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Monday Apr. 20,
2009 BACK NEXT
Does anyone know where Jack's been?
Since the collapse of the coalition idea, NDP Leader Jack Layton
has basically limited his political activities to mourning the death
of his dream.
By
Angelo
Persichilli
THE HILL
TIMES
Does anyone know
where Jack Layton's been? While federal Liberals and Conservatives
are elbowing for positioning in the next federal election, it
appears the NDP leader has fallen off the federal political radar
screen. Since the collapse of his initiative of a centre-left
coalition with the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois, Layton has
basically limited his political activities to mourning the death of
his dream.
There's no doubt that the manoeuvering for the
creative and daring coalition didn't just start after Finance
Minister Jim Flaherty's controversial presentation in November of
the economic update. That event was the spark that provided life to
an initiative Layton was already working on.
There is also
no doubt that putting together a political coalition with
federalists and separatists showed Layton's skills in negotiations
and diplomacy. He skillfully preyed on the ambition and/or
desperation of the about-to-be-finished Liberal leader like Stéphane
Dion and the overconfidence of Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe
who incidentally escaped from a political near-death-experience and
tried to deliver a final blow to Prime Minister Stephen Harper
knowing that Dion and Layton would never be contenders in Quebec.
The trio thus became the darlings among Quebec voters but
they completely misread the reaction of the rest of the country.
Moreover, Dion, blinded by his ambitions, didn't realize
that the pieces of his leadership in the Liberal Party were kept
together by a glow that had nothing to do with his crazy ambitions.
So this combined potpourri of creativity, desperation, and
combined leaders' ambitions was saved by the decision of Governor
General Michaëlle Jean to prorogue Parliament. It was a decision
that definitely saved Harper's government whose leadership would
have been in danger had he lost 24 Sussex Dr. residence, but also
saved Canada from a political chaos during the worst recession since
the Great Depression of the Thirties.
At the end of the day,
along with most Canadians, the winners have been Harper, new Liberal
Leader Michael Ignatieff, and the Liberals who were finally able to
get rid of a leader elected two years earlier during two weeks of
collective craziness in Montreal.
The losers have been Dion,
who had nothing to lose at that point anyway, and Layton.
The problem for Layton is that he put all his eggs into one
basket, without taking into consideration the possibility of a
failure of the project and he didn't have a 'plan B.'
This
became painfully clear after the Gov.-Gen. Jean decided to prorogue
Parliament into the new year.
Layton didn't read the signals
coming from the new leader of the Liberal Party who had no appetite
for the coalition and was clearly taking the party in a different
direction.
Layton had to know that the only influential
Liberal still pushing for the coalition was Bob Rae, but when Rae
decided to give up and support Ignatieff, Layton had to understand
the coalition was over.
Unfortunately, he kept promoting it
and, in January, he made the last strategically deadly mistake: he
announced to vote against Flaherty's upcoming budget before reading
it.
Let's face it: the NDP has always voted against
Conservative budgets, but Canadians didn't like this behaviour for
two reasons.
First, it's a matter of correctness and respect
for the institutions. If you decide before you read it, people can
interpret the action as a lack of respect for the institution.
Second, we were, and still are, in the middle of a deep
recession and Canadians want more cooperation from our political
leaders. Furthermore, there is always the possibility that the
government might do something that you might like.
In fact,
the budget presented by Flaherty, was considered by many as the most
socialist budget ever presented by a Canadian government.
Even Rae, in a story on the National Post, joked that
Harper went even beyond his budget when he was the NDP premier of
Ontario.
Of course, you can find many things you don't like
in every budget and you can always resort to the magic words used by
the oppositions like "too little, too late," or "we want more," or
"the budget doesn't do enough for my neighbour Pasquale."
But at that point, Layton was in a corner. He kept opposing
the government, but was unable to articulate an alternative. In a
time of crisis, it's not enough to remind people what the problems
are; they know them, they want solutions instead.
The
Liberals, meanwhile, kept criticizing the budget saying that "this
is not our budget," at the same time while recognizing that there
was "something good" in it and supported it.
This tactic
will not help them in the future because, eventually, they have to
come up with something alternative to the Harper's budget, but
nonetheless their position helped them to gain time and to put their
house in order, so to speak.
In the meantime the government,
with the help of the Liberals, is working hard to help Canadians to
go through these difficult times with the NDP present only through
an empty rhetoric in the House.
That's why the NDP and
Layton have become irrelevant and their absence in the daily news is
the first concerning symptom. And, more concerning than Layton's
absence, is the fact that nobody notices it.
I hope the
leader of the NDP has used this Parliamentary break to prepare a
strategy that goes beyond the rhetoric of criticism. Canadians know
the problems, they have had enough of political games and they want
solutions.
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