THE LEFT: FROM HOPE TO

SNEERS IN ONLY 25 YEARS

Robin V. Sears
Twenty-five years ago, the left in Canada was at the height of its influence. Under
Ed Broadbents leadership, the NDP had a national agenda of hope and social
justice for ordinary Canadians. It also had a sense of humour. Today, it has traded in
hope for an agenda crowded with fear-mongering, from anti-Americanism to the
apocalyptic Star Wars version of missile defence. In the last four elections, the voters
have asked whats in it for them, and hearing nothing, voted Liberal. How did the
left lose its way in the last 25 years, and how can it rediscover the politics of hope in
the next 25 years? Robin Sears, a former NDP campaign director during the
Broadbent years, offers this searing assessment of where the left went wrong.

In any campaign, the first stronghold you must occupy, is your

Enemys consciousness.
Felix Dzerzhinsky

ometime around 1980, in most of the democracies, the

impossible happened. Radical conservatives donned
the mantle of legitimacy and power, and successfully
occupied and undermined the democratic lefts consciousness. In the first of a very long string of ironies it was the
founder of the NKVD, father of the worlds most feared and
successful enemy to the champions of capitalist conservatism, who bequeathed the right this useful strategic insight.
From a century that began with generally snide
approval at Bertrand Russells characterization of British
Conservatives, as the Stupid Party, conservatives had leapt
to intellectual leadership and power in the UK, the US,
Germany, and much of the OECD. Even in Canada, the
dynastic Liberals were ousted for two terms by Brian
Mulroneys Conservatives.
An early Canadian socialist would admonish his young
acolytes when their swagger needed trimming: Let them
steal your confidence, your conviction, your comrades
trust, your community, or your culture and youre dead. If
the people ever doubt your ability to keep them safe,
healthy, and in work youre also done. Lose any one of
those and youve lost it all.
He would be furious to have seen social democrats
around the world give away each of those values in succession from 1980 to the present day.
Heres a scene from how it used to be, before that fall
from grace:

ou are wedged onto a wobbly chair in a sweaty co-op community hall on a hot summer night in 1969, in Weyburn,

