If you are old enough to remember hearing the 1960s Les Paul and Mary Ford recording of the World is Waiting for the Sunrise, you might also be wondering when the New Democrats are going to be old enough to know when they are going to shine. And with the success of the federal Liberals passing them on the left last year, few observers are surprised at the current discontent among the NDP rank and file. There does not seem to be an historical memory in the party.
You would think a memory could be retained for at least a year. In 2014 in the Ontario provincial election, the same mistake was made. Nobody learned from it. There were the usual left of centre concerns and promises but the provincial NDP leader was completely caught off guard by the Liberal’s offer to improve pensions for Ontario residents. The campaign came to the obvious conclusion when the Conservative leader made a desperation promise to fire a 100,000 civil servants. What he did of course was threaten the jobs of a million voters. The Conservatives bled votes, the NDP had confused the voters and the Liberals romped to a majority.
If you could have believed the pollsters last year, for the first half of the campaign the federal NDP and the Conservatives were duking it out, each with hopes of at least a minority government. It was those politicos that had been paying attention to the campaign style of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, who knew where to place their bets.
It was when the pollsters started to get readings on the younger voters that they began to see the inevitable. And yet Mulcair and his inner circle seemed to ignore what was happening. They assumed something of a bunker mentality and kept on believing their earlier statistics.
It was that hope for power that fooled the NDP those two elections in a row. The party believed it was due to inherit again what the New Democrat Bob Rae had won in Ontario in 1990 and was torn from his hands after one short term: power. They saw it as redemption.
But there was no sunrise for the NDP in 2015. Back in third place in Canada’s parliament Thomas Mulcair found himself evicted from office at the party’s first opportunity.
And that is where the NDP sits today—waiting for the sunrise.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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