Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 24, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba Brian Cole 6977044 focus saturday free press a a 7 May full i i nip is marginalized Canadian left still lives in fiscal past the free press is publishing a series of articles examining the state of politics in the Allan a University of Winnipeg political science discusses the fortunes of the Cana Dian next University of Calgary military historian David Bercuson looks at i remember it when it All began to the decline of the Canadian i it was during the election Campaign of 1988 and it a moment of but it was As if the fates were not impressed by hubris and they began to wreak a dreadful in the Federal election of the nip did As poorly As it had Ever with seven per cent of the popular it elected nine members of Parlia not enough to be considered an official indifference was then added to Little recognized in question period and denied its leaders precedence in Parlia ments speaking order when to Leader was even in the has become if the polls the party will fare Little better this although it will dip better in Manitoba where it has solidified itself As the most popular party federally and at the provincial the party of Douglas and Lewis is close to becoming of Canadian politics is not the passing of the Torch to Broadbent above from Lewis below was a generational change for the a greek hubris in politics is not punished by the indeed under Liberal party it is monumentally any the symbolic moment when the Federal nip began to fall to Earth As i a moment of ill advised a Frozen second of it was during the election of the liberals had in John Turner an ineffectual Leader and much of the rest of the country was beginning to have doubts about Brian mulled the nip was Well placed to Lead the left to its historic the nip had emerged out of the exhaustion of the Kcf in the late in elections in the it hovered around 15 per cent of the popular the passing of the Torch from David Lewis to de Broadbent in 1975 was a generational Lewis was a brother i arms of Tommy Douglas and both reached Back to the Early Days of the Kcf under the legendary Broadbent was not just of the postwar generation his socialism was made of a different Woodsworth and Douglas talked the language of the social gospel and Lewis moved in the interwar world of Fabian ism and the British labour Broadbent was of working class promoted no evident religious views and his socialism was More social More swedish than British prag flexible and Broadbent in any impressed the a Good a politician with an everyday and honest Char canadians liked him and under him the party began to hover at 20 per cent of the so successful was he that in the Early weeks of the 1988 election the nip was registering around 25 per cent Levels of popular such popularity would have translated into perhaps 80 official opposition status was waiting the nip would become the government in the headlines of the moment got the better of Broadbent could not resist gloating Over the historic demise and possible disappearance of the Liberal it is almost As if the gods struck him Down for his presumptuous How dare Broadbent announce the death of Canadian liberalism perhaps it is that the gods cannot allow the disappearance of the liberals for without How else could they so expert Mcdonough leads a different party than Douglas Geary deficits and expenditures on the whole infrastructure of the social democratic state social civil service make work it was in 1982 that the Canadian government had begun to run huge deficits of the order of billion a Trudeau was the prime minis but in this policy he got no criticism from the Mulroney was elected to Deal with debt and but he wanted a second term and so the National govern ment continued with Large the liberals now Tell us that when they assumed office in 1993 the country was close to even they have yet to produce a balanced budget they have added significantly to the accumulated debt but they have brought the deficits Down and the Federal government is within hailing distance of a balanced in All this the Federal nip has regarded deficits and debts As of Little we of that the left has not always expressed such unblinking obedience to debt and Woodsworth knew that a government that runs Large debts redistributes wealth negatively from taxpayers poor to Bond holders and Douglas and Manitoba de Schreyer were two new democrats who saw no Neces sary connection Between deficits and socialist Willy the nip of the last 20 years has become uncritically captive to deficit the political consequence is that the party has become increasingly irrelevant and most voters recognize instinctively that you cant run endless budgetary if there is no new Money to spend the left has no of there Are Many things the left could do faced by financial but it has not chosen to exercise its collective intelligence in Pursuit of being progressive in an environment of fiscal the left finds if hard to get a by torment from the moment of Broadbent ill advised the trajectories of the two parties have moved in opposite directions the liberals upwards and the nip the historic dance of the liberals and the the antagonistic symbiosis of the Cana Dian has left the nip close to expiry while the liberals Waltz away with the Canadian elec measured by electoral Crite Ria popular number of Broadbent was the most successful Leader of the Canadian even with his election the nip returned 44 members based on 20 per cent of the popular but after the wheels fell off the Good and Broadbent new democrats were keynesian in fiscal matters and nationalist in their approach to eco nomic they talked a Little about Public but not they advocated an Industrial strategy of government picking winning industries to invest the manufacture of mining Indus i remember was one of but mainly the nip emphasized stimulating the Economy by Bud in another important respect the Canadian left has been marooned by the ebb tide of Public in ways we do not quite understand we have been living through a proverbial technological the microchip and the wired world of information technology have Given us a new human space virtual reality some a consensus has emerged that changes within this new order can Only be successfully pursued if mediated through the no statist ministrations of the free governments Are seen As too influx less innovative and too Politi Cally driven to facilitate the emergence of the new the move toward deregulation and Pri although a confessed devotee of the mixed the modern Canadian left has always left undeveloped and unspecified whatever belief it holds regarding the virtue of in fact it Doest believe in markets at it believes in the governmental part of the mixed Economy but not in the Market or private Enterprise it utters no statement in principle in support of even in their appropriate it has yet to As Tony Blair and the British labour party that there Are positive advantages indeed in hav ing markets even in areas presently under Public if the Canadian left can Only make a grudging Concession to the mixed this is per haps forgivable in Good times when the electorate is positively disposed toward government planning of the but at a time when the Public feels convinced that govern ments Are incapable of hatching and realizing new tech the Dps statism makes it decidedly out step with the Vot so in this Alexa Mcdo coughs new democrats Campaign in the Teeth of a Strong the National left is in danger of eclipse Mcdonough is there Are Many issues that the Canadian electorate wants to see addressed tax fair the desolation of generation the stubborn persistence of High to name a but the sad truth is that the Lazy and traditional in much of its fiscal and economic finds it hard to get a hearing for important particular matters because it has failed to put right its fundamental economic Only Roy nip Premier of seems willing to reconfigure the even he has a Long Way to go before he catches up with policy brain storming and daring political risk taking of Britain tory Allan Mills is a professor of Politi Cal science at the University of win ;