On June 23, 2012, 50 long-time NDP activists put the issue starkly in a j’accuse letter to Premier Darrell Dexter. “If the NDP now actually stands for anything fundamentally different,” they wrote, “it is hard to see what it is. And if the NDP is not a party of change… why should those who want change support it?”
They were responding, in part, to Dexter’s pledge to shave two points off the HST as soon as the province’s books balanced. That, they claimed, would hobble chances of pursuing the party’s broader social goals.
“One can only imagine what the NDP, when in opposition, would have said about the priorities of a provincial budget, which gave… $304 million to the Irvings, cut the tax rate for large corporations (and) forced spending cuts on health care, and primary, secondary and post-secondary education.”
But now decision day looms. Polls show Stephen McNeil’s Liberals leading. The party’s progressive true believers must choose.
Should they sit it out, let the party lose power and hope more progressive elements emerge to retake power? Or should they hold their noses, dance with the one that brought them, and hope.
Dexter’s supporters counter — rightly — the NDP inherited a Tory/Liberal financial mess just as the global economic meltdown went into full melt. The NDP balanced the budget, providing more stable funding for social spending down the road. Its modest successes — collaborative health-care centres, capping the price of generic drugs, increasing children’s dental coverage, increasing minimum wages, capping cell phone cancellation fees — wouldn’t have happened under Liberals or Tories.
“Let’s get real here,” says Ray Larkin, another long-time party activist who supports the government. “This is not a time to abandon ship or change course.”
One of those who did sign the letter — and asked not to be identified because he retains party connections — says he’ll vote NDP “but for not many good reasons. I think the potential is still there… to allow for the possibility of more change and this is much more than I expect from the Liberals.”
Will other progressives ultimately come around?
The only certainty is that if enough don’t, the party won’t return to power. Would that really be the better outcome?
This article first appeared in Stephen Kimber’s Halifax Metro column.
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