Saskatchewan, peering through the smoky, dusty haze at a tiny

kinetic figure on the distant stage, rapt as you listen to one of
the speakers favourite stump pieces a story called the Cream
Separator delivered over ten or fifteen minutes, sparkling
with wit and embellished with hilarious curlicue sidebars.
So, you know I used to visit farm homes in the early
days. Of course everybody was always busy. Feeding
pigs, chickens, pitching hay and oat sheaves. Even the
youngsters were busy at important jobs.
Now, you know, they couldnt trust a city boy with
anything important, something skilled, like milking a cow!
I was given the one job anyone could do turning
the handle on the cream separator. Theyd pour the milk
in, Id turn the handle and out would come cream from
the cream spout and skim milk from the other.
One day it penetrated my thick Scottish skull
that can take time that this was how our economy
worked!
Weve got the producers: the farmers, the fishermen,
the loggers, the auto-workers, they produce and pour in the
milk and then there are the service workers, the office
workers, the nurses, and the clerks. They turn the handle.
But then I thought, wait a minute, theres someone missing here in this economy: What about the guy
who owns the cream separator? Where is he? Why, of
course! Hes the little fellow sitting on his stool, very
contented, big smile on his face, his mouth wide open
drinking all the cream from the cream spout!
And everyone else, well, they take turns on the
skim milk spout.
Now nobody likes skim milk! It tastes awful, right?
So they were angry. But were they angry at the little fellow, no. Theyd blame each other for the missing cream:
If only those greedy union members/farmers/nurses
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Robin V. Sears
Canada, the Liberal Party is less capable
Keynesianism was dead. Full
didnt ask for such high wages,
of suppressing dissidents than it once
employment seemed a distant dream.
wed have more cream! But of
was. But in an ideological stretch
The left was wracked with recrimination
course, they were wrong.
admirable for its scope if not its integriand agonized public hand-wringing.
There was nothing wrong
ty, Canadian liberalism encompasses
Triumphant neo-cons heralded the
with the producers or the service
the countrys most radical right wing
end of failed left wing delusions at
workers. The problem was the
government (Gordon Campbell in
home and abroad. The market was
darn machine! It was designed
British Columbia) and its most tradibeing promoted as political and ecoto give the awful blue milk to
tional conservative administration (Jean
nomic master.
the workers and the cream to
the corporate elite. But someIt is notoriously difficult to compete against this Liberal
times it produced even more
cream than the happy little
juggernaut. To the frustration of generations of CCFers and
fellow could digest.
New Democrats, the Liberal quicksilver slides left then
The darned machine
right, sometimes dividing, always coalescing again,
would produce a surplus! So
the fat little fellow would get sometimes several times in one campaign. Mackenzie King
indigestion from being such
is alleged to have urged his colleagues on the wisdom of
a pig. Then hed shout,
promising from the left and governing from the centre.
Stop! We have a recession.
Charest in Quebec), as well as every conIn Canada, the social democratic
Youre all laid off. But, then
fused strain of liberalism in between.
challenge was different. Progressive
after a while, hed burp, pat his
It is notoriously difficult to comrhetoric survived often trading
ample stomach, the cream had
pete against this Liberal juggernaut. To
under false Liberal colours for nearbeen digested and hed say,
the frustration of generations of
ly another decade. But its policy bulOkay, boys. Happy days are
CCFers and New Democrats the Liberal
warks were being successfully assaulted
here again. Start the machine!
quicksilver slides left then right, somefrom the right across the country. The
Now what we have been trytimes dividing, always coalescing
curse for the NDP was, of course, libering to tell Canadians for a long
again, sometimes several times in one
alism, not conservatism.
time is that the time has come.
campaign. Mackenzie King is alleged
Many Canadians are probably
The time has come, my friends,
to have urged his colleagues on the
unaware that Canadian Liberals are
for the people to get their hands
wisdom of promising from the left and
the most successful political dynasty
on, to get control of the regulator
governing from the centre.
in the democratic world. Indeed, their
of that machine to get the
The promises, with a little water
run of years in government is greater
machine to produce homogenized
added, come famously from NDP policies.
than all but the Kim family in North
milk with cream in it.
But promises made and delivered
Korea and the Chinese communists. In
So that there is a little cream
are always different political species.
the 20th century, they were in office
for everybody in this land!
Canadian Liberals have always underlonger than the Communist Party of
stood this maxim: health care was
the
Soviet
Union.
his was the irrepressible Tommy, as
promised from 1911 to 1965, before
The Communist Party of China and
T.C. Douglas was universally called
the Liberals started to deliver, a stretch
the Liberal Party of Canada are increasby his partisans, doing the sort of joyof 13 campaigns.
ingly similar both ideologically and culful mocking barnburner that electrified
This reduces the Canadian left with
turally. While each pledges a
audiences for more than 50 years.
three perennial choices: move to a more
commitment to social justice and ecoDouglas was near the end of his heroic
marginal position on the far left, comnomic progress, and despite the genuine
run as one of Canadas greatest populist
pete in the centre, or seek a moral victoconviction of many of their partisans
orators by then. It was also the end of
ry. Competing for Canadian centrist
that the partys crusade is real, both parthe golden age of the 25 years of prosvotes, as the Saskatchewan and
ties are fascinating examples of Webers
perity and full employment which folManitoba NDP have eloquently and
iron law of oligarchy. The leadership
lowed the Second World War. Within
successfully done, remains beyond the
elites of each tack into the prevailing
five years, by the late 1970s, the social
pale for the party in the axis of
political winds, with one strategic goal
democratic consensus which had govCanadian political power, Ontario.
only personal political survival.
erned the policy thinking of the develIn the Chinese case, the workers
oped world was battered by the oil
party has moved so far from its origins it
shock, the mysterious curse of stagfland yet, the ground for competinow admits millionaire businessmen
tion, and unemployment surging to
tion between liberalism even
and brutally suppresses trade unions. In
levels not seen since the 1930s.
the infinitely plastic Canadian variety

