Doly Begum, until a few days ago deputy leader of the Ontario NDP, has decided to quit provincial politics – and the Party – to run for the federal Liberals in her Scarborough West riding.
That seat became vacant when Liberal MP Bill Blair – a former Toronto police chief and Liberal cabinet minister – accepted the job of Canada’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
Many New Democrats are hurt and worried by Begum’s surprise decision.
Brian Topp, a onetime federal leadership candidate and long-time NDP operative, is sorrowful. He called the move a “body blow” to the Ontario NDP.
Others are outraged.
One person posted this admonition on social media: Don’t come asking me for money for your campaign if you intend to quit and run for another party.
Some are perplexed in the extreme that an NDPer would jump ship for the current Liberal crew, considering that, in their view, PM Mark Carney is leading the most small-c conservative Liberal government we’ve ever had.
Arguably, the honour of most-conservative-Liberal-government belongs to the Jean Chrétien Liberals’ first term. That government’s chief accomplishment was its slash and burn 1995 budget, which radically cut federal funding for health, higher education, social services, and housing.
That brutal second budget of Chrétien’s first term happened more than three decades ago, and is now, it seems, fading in Canadians’ collective memory.
There are others who view Begum’s departure in yet a different way.
They blame the New Democratic Party itself for the defection.
Their argument is that the Party has so softened its progressive positions, has moved so much to the centre, that it is now almost indistinguishable from the Liberal Party.
A hard time to be a New Democrat
Begum’s defection comes on the heels of Dr. Danielle Martin’s deciding to run for Carney’s Liberals in Toronto’s University-Rosedale riding.
Erstwhile Liberal cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland created an opening there with her recent resignation.
In January, Freeland took on a role as an economic advisor to the Ukrainian government. She pledged, at the time, she would eventually resign her seat.
The opposition parties objected vigorously to the “eventually” part of that commitment.
They said it was unconscionable for a sitting MP to work for a foreign government. The press weighed in with earnest advice – urging Freeland to vacate her seat sooner rather than later.
Freeland and the Liberal hierarchy got the message.
As for Danielle Martin, she was never, formally, an NDP-er. But in her capacity as the founder of Canadian Doctors for Medicare she was an articulate voice in favour of strengthening Canada’s public health care system, and against any measure that would erode the system.
Martin gained particular notoriety when she testified before a U.S. Senate committee in favour of Senator Bernie Sanders proposed “single payer” health insurance system for the U.S. – what Americans called “Medicare for All.”
The young and articulate Canadian doctor was effective in sparring with Republican senators, who brandished all kinds of myths about Canadian health care.
Impressed by her commitment and communication skills, both the New Democrats and the Liberals had tried to get Martin to run for them.
But the NDPers believed they had the inside track – that if Martin were to choose to run for office, their party would be the best fit ideologically.
That might be so.
Being a good fit, but without party status, and at a low point in the polls, when the Liberals are riding high in public support, will only take a party so far.
Martin opted for the party that will give her a chance to influence public policy from the inside.
In the long or medium term, if the Carney government does not make a more substantial commitment to public health care in this country, Danielle Martin might grow frustrated.
For now, her choice, like Begum’s, is bad news for the NDP.
Lots of other cases of party-switchers
A number of years ago, when he was still in the NDP, former Ontario New Democratic Premier Bob Rae confided to folks that there was a “price to pay” for switching parties in Canada.
It took Rae a while to take the risk of paying that price.
But when he finally joined the Liberals, and ran for federal leader, the price Rae paid was not so much to his old party as to the many in his new party who resented him as a Johnny-come-lately, or complained that not too long ago he had been vigorously attacking their provincial Liberal colleagues.
Another former provincial NDP Premier who jumped to the Liberals was B.C.’s Ujjal Dosanjh.
After his crushing defeat provincially in 2001, Dosanjh ran federally for Paul Martin’s Liberals. He won a seat in 2004, and Paul Martin quickly elevated him to the cabinet as Health Minister.
There are numerous other examples of floor crossers, including Angela Vautour, who, in 1997, with Nova Scotian Alexa McDonough as party leader, won a seat for the NDP in a largely francophone northern New Brunswick riding.
Two years later, Vautour crossed the floor, but not to the governing Liberal.
She chose to join the Joe Clark-led Conservatives, who had come back from a near-death two seats in the previous election to a small but respectable 20 seats.
In the next federal election, Liberal Dominic Leblanc defeated Vautour. Leblanc is now one of the leading lights of the current Liberal government.
Not every party switcher abandoned the NDP for other parties. Some went the other way.
In 1986, Robert Toupin was part of PM Brian Mulroney’s large contingent of Quebec MPs, representing the Terrebonne riding, north of Montreal.
But something about Mulroney’s style rubbed Toupin the wrong way.
With much fanfare, he decided to join Ed Broadbent’s NDP caucus, which had not a single Quebec member at the time.
That arrangement did not last, however. Toupin accused the NDP of being dominated by “extreme left-wingers” and quit to sit as an Independent.
In that capacity Toupin ran in the 1988 election, finishing third.
Then there was the case of Pauline Jewett. She was an eminent political scientist who, in 1963, won a seat for the Lester Pearson-led Liberals in the rural Ontario riding of Northumberland.
Jewett lost that seat, narrowly, in the next election, but continued to be active in the Liberal Party.
Then, in 1970, when Pierre Trudeau invoked the draconian War Measures Act, in response to the October Crisis, Jewett quit the Liberals to join the NDP.
As an NDPer Pauline Jewett won election to Parliament in her new home of British Columbia, three times: in 1979, 1980 and 1984.
More recently, in 2004, lawyer Françoise Boivin won the Quebec riding of Gatineau, in the National Capital district, for the Liberals. Two years later she lost that seat to a Bloc Québécois candidate.
In 2008, Boivin ran again – but this time for the Jack Layton-led New Democrats. She won as part of the Orange Wave in 2011, but lost in 2015, when Justin Trudeau came to power.
Boivin is now an oft-called-upon commentator on federal politics, in both official languages.
Like many other party switchers, she landed on her feet.
So the world turns.
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