Tom Mulcair's Personal Reflection, and the NDP Going Forward

Last week, NDP leader Tom Mulcair released a statement to the party faithful that addressed his reflections on October's electoral defeat. Mulcair spoke of what went wrong in the election, and step going forward.  

To start, Mulcair notes the election's disappointing results, yet bounces quickly to an assertion that within the party remains a commitment to, and confidence in, social democratic values, and that the key flaw of the election wasn't so much a deviation from those values, but rather a failure to effectively communicate them. 

After speaking to the early highs of the electoral campaign translating into deep lows, Mulcair assumes full responsibility for the defeat, pledging to continue his leadership in an aim to ensure that such mistakes never reoccur.  

First, Mulcair admits that the party was too cautious in the campaign and lead-up, being more concerned with portraying a controversy-free image than it was about sharing the NDP worldview with the electorate. Likewise, Muclair suggested that the party leadership had insufficient ties to the grassroots, which likely manifested as part of a general failure to communicate a cohesive vision.  

On this question of vision, Mulcair conceded that the campaign lacked one, meaning that while individual policy points were strong--and reflected in Mulcair's mind progressive, social democratic values--there was no connective tissue between them to offer a snapshot of what an NDP-led Canada would look like. Something along this line came later in the campaign, when the party released a platform document titled "Building the Country of Our Dreams," but the narrative was seldom, if at all, emphasized  

Related to this was the NDP's somewhat negative approach in the election and the months preceding it, where Mulcair speaks of how he was more focused on attacking the platforms of the other parties more than he was concerned with putting forth a positive path to the voters.

Ultimately, the solution here for Mulcair isn't to craft a new vision, but rather to flesh out and articulate the one that was percolating below the surface during the previous campaign. This would be predicated on emphasizing income inequality's injustice, the lack of equal opportunity in Canadian  society, and the role that the Canadian state plays in ensuring a just society for everyone. 

AN ANALYSIS OF MULCAIR'S REFLECTION

In general, I found the piece to be a helpful window into Mulcair's mindset during the election and its post-mortem. 

I think his points around a lack of communication with the grassroots is valid, and manifested in a feeling from our local campaign that we weren't selling a grand vision. Mulcair is also correct that while we had some decent policy points (childcare, federal minimum wage, etc...), we weren't able to tie those to a short statement encapsulating the NDP vision for Canada. Most troubling was how certain policy points became too central to the campaign, and were never never utilized in a fashion that put forth a social democratic narrative of Canada's past and future. 

Key here was the zero-deficit pledge, which while compatible with socialist approaches to financing, was sold merely as a method of fiscal responsibility, leaving little rhetorical room between Mulcair and Harper. This can be contrasted with Tommy Douglas and other NDPers who claimed that the Old Parties loved debt because the banking class got to make its profit. Also pertinent was the discussion around Senate abolition, which while a position I largely supported, was not one that merited a main plank in an election where the economy was front and centre. 

This also played a role in the politicking for the election, because much of the focus was on attacking the Harper legacy, or showing how Justin Trudeau was unfit for leadership. This materialized with repetitive statements, a negative demeanour, and a largely dubious appeal to strategic voters based on the 2011-15 parliament's seat totals. Frustratingly, the party largely failed to hone in on the legitimate weaknesses of Trudeau's policies, especially in that his tax plan was less a distribution to beleaguered middle class families, and more a modest distribution from the rich to the nearly-rich, offering the vast majority of low-income tax filers no benefit.

But I feel the most important omission from this report is the reality that this campaign, while chock-full of tactical blunders, was a failure of the NDP's growing affinity to capitalism. The reality from Mulcair's statement is that the campaign's core philosophy was strong, and that the presentation and organization is what lost. Though this may be true, it speaks to my assertion that Tom Mulcair is less enamored with Canada's social democratic tradition than he claims to be.

Again, his campaign offered some excellent policy morsels for the left; items that will be essential in ushering in a society that trends toward equality. Things like the National Childcare Program would have transformed Canada, becoming the single most influential federal program since Medicare itself. 

And in fairness, since the election, Mulcair has been more frankly speaking about the issues of social and economic injustice, and has mused about introducing things like anti-scab legislation, which addresses a core NDP constituency. In this, Mulcair has tried to brand his NDP as Canada's progressive opposition to the Trudeau Liberals.

But beyond this, the campaign was weak in its approach to forge a society in the vein of previous NDP leaders like Douglas, David Lewis, and Ed Broadbent. Generally, Mulcair's platform largely accepts the primacy of private enterprise in the Canadian economy, and offers no real declination from that position in this reflection. 

While this isn't surprising, moreso is his personal view that higher taxes on Canada's wealthy would constitute a confiscatory approach that he can't support. It seems like he has remained steadfast in this position, as well. 

Ultimately, I feel Mulcair learned a great deal from his maiden campaign as leader, but his lessons were less on ideology than they were on tactics. My desire is to see the NDP return to a left orientation, because for the party to win with the platform championed last election, the mandate for foundational change would not exist. The following are just some of the options which can be taken to offer Canadians a genuine left option in 2019:

• A concrete rejection of Mulcair's pledge to not raise top-marginal tax rates. 
• A re-examination of the Carter Report, which in the 1960s recommended that all forms of income be taxed at the same rate, meaning that capital gains earners won't be given preference over wage and salary earners.
• a reversal of the Harper GST cuts, offset by increased GST rebates for low-income Canadians
• a honest examination of the Leap Manifesto--increasingly supported by NDP riding associations and figures--and how it can be incorporated into an electoral endeavor
• a reversal on the short-sighted amendments to the NDP constitutional preamble, especially as it concerns the party's commitment to anti-poverty and social ownership. 
• An exploration of a Guaranteed Annual Income policy that doesn't merely serve to slash public service institutions, but instead focuses on providing basic standards of living as a universal human right.
• The start of a longer term discussion of how increased technological unemployment can be harnessed, not just by profit and property-oriented forces, but by a drive for economic equality and democracy.

The purpose of this piece isn't to talk about whether or not Mulcair needs to go as NDP leader. Rather, its focused on what I feel were the key points around his reflective letter. It may well be the case that Mulcair could adopt these positions and take up the mantle of his predecessors. But he might also maintain his personal status quo, where Margaret Thatcher is held up as a positive voice, and where his concern lies more with the overtaxed rich than with Canadian workers. In any case, Mulcair, should he survive his confidence vote, has a lot of time to plan his next campaign; my hope is that he turns left, comfortable with the fact that should he lose, he did so fighting the good fight.