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The left: from hope to sneers in only 25 years

and social democracy is clear. It is
the gap between fighting for a rough
equality of outcomes and promising
only an equality of opportunity. As Ed
Broadbent put it in his collection of
essays on the future of the left,
Democratic Equality, What Went Wrong,
in 2001 liberals are satisfied to attempt
to level the playing field of opportunity, and pray for a less unequal life for
Canadians, as a result.
Social democrats understand that
the built-in advantages of inherited
wealth, a stable family environment,
and middle-class social networks
always tilt the playing field against
those from less privileged backgrounds. It was fashionable, even
among progressives, in the 1990s to
cling to an all boats are lifted by a rising tide approach to the eternal democratic challenge of inequality. The
market crash of 2001 brought a more
sober reality to bear:

income equality is rising to alltime highs,

middle-class incomes are static or

falling, and

social mobility is slowing to a

meaningless level, especially for
new immigrants.
Today some conservatives are
beginning to muse about the impact of
this collapse of opportunity. David
Brooks, a thoughtful conservative
commentator said in the New York
Times following the porcine US presidential inaugural galas,
Today [social mobility is] again
under threat, but this time from
barriers that are different than
the ones defined by socialists in
the industrial age. Now, the
upper class doesn't so much
oppress the lower class. It just
outperforms it generation after
generation. Now the crucial
inequality is not only finance
capital, it's social capital. if
families are disrupted, if the
social environment is dysfunctional, bigger budgets won't help.
President Bush spoke grandly
about foreign policy borrowing
from Lincoln. Lincoln's other

great cause was social mobility.

That's worth embracing too.

lthough his enthusiasm for Bushs

war on terror has blinded many
to his pioneering insights into a modern social democracy, Tony Blair has
grasped this social exclusion nettle.
Making it clear that public services
must perform to higher delivery standards, that they are not to be managed

by their unions, and that doctors,

teachers and public servants will be
accountable to the taxpayers who fund
them, has enraged many traditionalists.
This novel approach to governing
from the centre left is a recognition
that an end to social mobility means a
fast-growing, bitter, and increasingly
non-white
underclass,
and
an
inevitable and catastrophic end for any
democratic society. This approach has

The Gazette, Montreal

Tommy Douglas, the happy warrior of the Canadian social democratic movement, on the campaign trail in 1968. For more than 50 years, writes Robin
Sears, he electrified audiences with his joyful barnburners. He preached the
politics of hope, a different message from the dark and gloomy agenda practised by the NDP today.

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Robin V. Sears
broken...because they chose to serve
their conscience rather than a neurotic megalomaniac. [Is] there a
man in this House who is not prepared to shed his blood...in order
that we in this country, and the
people of...the democracies, do not
have to live under a regime in
which such things are possible...? I
make this plea: If our men and
women are prepared tooffer their
lives we should get assurance from
this government...that the resources
of the nation will be taken on the
same basis as [their] human service is taken, without profit, but for

