IN HIS downtown Ottawa office, 10 floors up with a great view of the city core, New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton has installed an electric keyboard with earphones so he can practice without sending sour notes into adjoining offices.
On the top of the keyboard, sheet music sits, waiting for the next practice. One of the chosen pieces is the traditional Lutheran hymn Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.
At first glance, the Toronto municipal politician has much to be thankful for, to God or at least the voters, for the blessings of these past few years.
Read Also
Worrisome drop in grain prices
Prices had been softening for most of the previous month, but heading into the Labour Day long weekend, the price drops were startling.
The son of a former Tory cabinet minister captured the NDP leadership in 2003 over some veteran NDP parliamentarians despite the fact that his political experience was limited to Toronto city council and national municipal politics.
Then, the new leader increased the national NDP vote in the June 28 election by one million, picked up a half dozen new seats, came within one seat of holding the balance of power in Parliament and won his own seat over a veteran Toronto Liberal MP.
These are impressive early credentials.
The down side is that the party did not meet his expectations for electoral success and for the first time in four decades, did not elect a single MP in Saskatchewan and few in rural Canada.
The rural collapse of the NDP has been happening for more than a decade and cannot be laid at Layton’s feet but this very urban politician clearly was unable to stop the rural bleeding.
Little more than a decade ago, the party founded as a coalition of farmers, labour and urban intellectuals had strong representation in rural British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
The NDP could be counted upon to be the most passionate voice for the Canadian Wheat Board, marketing boards and farm support.
By 2004, the party had become largely an urban entity.
Its representatives still make the pro-farmer, pro-marketing board, pro-CWB arguments but farmers aren’t responding as they once did.
Rural English Canada is Conservative country now.
The NDP continues to argue for policies and institutions that once ruled the roost, including the wheat board and family farm support, but party positions now seem less relevant to most farmers, given the evidence of Conservative victories in most farm ridings in the last election.
Layton says he is not in the mood for changing rural policy, insisting that support for marketing boards, the wheat board and government support are the right policies even if farmers appear indifferent.
Of course, to say otherwise would not be credible anyway but surely it’s time for the party to look inward, to try to figure out how and why the rural base slipped away.
Merely repeating traditional policies, insisting they remain the best, is not a formula for revival.
The NDP needs rural Canadian support.
The heart, mind and money of modern Canada may indeed reside in the urban centres where the NDP has a chance at revival but the nation’s soul still lies in the countryside that gave birth to the NDP and now spurns it.
Can a party be relevant nationally if it doesn’t have a fighting chance to represent the country’s soul?
