Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are eating up the middle. There is increasingly little room for Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats there.
In Whitby-Oshawa, the NDP picked up only 8 per cent of the vote — down from 22 per cent in 2011.
The Liberals, meanwhile, raised their vote share in that byelection from 14 to 41 per cent.
In the Alberta riding of Yellowhead, the Liberal vote share went from 3 per cent in 2011 to 20 per cent this time. Conversely, the NDP’s share slipped from 13 to 9 per cent.
The NDP has been in a quandary for decades.
It began life as a social democratic movement dedicated to changing the way Canada’s political economy operates.
But to win power in Ottawa, it must appeal to voters outside the movement who don’t necessarily share the party’s leftish view of the world.
This has been the perennial NDP problem. Example: The NDP was founded in part by the labour movement. But most union members don’t vote for it.
On top of this is Quebec. Until Jack Layton swept that province in 2011, the party had almost no presence there.
Within the party, there has always been a struggle between those who mainly want the NDP to stay true to its roots and those (usually in the leadership) who mainly want to win seats.
Layton’s Orange Wave triumph, which catapulted the NDP into official Opposition status, emboldened the practical-politics wing of the party.
Many believed that the NDP had — finally — reached its goal of supplanting the Liberals as Canada’s main non-Conservative party.
The road to power seemed clear: Move to the centre; embrace economic orthodoxy (including fiscal conservatism); focus not on grand schemes but on so-called pocketbook issues aimed as specific subgroups such as seniors and small business owners.
Indeed, this was the exact formula used — with decidedly mixed results — by Andrea Horwath’s Ontario NDP in this year’s provincial election.
The entire strategy, both federally and provincially, was predicated on two premises: first, that the Liberals were mortally wounded; second, that voters would accept the NDP as a valid replacement.
Both premises turned out to be wrong. As the last nine federal byelections have made clear, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are far from a spent force.
Moreover, voters faced with a choice between Liberals and New Democrats posing as Liberals tend to go for the real thing.
Up to now, New Democrats have tried to differentiate themselves from the Liberals by focusing on the parties’ respective leaders.
Mulcair is presented as someone with heft. Trudeau, by contrast, is dismissed as a featherweight.
That strategy is not working.
A more fruitful approach for the NDP would be to focus on policy. Trudeau has been deliberately vague about what he might do as prime minister. But he has made it clear that a Liberal government under him would maintain Harper’s basic economic strategy: low taxes, free trade and an emphasis on natural resources.
The Liberal leader talks of helping the downtrodden middle class but never gets around to saying how he would do so. On climate change, he has promised — like Harper — regulations to limit, by some unspecified amount, greenhouse gases.
In short, on the economic front at least, Trudeau — like Harper — has positioned himself squarely in the centre-right.
If the NDP truly wants to distinguish itself from the Liberals, it could do worse than stake out territory on the left. It has made a feint in that direction with its proposed universal child-care scheme.
But on personal taxes, deficit financing and free trade, New Democrats — so far, at least — are hewing strictly to the Liberal-Conservative line.
There is an argument to be made for the federal government involving itself directly in Canada’s hard-hit manufacturing sector, for instance.
But I don’t see the NDP making it.
Instead, New Democrats seem to want to sell themselves to voters as the better Liberals. As the byelections demonstrate, this is a losing enterprise.
Byelections show why the NDP should move left: Walkom | Toronto Star
In Whitby-Oshawa, the NDP picked up only 8 per cent of the vote — down from 22 per cent in 2011.
The Liberals, meanwhile, raised their vote share in that byelection from 14 to 41 per cent.
In the Alberta riding of Yellowhead, the Liberal vote share went from 3 per cent in 2011 to 20 per cent this time. Conversely, the NDP’s share slipped from 13 to 9 per cent.
The NDP has been in a quandary for decades.
It began life as a social democratic movement dedicated to changing the way Canada’s political economy operates.
But to win power in Ottawa, it must appeal to voters outside the movement who don’t necessarily share the party’s leftish view of the world.
This has been the perennial NDP problem. Example: The NDP was founded in part by the labour movement. But most union members don’t vote for it.
On top of this is Quebec. Until Jack Layton swept that province in 2011, the party had almost no presence there.
Within the party, there has always been a struggle between those who mainly want the NDP to stay true to its roots and those (usually in the leadership) who mainly want to win seats.
Layton’s Orange Wave triumph, which catapulted the NDP into official Opposition status, emboldened the practical-politics wing of the party.
Many believed that the NDP had — finally — reached its goal of supplanting the Liberals as Canada’s main non-Conservative party.
The road to power seemed clear: Move to the centre; embrace economic orthodoxy (including fiscal conservatism); focus not on grand schemes but on so-called pocketbook issues aimed as specific subgroups such as seniors and small business owners.
Indeed, this was the exact formula used — with decidedly mixed results — by Andrea Horwath’s Ontario NDP in this year’s provincial election.
The entire strategy, both federally and provincially, was predicated on two premises: first, that the Liberals were mortally wounded; second, that voters would accept the NDP as a valid replacement.
Both premises turned out to be wrong. As the last nine federal byelections have made clear, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are far from a spent force.
Moreover, voters faced with a choice between Liberals and New Democrats posing as Liberals tend to go for the real thing.
Up to now, New Democrats have tried to differentiate themselves from the Liberals by focusing on the parties’ respective leaders.
Mulcair is presented as someone with heft. Trudeau, by contrast, is dismissed as a featherweight.
That strategy is not working.
A more fruitful approach for the NDP would be to focus on policy. Trudeau has been deliberately vague about what he might do as prime minister. But he has made it clear that a Liberal government under him would maintain Harper’s basic economic strategy: low taxes, free trade and an emphasis on natural resources.
The Liberal leader talks of helping the downtrodden middle class but never gets around to saying how he would do so. On climate change, he has promised — like Harper — regulations to limit, by some unspecified amount, greenhouse gases.
In short, on the economic front at least, Trudeau — like Harper — has positioned himself squarely in the centre-right.
If the NDP truly wants to distinguish itself from the Liberals, it could do worse than stake out territory on the left. It has made a feint in that direction with its proposed universal child-care scheme.
But on personal taxes, deficit financing and free trade, New Democrats — so far, at least — are hewing strictly to the Liberal-Conservative line.
There is an argument to be made for the federal government involving itself directly in Canada’s hard-hit manufacturing sector, for instance.
But I don’t see the NDP making it.
Instead, New Democrats seem to want to sell themselves to voters as the better Liberals. As the byelections demonstrate, this is a losing enterprise.
Byelections show why the NDP should move left: Walkom | Toronto Star