than Ronald Reagan in US history is

George W. Bush, whose guns and butter economy will add $2 trillion in debt
by the time he leaves office in 2009.
It seemed that voters did not care
that the people who promised to run
government with the efficiency of a
well-oiled corporation were pushing
their economies dangerously close to
bankruptcy. Social democrats were elected again in some countries Germany,
the UK, New Zealand and had to
undo the messes conservative so-called
lairs near-suicidal determination to
expertise had generated. Nye Bevan, the
support the Bush invasion of Iraq
fiery Welsh socialist once described this
may be seen by historians as his Suez, or
experience as being called in by the votDien Bien Phu. More likely it will be
ers to clean up the mess the
regarded as critical to the releTories always leave behind.
vance of British social democracy
The combination of sneering
As David Marquand, the
in a new alignment of global
indictments of globalization, wacko right-wing British social demopower. Just as Tommy Douglas
break with his pacifist leader to scare politics and nostalgic recycling crat observed, these new conservatives had forgotten what the
support the Second World War
of old nostrums is hard to label.
twentieth century had so
was crucial to the survival of the
Environmental catastrophe,
painfully taught, that the free
CCF. However craven or courageous you may see Blairs deci- genocidal genesplitters, middle-class market is a marvelous servant
destitution, and an imminent
and a disastrous master.
sion, that it was driven in part by
Curiously, to date in most places,
a determination to break with the
nuclear holocaust in the cosmos
tragic unilateralist, anti-American
may form a coherent policy whole conservatives have not yet had
to pay for their demonstration
dead end into which the
to the authors, but it is far from
that it is their approach to public
European left had driven in years
obvious to the rest of us.
sector
management
that
since Vietnam is indisputable.
couldnt run a peanut stand.
Those who see social
the service of the state and for the
So flash forward 35 years from
democrats as snide anti-military
duration of this war.
Weyburn to Washington and listen to
peaceniks would have been surprised by
the oratory of another joyful crusader,
trade union strongman Ernie Bevin. As
as he makes a claim on the legacy of
Labours steely post-war Foreign
n a further irony of this strange perileft liberal internationalism:
Secretary he was one of the architects of
od from which the left will no doubt
A fewhave accepted the hardNATO. Like Willy Brandts courageous
emerge, it was soon clear that neoest duties in this causethe
and successful Ostpolitik, two decades
conservatives were lousy managers of
dangerous and necessary work of
later, it was a successful effort to enfeegovernment. (As a headhunter friend
fighting our enemies. Some have
ble Soviet East European hegemony.
mused, Who would be dumb enough
shown their devotion to our
The sneering anti-American pacito hire a CEO who said they hated the
country in deaths that honoured
fism which became the leitmotif of the
company as much as the neo-cons say
their whole lives
international democratic lefts foreign
they hate the public sector? What did
I ask our youngest citizens
policy prescription post-Vietnam, was
they expect?) The crazed notion that
to believe the evidence of your
a strange wrong turn for a movement
cutting taxes and spending would not
eyes. You have seen that life is
which had always supported the use of
hurt services was soon retired as a fiscal
fragile, evil is real, and courage
force against evil. Here is Tommy
absurdity. Then, conservatives, behavtriumphs. [M]ake the choice to
Douglas, haranguing Mackenzie King
ing as the cracked mirror image of
serve in a cause larger
on his limp and tentative approach to
social democrats at their worst, cut
thanyourself andyou will
war mobilization, in 1940:
taxes, raised spending, and oversaw
add not just to the wealth of
In 1936 I saw what [fascism] has
public service quality decline as fast as
our country, but to its character.
meant...I saw men who had come
their deficits rose. Amazingly, the only
All who live in tyranny and
out of concentration camps...people
person to have outspent and outhopelessness can know: the
whose spirits had been
indebted American taxpayers faster
also helped win the two largest Labour
majorities in the partys history.
The traditional task of social democracy at the national level improving
lives, relieving poverty, enhancing justice, creating opportunity the rationalist, optimistic political child of the
Enlightenment, was thought to be pass
ten years ago. A less inebriated decade
has revealed its continuing relevance,
even as new tasks emerge.

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The left: from hope to sneers in only 25 years

United States will not ignore your
oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your
liberty, we will stand with you.
Democratic reformers facing
repression, prison, or exile can
know: America sees you for who
you are: the future leaders of your
free country.
Bill Clinton hailing the heroes of
Kosovo? John Kerry, perhaps, laying out
his commander-in-chief credentials?
No, this Kennedyesque internationalist appeal is George W. Bush at his second inaugural. How complete the capture
of the joyful, even irresponsibly optimistic, rhetoric of the democratic left!
By contrast, on the left, substituting for the thundering chant of the
people united, will never be defeated,
or we shall overcome, heard on city
boulevards in a dozen languages from
the 1950s to the 1970s, is a sour, defeated fightback vocabulary, mixed with
an angry conspiratorial catechism of
hate. In Canada, todays left also has
that self-absorbed high-pitched whine

typical of a certain type of forever

grumpy Canadian.

