Jack Layton ready to take on Liberals

Federal NDP Leader discusses things from Trudeau to advancing the urban agenda

With all of the news swirling around the formation of the new Conservative party, or what has been happening with the Liberals at the federal level, it's sometimes hard to remember there is a third national party, which its leader describes as being the 'party of the people.'
Jack Layton, the federal leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, was in town recently hosting a leadership levy in his home riding of Toronto-Danforth. It was at this time, that Layton took the opportunity to sit down with the Tandem and discuss his party's outlook.
At the moment, the NDP is enjoying a surge in support in which a recent poll had them trailing the front-running Liberals, at 8.5 percent, (the Liberals were enjoying about 51 percent support). And while the numbers for the NDP aren't as high as in 1988, when they stood at 20.5 percent with former leader Ed Broadbent at the helm, they do show that interest in the New Democrats is on the rise. Most importantly, said Layton, is the increased support of the party among younger people.
"I think that was one of the reasons I was chosen leader. We had a lot of young people that wanted us to change direction. They wanted us to be more focussed on urban issues," he said. "When Stephen Paige of the Barenaked Ladies had that concert for us, his message was to young people, and we had thousands and thousands of young people join our political party in the last year. I mean it's fantastic. We just about doubled our party membership from 52,000 Canadians to 100,000... and we're still growing. And of course a lot of it has been through the Internet."
At the provincial level, in Ontario at least, the underlying theme behind the New Democrats having seen their share of seats held in Queen's Park, drop, the thought of many observers was that the party had lost touch with younger generations. Some even suggested that the party needs to undergo a makeover and a change in its philosophy.
Layton, who was elected last year to be the leader of the federal party, was chosen just for that very reason, to connect with youth.
"I think our party had lost touch with younger voters," Layton said. "The average age of our party members was rising faster than chronological time - this is not a prescription for longevity. So that's why I challenged our party to reach out and bring in more young people and grow our membership, because if you're adding new members they're almost by definition going to be younger than the average, almost by definition. Although, some seniors came back to the NDP recently, as well, because they like the fact that we're taking stands on issues that they care about.
"Of the new people that have joined the party, a vast majority of them are young and this is very good. I discovered that the federal party didn't have a youth organizer. When I got to Ottawa I said 'what's our strategy; do we have a youth organizer? No, well, we're changing that.' The very first new position we hired was a youth organizer. We now have 42 university and college clubs and we're starting in high schools - that's in the last six months."
Among those seniors that have returned to the party is Broadbent. The federal NDP soared to new highs with Broadbent in charge during the 1980s. Many times during his tenure he was the most popular among the political party leaders. Broadbent's return has been heralded around political circles and Layton is happy to echo the same sentiments.
"Of course Ed is in the same age group as a Stephen Lewis, as a Paul Martin," said Layton. "I mean Paul is 65, Stephen Lewis is 66, although you'd never think it really, would you, with what he does, and Ed is 67. That's a generation. I think he's highly respected. A lot of young people are very happy to see Ed Broadbent coming back to the party, they think that's terrific, because they admire him and he stood for human rights and democracy worldwide and he has an international reputation."
Perhaps Layton's biggest challenge, aside from trying to increase the number of seats the NDP has right now in the House of Commons (14), it will be to win a seat federally. He plans to run in an area where he was a city councillor for more than a decade, Toronto-Danforth, but that will pit him against popular Liberal MP Dennis Mills. But as Layton pointed out, as a leader of a national party, his actual competition is Prime Minister Paul Martin.
"Paul Martin, of course, is backed by large, corporate financial backing. He has a war chest; he has a huge organization that's been built as a result of that massive amount of money and he is the challenge, quite clearly," said Layton. "That is who I'm running against. I'm not running against Dennis Mills, I'm the leader of a national party. I'm running against Paul Martin. We need New Democratic Party seats representing Toronto, and all across the country in order to prevent the Martin government from becoming even more Conservative and ignoring our cities even more."
As a longtime municipal representative the urban issue is an important one for Layton. He said there has been a failure at both the federal and provincial level to recognize the needs of cities across Canada, and that has got to change.
"(Municipalities) collect seven cents out of your tax dollar; the other governments collect 93 cents and yet (municipalities) are now supposed to look after moving you around; putting a roof over your head; educating your kids; keeping your environment clean; doing something about smog; crime; everything else. They need resources," he said. "When you look at other countries, especially in Europe, especially in the social democracies, the local municipalities receive financial support. It's regarded as fundamental. It's like putting oil in the engine, if you don't put oil in the engine, you may think you're driving fast and having a good time, waving at your friends, then suddenly you're going to hit the equivalent of a wall. Well, travelling our cities now, compared to travelling our cities in the'70s and the early-'80s when we were investing, it's like night and day and it's got to change. So you ask what's my role? Well, if the constituents of Toronto-Danforth and if the people of Canada believe that these issues are important, hopefully they'll provide us with enough support so that we can be there making the case. You can already see with Martin, and this is his practice, he's a very big thinker, with his big thinking ideas and his new deals, but when it comes down to actually the actions that get taken, well 'it's complicated; we have to look at this; we have to look at that.' It's not complicated."
