked in upon recovery and no doubt if they had been negotiated there would have been something. I don't have a problem with changing an agreement if both sides have a purpose in it-- and job security in a recession is not that bad even in itself.

I am not sure Unionist that you have seen past my acknowledgement that the Rae days could have been a reasonable solution had they been negotiated. Beyond that is my agreement that the imposition was unforgivable, that it should have been negotiated (including with a benefit, that the government should have come to the table with a discussion of alternatives (it didn't). Many unions have given up some things to save jobs or in order to get other things-- that is not a problem if negotiations are in good faith.

Now what the unions did wrong? Well I think they should not have been as strident about no concessions. I think they could have pressed harder for the government to make a case, for the government to do other things first and to get other concessions in return. Worst though-- when the NDP did the did, instead of going to support other parties-- they could have had the fight within the NDP-- there is a means to do that and the party leadership would have paid dearly if the unions had gone that route as well. I think the point got lost when many helped elect Harris.

Well, we well and truly have identified our points of disagreement, Unionist, that's for sure.  You're saying that even if the bottom was falling out of the provincial economy and finances, the government should have lived up to those collective agreements come hell or high water; damn the consequences for any other resident of the province, and then throw up their hands and resign on principle.  And that the public service unions were right to expect them to do this.  And that any other conception of the public good is illusory.

I can't say that there are very many situations in which I think that the breaking of a collective agreement is the only choice, and I sure don't consider it to be the first choice in any situation.  But as a member of a public sector union myself, if the arse was out of 'er, as they say, I'd be more likely to agree to unpaid days off than to paycuts for the same work hours, or god forbid a layoff, or pension rollbacks.

Your opinion as a union member is duly noted, OO, but you're supposed to go to the meetings and get the union to agree with you. If you can't win your argument, you suffer under the dictatorship of the majority. You don't applaud the government for adopting and enforcing your minority viewpoint against your sisters and brothers.

Aside from that, you cross-posted with Sean. Please read his well-thought-out views on the crushing of workers' rights. I agree with his comments, fully.

If y'all don't believe in machiavellian strings being pulled, I can't engage.

Unionist, it is a good post, and I agree with much of it too.  I just can't put process over outcome when it comes right down to it, at the end of the day.  I guess I'm willing to give up a bit more to maintain the peace, because I've already had enough conflict for a lifetime.

Well, I won't tell Stephen Harper that if you don't, because that's the outcome he's yearning for.

And as I suspected, you view the right to collective bargaining and respect for agreements and not betraying one's allies as "process". That puts you unfortunately on the opposite side of what I've fought for (sorry for that conflictual terminology) all my life (and no, I haven't had enough conflict for a lifetime).

I think it's when you add the phrase "and not betraying one's allies" that you lose me.  An NDP government has multiple allies, many of whom were also seriously hurt as a result of the precipitous decline in the Ontario economy and the province's finances, and who had a lot less of a cushion to fall back on than unionized public sector employees.

Ok, remove the phrase "and not betraying one's allies" from my post. What then?

Is a government allowed to trample on workers' Charter rights (at least if you believe the Supreme Court) in order to deal with a decline in the economy, on the grounds that other workers have "less of a cushion to fall back on"?

Why didn't they just enact a temporary progressive surtax on (personal and corporate) incomes to deal with the crisis? No issues of human rights or Charter rights involved there? That way, lots more people would have to share the social burden in a difficult time.

Well, I'll tell you why they didn't do that. Because it's easier to attack your own employees. Every boss does that, right? And politically it's much more popular, right? Pretty well guarantees lots of anti-union votes come election time.

OO, you may have many arguments as to why you think the sacrifice requested of public sector workers was a sensible one, a least among evils. I have yet to hear your response on the only issue that matters to me - that is, how a supposedly democratic party and government can get fed up and just take away people's rights. And how some people here can blame those workers (and many others, not affected by the government's actions) for concluding that this party is not their friend, not even a lesser among enemies.

Unionist, you keep mixing 'things that should not be done by a social democratic or self described progressive government' with 'why didn't they just ______'.

