What is wrong with the NDP? The political embodiment of ideals that appeal to the most generous instincts in human nature, it has, once again, demonstrated its inability to convert these values into anything that remotely resembles political power. Winning only 15 percent of the popular vote and 6 percent of the seats in the June 28 election, it is the weakest of three parties to which the Liberal minority government can now appeal for support, and the opinions of the NDP are in danger of becoming no more than background noise in the debates that lie ahead.
A few weeks before the election, Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, published a book called Speaking Out: Ideas That Work for Canadians. He said that the book was not meant to be the NDP platform, and it was not. But it does describe, more fully than his electoral program, what an NDP government could be like and, in doing so, it shows us quite clearly why such a government will never exist.
The...
Reed Scowen, a member of the LRC’s advisory council, is the author of two books on contemporary Quebec politics. From 1978 to 1984 he and Jacques Parizeau were both members of Quebec’s National Assembly.
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