Way back in the 1940s George Orwell wrote about the debilitating effects of being a permanent and pensioned opposition. The problem, as he saw it, was relegating yourself to the role of the perpetual critic means an inevitable decline in the quality of your ideas. It is far easier to just attack everything the government does than propose meaningful changes that reflect how things ought to be done. One could argue this is more true for the parties opposing the Harper government than it has been for any other opposition. Everything Harper's government has done is so readily available for attack it would make the most rigorous thinker a little sloppy. How hard is it to land punches on the guy who targets librarians as potential political enemies?
In my adult life the NDP has had two great leaders. One is of course Jack Layton. The other was Ed Broadbent. Old Ed never came close to winning an election and, in a way, that was the source of his greatness. It never seemed like he tried to win elections. To do that, you have to do the things Jack Layton was willing to do. You have to move away from organized labour. You have to appeal more to the middle class. You have to think in terms of power politics and vote scrounging and back room dealing. No one thinks winning elections is as noble as they made it seem on The West Wing. There is no one left who still believes politics is about an honourable presentation of different priorities or even conflicting ideologies. It is about winning.
The next federal election is going to come down to whether or not the Liberals can take Quebec back from the NDP. There is going to be a lot of talk about strategic voting in Quebec. "If Quebec goes to the NDP again we will be stuck with another Harper government." That is what the Liberals will argue and it is difficult at this point to argue with them. Harper is untouchable on the prairie. He will do well in Ontario but even without looking at any numbers, it is easy enough to predict a strong Liberal showing here. Harper will control Ontario the same way he did in the last election - picking out the 'must have' ridings and visiting all of them more than once. He will get the ridings he wants because of the make up of the constituency. These are the people in Toronto who voted for Ford and would again. They are small government, low tax ideologues. The polar opposite of people like me. They don't care about the systematic destruction of libraries or research stations. They don't care about environmental regulation. They don't care about very much at all except what this government is going to cost them and there is simply no way any party can beat the Conservatives in that game.
I don't know what will happen in BC or in the maritimes and I don't really care. It isn't important. The election will be decided by who takes Quebec. Ontario (Liberal) and the Prairie provinces (Conservative) will cancel each other out and the Conservatives will win unless the Liberals take Quebec. That is the situation everyone is planning for and it's a huge mistake for Mulcair to let it play that way. Yes, he has an opportunity to actually gain power while losing seats provided the Libs win enough of them to form a minority. But that is a bad bet.
What Mulcair needs is a new consensus. I think the NDP have made a calculation that the youth vote, such as it is, will go to Trudeau. And if Mulcair keeps on as he is going, it will. At least in Ontario. But these are not the same youth as those who voted for Trudeau Sr. These are the kids who were Occupiers. Who were part of the pots and pans revolution in Quebec. There is a consensus out there waiting and no one is trying to get it.
To win Mulcair needs a coalition of the young, the green, and the poor (and scared). He needs to frame the terms of the debate by constantly being the loudest and by hitting his issues every time he sees a microphone. Even when there isn't a microphone he should still be yelling about them because you never know what will wind up on Youtube. The problem he has now (other than a depressing lack of personality) is he has no issues!
To win Mulcair needs to make a commitment to freeze tuition and make a substantial reduction in student debt. He should promise to reduce tuition by 30% over the next four years. He should promise to forgive all student debt above $30K and cut the interest rate on all student debt to prime. Both the Cons and Libs are available to attacks on this front. And this doesn't just win young votes, it wins the votes of parents who are wondering how the hell they are going to put two kids through university.
To win Mulcair should scream about everything Harper has done to scientists and librarians during his government. He should make the immediate repeal of those laws his first act. He should form a parliamentary commission on climate change to make the current data available to MPs and every Canadian and he should promise to fund climate science particularly in the Arctic. He should also promise to kill the Keystone Pipeline. I don't know how he feels about making promises he can't keep but he should attack the Keystone Pipeline at every opportunity. This would be both good governance and good politics. The Americans can make it happen if they really want to but our government should make it as hard for them as possible. The Cons record on environmental issues is so miserable this is really a no brainer. This should be a constant source of misery for Harper. Mulcair can force Harper to take a position that will cost him seats in both Quebec and Ontario to protect his core in the prairies. Even if the strategy is to go for a minority with the Libs, these should be core issues for Mulcair.
Mulcair should promise a complete overhaul of our tax system and the creation of two more income tax tiers. The system should be redesigned to move the onus from low and middle income families and place it on corporations and the people who run them. Mulcair can make this attack because multimillionaires don't donate to the NDP anyway. And this is the kind of move that will free those in the middle class who vote their wallets but would like to vote their conscience to do so.
The last thing Mulcair has to promise is transparency in government. This means subpoena power for parliamentary budget oversight. Everyone else has lied to Canadians about a transparent government, now it't the NDPs turn. The ugly fact is the NDP are the only party who can promise this without being faced with their previous broken promises.
This is a coalition that can gain seats for Mulcair. He can keep what Layton won in Quebec and build in the other provinces. But he has to become more forceful to do so. He needs to be on the attack all the time. Every time he is near Harper he should hit him on the environment and on the structure of the tax system. Every time he is near Trudeau he should hit him with a lack of ambition - all style and no substance. He should be pounding taxes, tuition, transparency and the environment but he won't. I wish I could find a synonym for environment that started with a 't' but I can't. Actually it works better if you communicate the concern for the environment as support for science and scientists. People still, stupidly, argue about the environment but most Canadians are offended by an American style attack on science.
Mulcair should support these issues because they are right. I have made no secret about my support for them and my distaste for those who attack them. But more importantly, he has to fight for something. Canadians like to think we are the friendly nation but the truth, if you look at our electoral record, doesn't support this. We like fighters. We loved Trudeau and he declared martial law. We loved Chretien (who was best described as "looking like the guy who drives the get-away car" and was manifestly crooked). We loved Harper and that pains me to say but the guy has been in total control over his party forever and the nation for far too long. We love fighters. It's what we loved about Jack Layton. He took Quebec on two things: sympathy for his illness and the fact he took absolutely no shit from anyone in the debates. Mulcair needs to get dirty. He needs to become a scrapper. I don't think Trudeau will. He will put up just enough of a fight to make it clear he has no patience with Harper but, on the whole, his strategy will be charm and the occasional bon mot.
Frankly, I think the deal is already done. I think the best the NDP are betting they can do is prevent Trudeau from forming a majority and that's a scary thought because we don't know how Trudeau will stand up as a party leader in a national election. We know Harper will be a machine in a sweater. With a plan. And money. Trudeau remains an unknown. Given the performance of the last three Libs to hold the top seat, I think it would be a huge mistake to bank on them doing anything. And if the NDP throws and Harper wins another government, I'm not only never voting NDP again - I'm leaving the country.
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