Problems is that the latter are just toss offs. You excuse yourself from even the most minimal rigour in whether the latter are doable, which includes whether the government in question can do it and survive. Literally.

Its fundamental that in governing politics there is no such thing as a "temporary tax increase". And based on past experience, citizens have every reason to simply dismiss the "temporary" part. Its not about 'buying votes'. Which by the way is a gratuitous poke in the eye on your part.

I don't care about the temporary tax increase, Ken. You may be right. You may be wrong. That was purely a knockoff. I was just giving an example of something a government may lawfully do without violating anyone's Charter rights.

So, you jumped on this example - apparently because it doesn't require you to deal with the only question I was discussing, which is: After the debate is over, does the government get to tear up the collective agreement? I've heard Sean's reply and OO's. What's yours?

This whole episode taught me a lot about human nature. What I learned was that if you are the provincial government and let's say you have 100,000 employees and you are in a fiscal crisis and need to cut the public payroll by 10% - if you cut all 100,000 workers wages by 10% - you get all 100,000 furious at you. If on the other hand, you fire 10,000 people and totally destroy their lives, that 10,000 is sad and the other 90,000 is dancing a jig of glee because they kept their jobs.

The lesson is  - never try to have people share the pain equally - instead destroy 10% of the workdforce and the other 90% will be grateful to you for sparing them

Bottom line:

I also agree with Seans post. But it doesn't actually say what you do in the end.

You should stick to your bottom line: that faced with no other alternatives, a social democratic government should just resign. While its fair for you to say that all I've done is deflate your one example of alternative actions, I have never seen you even semi-rigorously approach governments [or parties] dealing with choosing among choices, none of which is desirable. While with the same shoe on the foot of trade unions, you are what I consider to be disciplined.

My bottom line: I wouldn't choose to have the government resign, or go down with the ship rather than steer around the icebergs to sail in the smelly waters.

.

I guess you're just misreading or misquoting this:

You missed the "which I don't believe for an instant". As for my knockoff proposal of a temporary progressive tax increase, let me amend that: A PERMANENT progressive tax increase, to stimulate the economy and preserve necessary social programs. The ONDP government couldn't have done such a thing... because... because... ummm...

Oh, I know... Read Stockholm's post above. He candidly gave you the answer. Better to stick it to the Charter and to the ILO - and get cheers from the "less fortunate" - than raise taxes. And dream that you will get some kudos from the business pages of the MSM.

Fifteen years of wilderness is the reward for trying to outdo the Liberals and Conservatives at their own game. And to this day, they haven't retracted what they did or promised not to do it again.

Unless the smelly waters smell of a tax increase, right? There are some shoals that strike fear in the heart of the most skillful mariner.

You aren't being honest Unionist. Your bottom line IS that you would never do it, it should never be done.

Your insistence that there was something else that oculd be done is just that- your insistence which you give no disciplined thought to whatsoever. Like I said: if the same shoe is on the foot of trade unions- no good choices available- you take an entirely different approach.

When you say "there was something else that could be done" you deserve to be dismissed. Because you are habitually dismissive in your thinking.

Did the Rae government have other choices? Yes, I think so. But your insistence that there was something else, counts for little in itself.

If respecting a collective agreement meant endangering the health or safety of the public, then government can and should act, if the workers won't. Not otherwise. So please, if you don't know what my "bottom line" is, why not just ask instead of mindreading?

In the case of the "Social Contract", there was utterly and absolutely no need, except to make a show of getting tough. It didn't work.

Raise taxes on a progressive basis. Tell Ontarians: "The wealthy and powerful created this recession - your government will require them to do the heavy lifting to get us out of it."

You haven't said why that wouldn't work. I'm waiting. This should be good.

Well, I've repeated it three times now. But you haven't yet even hinted that tearing up a collective agreement (and of course the right to strike along with it) wasn't an appropriate choice. What I find ironic, Ken, is that you apparently think it's ok for an NDP government to do that - but when a union voluntarily gives up the right to strike as a method to break into an industry, I seem to recall your having a lot to say about that.

Like I said, nothing more than gratuitous pokes in the eye.

