Jack Layton, the most successful New Democratic Party leader in history who succumbed to cancer Aug. 22 at age 61, is widely being hailed as an optimistic politician, a happy warrior, always ready with a smile.
My own experience as a reporter on Parliament Hill dedicated to Prairie coverage was a bit different. On some topics, he was a bit crustier.
Questions about Layton’s consistent lack of success on the Prairies through four elections often brought testy responses. The Toronto-based politician raised in a Montreal Conservative household never really connected with Prairie voters.
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Other than a brief interview during his successful 2003 run for the party leadership, my first substantive interview with Layton came shortly after the 2004 election when he won a seat for the first time, increased the party vote and increased the caucus from 13 to 19.
But results on the Prairies were going the other way. From Prairie MPs representing almost half the caucus after the 2000 election, 2004 reduced the region to just 20 percent of caucus.
For the first time in decades, Saskatchewan elected no New Democrats.
During the post-election interview in his Ottawa office, Layton mentioned it before I had a chance to ask. It was embarrassing, he said, to be a leader who did not win a seat in the Prairie cradle of the NDP.
His acting chief of staff and recently defeated Saskatchewan MP Dick Proctor was with him and corrected the record.
“A fellow called T.C. Douglas led the party and didn’t win a Saskatchewan seat for several elections,” said Proctor. “Of course, there was a fellow running against him called Diefenbaker.”
In fact, Douglas lost his own bid for a Regina seat in 1962.
Layton seemed to take some comfort that the NDP founding icon Douglas had suffered the same fate. In fact, under Douglas, 17-year Saskatchewan premier, the NDP was shut out in three consecutive elections in Saskatchewan — 1962, 1963 and 1965.
Layton broke that record of electoral failure this year when for the fourth consecutive election, the NDP was shut out of the province.
Over the years after 2004, I regularly asked Layton to explain the party’s inability to break into Saskatchewan and rural Canada under his leadership.
His responses were increasingly curt and irritated. After 2008, he correctly noted that almost one-third of the caucus was rural but that was Atlantic, Ontario and British Columbia.
The Prairies remained largely out of the tent.
After the 2011 election, rural Prairie representation in an historic caucus of 103 was reduced to one (Niki Ashton in Churchill, Man.)
Layton noted that the party now represents much of rural Quebec.
But the Prairie voter base was never a nut he was able to crack. It seemed to bother him.
