Canada’s NDP Shouldn’t Mess With A Winning Formula

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Those of us who’ve been following politics for years have seen it happen over and over again with more left-leaning political parties.

Will federal NDP leader Jack Layton shift his party away from its core principles?

They no sooner get a big boost of support from the voters – sometimes enough to make them the governing party – and they watering down or brushing aside some of the more progressive promises and policies that made them so appealing to those voters in the first place.

It is hard not to wonder, with all of the news coming out of the federal New Democratic Party convention in Vancouver over the weekend of June 18 and 19, whether the NDP is not about to inflict the same kind of air-brushing of the policies and principles it has stood for following an election this spring that found it winning an unprecedented 103 seats – enough to earn it official opposition status for the first time in its 50-year history.
“Whatever we were doing (before the election) seems to have attracted the support of an awful lot of Canadians,” the party’s leader Jack Layton told reporters as the weekend convention was drawing to a close.

Whatever your party was doing and saying certainly did attract a good number of voters Jack. By many accounts, they were voters seeking a real change and alternative to the same-old, same-old we’ve been getting in this country for years. They were voters that believe it is about time we had a party in this country that cared more about putting people back to work and looking after the vulnerable and the victims of these recession-ravaged times than in simply cutting the deficit at any cost to social programs and cutting taxes, especially corporate taxes at a time when the CEOs and shareholders of these corporations are bathing in ever higher salaries, bonuses and dividends.

Who really cares if you have the word “socialist” in your party’s constitution except for the corporate tycoons and new-conservatives, and their parade of minions and ideologues who are never going to vote for you anyway?

We’ve seen too many political parties over the years try to shade or shift away from their core principles because they believe that is what they have to do to keep or win power. It is one of the reasons why people have become so cynical about politics and have dropped out to a point where a good half them or more don’t even bother to vote any more.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t so. It just could be that the next party that comes to power in this country won’t be one that places winning power ahead of its core beliefs. It will be one that shows a true passion and conviction for policies that will touch and improve the lives of a majority of middle and lower income Canadians.
We continue to experience serious challenges in Niagara and other regions across this country with high rates of joblessness and poverty, with critical services like health care and education, and with our environment. It may very well be that the deficit and corporate-tax cutting policies of Stephen Harper and his federal Conservatives will do little to address these challenges and may even make things worse. If that’s the case, people will be looking for a true alternative – not some milked down version of the federal Liberals.

So this is my message to you and your party Jack. If ever we needed a party in this country with a progressive policies and a strong, unwavering social conscious it is now. Please don’t mess with that.

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