As Layton also pointed out, with the formation of the new Conservative party, many alliances and relationships will be tested, as those seeking election will try to figure out what political mold best fits them. This, in a way, Layton said is good for the political landscape.
"Already some Liberals have begun to come our way and people who have supported the Liberals on the left-end of the Liberal party... I think what you're seeing is a political system in flux and we're doing everything we can to accelerate the pace of change," he said. "I've been saying Canadian politics needs a chiropractic treatment - it needs a spinal realignment and we're trying to help make that happen."
Here are thoughts from Layton on some key topics for him and his party:
On his competitor Dennis Mills: "He is a part of a political party and a political machine, which is now led by a very, very Conservative leader. We can see - and I think even Dennis recognizes this - I was surprised when he came out in the last days to support Paul Martin, because Paul Martin is a Conservative leading the Liberal party. We can see it by his first acts in government. The first thing he did was make sure that that big tax cut went through. The impact now on corporations as of January 1, $4.4 billion in reduced taxes. That is not something a Liberal would do when government revenues are tight and we need now to invest in our communities."
The island airport and port authority: "Dennis (Mills) brought in an initiative into the Marine Act to have Toronto's Harbour Commission killed and replaced by a Port Authority, where his friend David Collenette appointed all the members, instead of a harbour commission, which used to have three city councillors on it - I was one of them - and two appointed people from the federal government. So we had some democratic control; the people had some accountability over the Harbour Commission. The Port Authority we have now has no accountability. They went ahead with this bridge; they knew the election was a strong expression of the public's will and yet they're threatening lawsuits."
On Pierre Trudeau: "He would be with the New Democrats, I have absolutely no doubt about it. Look at the approach to immigration taken by our government today, compared to what it would have been under Trudeau. I know so many people who voted Liberal because they remember Trudeau as the man who said we want you all to come into the country and multiculturalism was celebrated. Now we see a completely different attitude."
On his wife city councillor Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) on potentially running federally: "There are some people that feel that her voice in Ottawa would be a powerful voice, so she'll have to make that decision. As she said in the election, you never rule anything out in politics; that's one rule I adopted a long time ago. What are you going to do, put handcuffs on? Her focus, right now, she is very active as chair of the Community Services Committee and what David Miller wants her to do is to work on getting the housing built - get started with the housing even though the dollars are very meager and they're stuck in all these federal and provincial ministries and bureaucracies, get the money out and put it to work in the ground and get roofs over people's heads. So she's very focussed on that for the next few months and we'll see."
On Quebec (where he was born): "The Quebeccers have done something wonderful in Quebec. They could have been annihilated as a language, as a culture if they had done nothing to respond. They would have been part of the big melting pot, but they said no, we're going to insist on our language, we're going to have our education; we're going to have our cultural investments; and we're going to stay in touch with the Francophone countries of the world; we're going to make that a priority. We should be proud as Canadians that they did that. Of course it was tough - politically very tough - but now you go to Quebec, it's so different then when I was a youngster, because all the Anglophone kids they all speak French perfectly."
On the NDP making inroads in Quebec (a province they have never held a seat in): "It's the area where we certainly have the most work to do and it's why... I'm from Quebec, I grew up in Quebec, deep family roots there, our family store is still in downtown Montreal - a music store - and I've spent more time in Quebec then in any other province, except Ontario, by far and just quietly building our organization and gradually our membership. Our membership is up 600 percent now - now it was small, so I don't want to make it sound too exciting - but it's the rate of change."
On a spring election: "We'll be ready, any additional time we have, of course, is good for us in two ways. It'll give the pathetic - but we'll see what happens - Conservative party a little time so we end up with some three-way races, which in Ontario could be very good, which, I'm sure, is what Martin wants to avoid. The longer he stays around without an election, the more Canadians are going to come to realize this guy is corporate Canada. We've got this CEO Conservative as prime minister and maybe that's not what we were counting on or need right now."
The Liberal party: "There's a kind of arrogance that can set in when you've been in power for so long, after all it's muscle power, I mean Paul Martin ended up with no competition. These guys in the schoolyard they sometimes think their muscles are bigger than what they really are. Invincibility is a dangerous position to adopt."

Publication Date: 2004-01-18
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3553