In numerous discussions we've both been in, I've made the point thats its not about impressing bankers or the business press. The downside fears for the NDP are how their own supporters will react to the party raising the issue of tax increases- and union members in particular being just as prone to that as other supporters.

This remains difficult because the NDP government had a responsibility to the jobless, the ill, seniors (one the Harris government did not feel).

I have said I preferred the Rae days as a result, that I hated the process and the process is not a detail inasmuch as democracy is not a detail.

I would not have had the government resign. I would have had the government come to the table with al options open try to negotiate -- then failing that if there truly was no other way then come with the layoffs, clearly making the case that the vulnerable people in the provicne required that-- and include the reality that everyone was suffereing including non-public sector unions and everyone had to give. Then in the absense of negotiations provide the layoffs stating if the unions wanted a job sharing alternative they only had to come to the table and negotiate it.

So I am not saying the government shold have just done whatever the unions wanted. I would have hoped that the unions would have taken the negotiated job sharing option rather than layoffs but this is not a chocie the governemnt could impose-- on that I'm in agreement with unionist.

I also, suspect that there was no choice-- both politically and economically to some kind of union consession but it is a default position of employers to say such a thing. However I would not take that on faith. For that reason the government needed to have come to the table with a real case for it and an open mind should the union have another plan that could work. But the union needed to understand the political and economic climate better than they did.

All this said, my opening point was while what the government did was terrible, it was in a very bad context and the government made many good decisions during that time as well. I would go so far as to say the government's idea of the Rae days was a sound alternative to layoffs and ought to be used in place of layoffs. I would not label the entire government as a failure for that. I did not withdraw my support-- rather I would have wanted to see an accounting for those decisions from the individuals who made them. I would not make this in to a bat to beat the NDP with 15 years later. I would keep the perspective that no other party would have done better.

Indeed the Rae days would have been brilliant if the union had proposed them rather than imposed on them.

I think the government could have put them on the table and said this is the preferred option but admitted that it could not do them alone and the alternative was a layoff and then gone with the layoff had the union not moved.

The problem was Rae thought he knew best and while he was right he could not accept tha tthe choice was not his to make. Still I am not willing to hang the government's reputation for this 15 years after the fact. Rae should have lost his job over it-- the party should not have lost the support of the unions who needed to take some responsibility for being constructive in a time of crisis as well.

Another issue we have not discussed is the result of the cutbacks of the time both from Harris and Rae. We lost an entire generation of public servants including healthcare workers. The cohort that is retiring as our public sector ages is a much greater segment of our workforce than it otherwise would have been. That is a consequence of a seniority based job security. There are good reasons for seniority bvased job security that I hope I donèt have to bring up here of all places. But the problem with it when you have a employer monopoly in a job market such as health care is significant. In those circumstances, mass layoffs should never happen. It is incumbant on the employer to manage over time the workforce such that major layoffs or hiring freezes do not happen so you can keep the workforce balanced between all generations. Perhaps to that end the collective agreements should have a clause of Rae days in them as an alternative to layoffs. Of course there would need to be clear circumstances laid out so the employer could not use the clause whenever it wanted-- in return mass public service layoffs should be written out of the contracts. I would prefer to see the employer have an option for a limited number of Rae days in a year than have carte blanche on layoffs that can undermine a whole profession. I know this might be controversial but what do you think? In exchange for layoffs no longer being an employer prerogative would this be a reasonable concession?

I realize that a lot of this conversation probably should not be here as it belongs in the labour thread. It certainly has nothing to do with Layton. I guess it is about where labour and politics meet and how to define the role of employer in the public sector. The government as an employer holds a lot of power because not only can they act as any other employer they can change the law at will. It takes a lot of restraint for a government to be responsible with that power and few ever have.

Fact is the Ontario NDP did have other choices-- I don't know if they could have eliminated the Rae days but they certainly could have reduced them. I would not have blamed the better off people in the province for having caused the recession-- I think it was wider than that. However, well off people here have never paid their share anyway so I am all for more progressive taxation.

Rae went to labour becuase he thought it was a captive audience and he was trying to make a point. There are other measures that ought to have come with the Rae days and they did not and I've already said that as brilliant they may have been as a solution they ought not to have been imposed.