avour this contemporary NDP

appeal to the workers:
Homeowners are sitting on a
ticking time bomb in terms of
their families healthThis government has done nothing to
help Canadian homeowners cope
with what could be a public
health emergency Zonolite
[!]could be dealt with while
concurrently improving affordable housing stock and meeting
environmental needs..
Plucked randomly from the NDP
Web site, this is an average example of
rhetorical flair from the frontmen of
the Grumpy & Blue Brothers Band
MPs Bill Blaikie and Pat Martin.
Together they are capable of a level of
depressing whine, from their sky is
falling repertoire, sufficient to make
J.S. Woodsworth wince in his grave.
The following sidesplitter is perhaps more evocative of the time

machine into which the party seems to

have stepped in the 1990s:
Divisions in the capitalist class
are bound to play a role in challenging the power of the bond
market and the banks.
This from the partys ideologue
manqu, James Laxer, in The New Left,
in 1996. This neo-Leninist prediction
has come true, though perhaps not in
the revolutionary manner intended.
Its called an income trust, Jim.

he combination of sneering
indictments of globalization,
wacko scare politics and nostalgic recycling of old nostrums is hard to label.
Environmental catastrophe, genocidal
genesplitters, middle-class destitution,
and an imminent nuclear holocaust in
the cosmos may form a coherent policy whole to the authors, but it is far
from obvious to the rest of us.
So another irony: the political
tribe known for its evangelical optimism surrenders to sulk. It is hard to
remember for those old enough so to

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Robin V. Sears
rituals more than its rhetoric. Shaws
wry plaint that socialism will never
work, there arent enough evenings or
weekends, is no doubt the secret angst
of many a right-wing activist today.
When a Methodist Workingmens
Club provided the tools for a way out
of the slums, it also sealed a politTo the ironies list must be added the successful
ical bargain for a lifetime. A conusurpation by the leftist NGO movements of this sense of servative summer camp today
holds the same power to its
community from left politics. They have cleverly sapped
activist core.
the appeal of politics, trade unionism and the church in
To the ironies list must be
favour of their work on an array of internationalist causes. added the successful usurpation by
the leftist NGO movements of this
It is there today that you find the social networks, the
sense of community from left
endless weekends of voluntarism, and the lifetime bonds
political parties. They have cleverthat used to glue union and democratic socialist parties
ly sapped the appeal of politics,
activist cores. And of course, many of them are refugees
trade unionism and the church in
favour of their work on an array of
from political, church and trade union activism.
internationalist causes. It is there
today that you find the social networks,
gave up its claim on the politics of hope
gian depths of industrial England, to
the endless weekends of voluntarism,
and aspiration, in favour of the politics
the New Chinese Man delusions of
and the lifetime bonds that used to glue
of fear, blame and dread.
early Mao, the message of the left from
union and democratic socialist parties
Having foolishly accepted the
its dawn 250 years ago has been one of
activist cores. And of course, many of
slashing critique of the hard right for
a happier, better, more fulfilled and
them are refugees from political, church
the economic failures of the 1970s a
peaceful place on earth.
and trade union activism.
blame surely more widely shared
No matter how unlikely the physiThe still fashionable culture
leftists then failed to capture any
cal setting, no matter how apparently
wars or the collision of values was
advantage from the end of commudim the prospect, progressives sold
another egregious step into the abyss
nism. Instead of saying, No more
hope not helplessness. It was a ratiofor social democrats. At the risk of
invidious comparisons, please, were
nalist, enlightment conviction that
pounding irony into the ground, suresocial democrats, the democratic left
things can be better. Nihilistic gloom,
ly this one was the most delicious: that
allowed its totalitarian cousins demise
anarchistic anger were the enemy of
a movement borne in part of temperto become a forecast and justification
democratic socialists everywhere. Even
ance and Methodist stricture, of reacof its own. Then squandering the most
straight-laced Marxists were twitted by
tion to the waste of lives and hope in
powerful weapon in any movements
their more populist leaders. Emma
drink, gambling and dissolution
arsenal a compelling mythological
Goldmans famous line, If I cant
should end up on the wrong side of
canon and rhetoric how much more
dance at your revolution, I wont
clean living is mildly head-spinning!
foolish could todays left thinkers be?
come, directed at her more dour
How did it happen?
Well, much more, as it turned out.
German colleagues, re-emerged on TIt is illegal, socially reprehensible,
shirts in the 1960s as a taunt by the
and
definitely
not cool to be: a racist, sexnew left at the pessimism of the old.
or the next of the family jewels to
ist, homophobe, anti-semite or a fascist
In Canada, the left has always
be prised from their hands was the
in public in the Western world today.
been an often lumpy and uncomfortpower of community and progressive
This is an unbelievable victory in
able mix of temperance, Methodism,
community values. Todays progresless than a generation, for those who
Marxism and beery trade unionism. So
sives sneer at the bake-offs and the
remember the world pre-1960. Despite
Tommys hilarious speaking style,
Bible nights and the self-contained
the secret prejudices and discriminapiercing wit and irrepressible optisocial life of the evangelical communitions that survive, it is a revolution in
mism marched alongside the somety. How short-sighted, how dumb.
social values. Perhaps it behooves the
what less rollicking form of the CCFs
From left book clubs to Fabian
victor to be more tolerant of the losers?
funereal founder, J.S. Woodsworth.
Society picnics, from union summer
Failing to recognize a victory is
schools to United Church socials, the
almost
as serious in politics as missing
story
of
the
successful
left
is
the
story
of
d Broadbents leadership marked
the lessons of defeat. The culture wars
a community bound by its tribal social
both the height of the partys power
do, and almost impossible to believe
for those too young, that at the dawn
of the 1980s the democratic left owned
political optimism, and scored high on
common sense.
From the New Jerusalem of the
early Methodist Socialists in the sty-

