A rchive Date
[ 06-06-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/weston.html
Aud... er, Alexa's lasting legacy
By GREG WESTON -- Sun Media
June 6, 2002
OTTAWA -- Minutes after Alexa McDonough had announced her intention to retire as leader of the New Democratic Party, she was asked what she considered to have been her most important contribution to the NDP.
For a long moment, those happy eyes smiled in a kind of child-like wonderment as she reflected on almost seven years of leading her party. "I guess history books will tell," she said with her hallmark modesty. "But certainly I'm very proud of having restored the party's official status at a very difficult time for the left."
If ever there were a bleak assessment of the state of a political party, surely it is a retiring leader rejoicing in the mere fact there is still a party for her to leave. Even at that, if McDonough is to be credited with saving her party from oblivion, it wasn't by much - from eight seats in the Commons when she became leader in 1995, to 21 in 1997, and back to 13 in the last federal election in the fall of 2000, just two seats from losing official status in Parliament.
The harsh reality is Alexa McDonough is destined to be forgotten as quickly and thoroughly as her predecessor (Quick! What was her name?) Audrey McLaughlin. It's not that McDonough's leadership has been irrelevant to the NDP - the problem is the party she was leading has become irrelevant to the vast majority of Canadian voters.
No wonder.
Just listen to a sampling of the party heavyweights, some of whom will undoubtedly be running to replace McDonough over the coming months. If there is a single coherent message, it's that there isn't one. "The party has become too centrist, too cautious," said Buzz Hargrove, head of the powerful Canadian Auto Workers' union and a possible contender for the NDP leadership.
'ECONOMIC ISSUES'
"We need to talk more about economic issues ... jobs and the creation of wealth," said Saskatchewan MP Lorne Nystrom, a likely leadership hopeful looking rightward.
Svend Robinson, a B.C. New Democrat and perpetual leadership candidate, wants the NDP to move so far to the left it would become an entirely new party.
McDonough herself spent the past two years trying to "redesign" the party into something for everybody, and instead wound up presiding over a political movement for nobody in particular.
As union boss Hargrove wisely told fellow NDP faithful at their national convention last year in Winnipeg, winning a meagre 8% of the popular vote in the 2000 federal election suggests "there is a crisis in our party, a crisis in the confidence of voters in our party ... We have to get back to our roots."
Ironically, it was Hargrove and his fellow trade union bosses who probably created the crisis for McDonough that forced her to walk the plank yesterday. NDP insiders were tipped that Hargrove planned to put a gun to McDonough's head at the Canadian Labour Congress convention in Vancouver next week, withdrawing his auto workers' support from the NDP until the party got a new leader.
As political threats go, this one was a bazooka.
UNION INFLUENCE
Trade unions still provide about a third of the NDP operating budget, and are guaranteed 25% of the vote for a new leader. (Hargrove's threat and the deadline presented by the CLC convention next week at least help to explain the otherwise astoundingly stupid timing of McDonough's announcement, diverting media attention away from the embarrassing crisis within the Liberal party.)
The continued union presence, if not dominance, of the NDP, is all part of the dilemma facing what has become the natural losing party of the left. The workers who once unionized to fight for a decent wage and social justice, are now mostly living in the suburbs, fighting for lower taxes and safer streets.
Their union dues may be going to the NDP, but their votes during federal elections increasingly have been going to the Liberals and even the Canadian Alliance.
Clearly, the challenge ahead for the NDP is not finding a new leader; it's finding a new party.
Greg Weston is Sun Media's national political columnist, his columns appear Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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