The Step-Daughter Speaks

Of the many excellent pieces in the April edition (loved that maze), Graeme Young’s review of Seeking Social Democracy: Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality stirred me most to write. My confession: I knew who Ed Broadbent was, but without this article, written by a political economist sitting in Scotland, I wouldn’t soon have sought out this giant of modern Canadian politics.

The “milquetoast centrism” that the New Democrats have embraced is unsatisfying to the working class and to young voters, but not enough to allay the latent fear of actual centrists that the party harbours radical strands that would treat people as means to an end. I live in an area of Quebec that would benefit from social and economic justice: it is a mix of working-class and struggling, anglophone, francophone, and immigrants, with a relatively high proportion of union members. Yet there is not even an NDP riding association!

I’m looking forward to reading this book. I’m looking forward even more to the NDP taking this moment — when some of its big names are bowing out and the ground is shifting under the Liberals and Conservatives — to step back from the urgency of polls and points and assess our current trajectory. The common threads that bind Canadians together despite their regional and historical differences do not lead to where Pierre Poilievre would take us. It is time for the NDP to assemble a team of serious and credible leaders and bring forward compelling policies that stir Canadians to renew their commitment to equality, peace, and progress.

Graeme Young’s review of Seeking Social Democracy is an instructive reminder of the “power and principle” tussle that has been the New Democrats’ story during my long tenure as a member and supporter. His conclusion about the party today is a valid one: “The NDP, at present, does not appear to have a realistic vision that respects and places at its heart the freedom and dignity that is the promise of democracy.” But to get there, Young barely mentions the single most pressing issue of our time: climate collapse, with the existential threat it poses and the opportunity it presents.

No other party is making this the centrepiece of its policy platform. We need a climate vision that is frank with Canadians about what we are facing, one that invites us to join a country-wide mobilization commensurate with the challenge.

That we face a challenge there can be no doubt. Last year was the hottest on record, as Wendy Stueck has reported in the Globe and Mail. Recently the historian and journalist Gwynne Dyer argued, “The tipping points are real, they may be quite abrupt, and sooner or later we are bound to trip over them if emissions are not cut drastically in the near future.” Thomas Halliday, a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, has written that “the ecosystems that have been built since the last mass extinction 66 million years ago are under severe stress. . . . If enough snap, the consequences for the way we interact with the world could become a biological and social catastrophe unlike any ever faced.”

In his book A Good War, Seth Klein describes a policy program that is inclusive and just and posits a strategy where the economy and the environment are partners, not antagonists. This is a vision and a plan of action uniquely suited to the NDP and its values, one that can indeed nourish the promise of democracy. It offers a practical, realistic vision commensurate with the forbidding future we are now experiencing — one of hope and possibility.

Is this not the source of a “realistic” and compelling contemporary vision for the NDP?

Very interesting review of Ed Broadbent’s thinking by Graeme Young. His focus on Broadbent’s economic ideas and views on “cooperative individualism” is particularly fascinating!