at the national level, and the high tide

mark for any appreciation of selfdeprecating humour. Its hard to think
the left once had a sense of humour in
this country, but it was part of the survivor mindset. However, in the past
quarter century, even in Canada, the left

E
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The left: from hope to sneers in only 25 years

ended around 1980. The left won. But
most didnt notice and kept on fighting.
Listening to pro-choice activists
today, or the more vehement anti-racists
a quarter of a century after the Voting
Rights Act and our Charter is a bit like
watching news clips of those sad soldiers
who kept fighting because they didnt get
the news of the surrender.

became the first re-elected Democrat

president since FDR. Chrtien, grinning, whipped their asses three times.
It was what Cliff Scotton the
always droll aide to Tommy Douglas
called the triumph of the Too little! Too late! Aint it awful! school of
political rhetoric on the left. And
Canadian voters, like all normally
optimistic human beings, said, in
increasing numbers; Well, uh, no I
dont think it is so awful, really,
and voted Liberal.
Donald Sassoon, in his monumental work, One Hundred Years of Socialism,
concludes his sweep of left history with
a gaze at the future. He observes that

drafter, John Humphreys, was intended

as a fusion of humanitarian liberalism
with social democracy (Churchill,
Stalin and even Roosevelt would have
been horrified at the description). The
United
Nations
Covenant
on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
adopted and ratified by most major
countries with the exception of the
United States and China, is even more
explicitly a leftist proclamation.
It makes a good summary of a 21st
century project for the democratic left:
[H]uman beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can
only be achieved if conditions
are created whereby everyone

