In the 1999 Ontario election, the New Democratic Party earned13 per cent of the popular vote and won nine out of 103 seats at Queen’s Park. Thisyear, the party increased its share of the popular vote by two per cent, but its seattotal fell by two. This left the party with one seat fewer than the eight seatcutoff for what the Legislative Assembly Act calls a “recognized party” butis more commonly called “official party status.”

Given that Dalton McGuinty was on the record as promising to“respect and draw on the talents and expertise of every electedrepresentative, including opposition members,” given that he had lamentedpublic cynicism about democracy, and given that he has appointed a CabinetMinister to be responsible for democratic renewal, one might have expectedthat he would make an exception to that rule. No way, says McGuinty: “Wewill respect the people’s wishes. There was a rule in place. That rule hasbeen changed once already.”

That statement is partially true; the thresholdwas lowered in 1999, but that was primarily because the number of seats hadjust been reduced from 130 to 103. The NDP’s current situation is unique,and its request for party status calls for a fair assessment on its merits.

First of all, if McGuinty is really concerned about “the people’swishes,” why wouldn’t he be concerned about the wishes of 15 per cent of thepeople who voted NDP (or, for that matter, the 18 per cent who favoured the NDP inthe only post-election opinion poll)? Is his message to them, “Oh well, youshould have elected a Liberal”?

Come to think of it, that probably is whathe thinks. The Liberals deliberately targeted two NDP-held seats in Hamiltonand the Sault and managed to win them (in the latter case by uniting withthe Tories in the riding). That’s fair game. But, they also poured hugeresources into Oshawa (a riding where their polling put them in a distantthird place) in the last two weeks of the campaign in order to ensure thatthe Tories edged out the NDP in the riding. That’s not exactly fair, and itsuggests that it was McGuinty’s goal all along to silence the voice of theNDP. As Beaches-East York MPP Michael Prue said when told about McGuinty’sposition on party status, “I always knew he’d be a prick about this.”

The consequences of losing party status are considerable. Theright to ask questions in Question Period is meaningless without the moneyto pay research staff. McGuinty knows how effective the NDP can be, becausehe watched them destroy the credibility of the Harris-Eves government, whilehis considerably larger caucus went along for the ride. Indeed, Queen’s Parkreporters have noted that, even without party status, the NDP has alreadydone a much better job of responding to McGuinty’s string of broken promisesthan the discredited and nearly-invisible Tories. McGuinty would clearlyprefer to govern without an opposition.

Last week, NDP MPPs were informed that they couldn’t even callthemselves NDP members. The website for the Legislative Assembly now liststhem as independents, and they’ve been told not to mention their partyaffiliation on their letterhead, websites or office doors. Toronto-DanforthMPP Marilyn Churley says that “the rules suggest the New Democrats havedisappeared, that we don’t exist anymore.” She has responded to the slightby announcing her intention to officially change her last name to“Churley-NDP.” Her colleague, Niagara Centre MPP Peter Kormos, has said thathe’ll try to change the party name to Incredible New Democrats (IND), ifMcGuinty persists in his hardline stand against party status.

Another possible solution is for a Tory to cross the floor(actually slide down the opposition benches) so that the NDP can have aneight member caucus and the party status that goes with it. Bill Murdoch,the MPP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound has admitted that he’s thinking about it.Although his ideology is about as far from the NDP as an MPP can get,Murdoch says he believes in democracy in the legislature, wants an effectiveopposition to the Liberals, and thinks it’s important that the views ofpeople who voted for the NDP are represented in the legislature.

None of these drastic steps should really be necessary — not thepersonal name change, not the party name change, and not the Bill Murdochseat change. What is necessary is for Dalton McGuinty to live up to his ownpro-democracy rhetoric, and give the NDP and its supporters a proper voiceat Queen’s Park. If he doesn’t, we can just add that to his growing list ofbroken election promises. And, we can start planning to fix it in the nextelection.

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Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...