s Hillary Clinton pointed out in a

speech to the NOW convention
recently, an abortion remains a
tragedy, a failure and a gut-wrenching
decision for a woman even in a choiceguaranteed world. Should we not
reach out to those on the pro-life side
of this divide in mutual
Ed Broadbents leadership marked both the height of the
acknowledgement of that?
Finally we come to crime. partys power at the national level, and the high tide mark
Police brutality may have been for any appreciation of self-deprecating humour. Its hard
the central neighbourhood safeto think the left once had a sense of humour in this
ty issue if you were a Black
Panther 30 years go. It is not, if country, but it was part of the survivor mindset. However,
you are the mother of black chil- in the past quarter century, even in Canada, the left gave
dren in a crack and gun-infested up its claim on the politics of hope and aspiration, in
North American neighbourhood
favour of the politics of fear, blame and dread.
today. It is the democratic lefts
1930s social democrats realized, albeit
own target voters who are the primary
may enjoy his economic, social
often too late, what appalling consevictims of violence. It is no wonder,
and cultural rights as well as
quences would flow from a combinatherefore that the Blair/Blunkett line
his civil and political rights.
tion of nationalism and right wing
"tough on crime, tough on the causes of
[It is] the right of [every percapitalism. He suggests that today the
crime" had resonance with these voters.
son] to fair wages a decent livdemocratic left has the same obligation
All of these strategic wrong turns,
ingsafe and healthy working
to see that globalization does not proadded to an astonishing misunderconditionsand a reasonable
duce a multinational fascism even
standing of what motivates voters,
limitation on working hours.
more toxic than the European variety.
scare stories or a better future, as in:
The widest possible protection
He points out, as did Michael
Just say no to (choose one) carcinoand assistance should be accorded
Harrington, Tony Crossland and Olaf
genic pesticides, death by Star Wars, or
to the family. Special protection
Palme 30 years earlier, that the next
transfat frankenfood.
[shall be offered]... before and
project of the democratic left is to give
Or to put it in terms even the sourafter childbirth, and working
real meaning to internationalism in
puss school of political science, led by
mothers should be accorded paid
this era. Marx, surveying his Manchester
Messrs. Laxer, Panitch, and Drache,
leave. Children should be protectslum neighbours, recognized that a
could understand: Is an appeal to aspied from exploitation.
solution to their plight would have to be
ration, or fear, more likely to win an
The creation of conditions
the political mission of a much broader
uncommitted vote? Duh,even
which would assure to everycoalition, of all industrialized workers.
their dimmest student would mutter
one all medical service and
Todays social justice champions can no
quietly, in response.
medical attention...
longer focus on the socially excluded of
While Canadian social democrats
Primary education shall be
Baltimore or Birmingham, but on the
dismissed the man from Hope in
compulsory and available free
challenges of a growing, angry, third1992 and his bridge to the 21st centuto allsecondary [and higher]
world underclass.
education shall be made equalry in 1996, sneered at our ptit gars
ly...accessible to all
and his cheery vacuity, they went down
(excerpts from Art. 1-13,
in 1993 to their most dramatic federal
he Universal Declaration of Human
Convenant on Economic,
defeat since 1958. The man from Hope
Rights, in the words of its Canadian

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25

Robin V. Sears
Social, and Cultural Rights,
adopted 1966, entry into
force 1976).
A world in which everyone may
enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights cannot be a traditional liberal vision, as it necessarily implies
taking the steps to require not
encourage it to happen.
The international democratic left
has revived itself, from previous years
in the wilderness, from formerly powerful antagonists. The failures of the
30s set the stage for the red-baiting of
the 50s. Progressive ideals endured.
There is no reason to think that the
bleak ideological and electoral landscape which faces the NDP or the
European left is permanent either.
So looking forward a quartercentury, we are sitting in the new public square of Weyburn, on a summer
night in 2030. The buzz quiets and a
leader speaks:
Twenty five years ago we
said to Canadians its time to

26

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MARCH-APRIL 2005

rebuild our communities and our

bonds of friendship and solidarity with each other and the
world. Who was it who forced
the Liberals to deliver to our families an accessible, affordable,
workable health care system, and
choice for our families and children about early care and education; who fought for an Earth
guardian and a planetary prosperity agenda that didnt penalize
the poor, and plugged the loopholes of the polluter?
Who was it who made it
clear to Canadians that economic efficiency and social
justice were partners, not
choices that an egalitarian
society was a prosperous society? We were the ones who
taught that a community that
shared its burdens fairly won
more for all its people.
Remember a time when our
complaints drowned out our

dreams, when our enemies stole

our confidence, our common heritage and our commitment to
never, ever, ever give up. When
we welcomed voices of anger and
hate to sit at our table. When
we were surprised that those who
believed that hope and happiness
and helping out are impossible
to live without drifted away to
sit at others tables?
That was us, my
friends.We will not go back to
that place. And remember
always, as Tommy used to say:
I shall not cease from mental
strife, nor shall my sword sleep
in my hand, til we have built
Jerusalem, in this green and
pleasant land.
Robin Sears, a principal at Navigator
Ltd., is a Toronto communications consultant and former national campaign
director for the NDP, in which capacity
he never lost his sense of humour.