In Italy, I have a long experience of leftist militancy. My father was a regional deputy there and my aunt, a partisan officer of the anti-fascist resistance. She was tortured by Mussolini’s militias.
On November 19 and 20, I took part in the NDP provincial convention held in Montreal. Party leader Jagmeet Singh also spoke. He recalled the social achievements obtained in Parliament and snatched from the Liberal Party of Canada. He also reaffirmed that the NDP has a role to play in the near future to guide the country into a great season of social and economic reform.
No Canadian of any generation has seen the NDP in power on the federal scene and, all in all, relatively few have seen it in action on the provincial scene. I hope I didn’t emigrate to Canada, where I built a family, never to be governed and represented by a left-wing federal government.
The fact that the NDP has never led the country is in itself an anomaly in the democratic world. In Canada, the alternation is between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. Even at the provincial level, the NDP, when it is in the race, is often relegated to the status of a third party, if not to an even more marginal status.
This anomaly can only be partially explained by the nature of the Canadian electoral system, purely majority and single-member, which leads many progressive voters to opt for what is called the useful vote. Understand, here, to vote for a liberal rather than to give the victory to a conservative. In the United Kingdom too there is a single-member majority system, but the alternation is rather between the Conservatives and the Labour.
Another probable reason for this imbalance is undoubtedly found in North American political tradition, Canada having inevitably been subject to a certain influence from the United States, a country where socialist values and parties have been the victims of numerous prejudices and persecutions ( just think of McCarthyism).
Another element to take into consideration is the fact that some left-wing sovereigntist voters in Quebec do not vote for the NDP in federal elections, but for the Bloc, because the NDP is not a sovereigntist.
I believe that QS and the NDP should, in a way, ally. The NPD should present in its ranks some sovereignist personalities close to QS to sit in the federal parliament. The latter could present themselves as independent candidates. They should share the party line, while maintaining total freedom of opinion on the question of independence and the organization of a possible referendum.
Jagmeet Singh is well aware of the fact that many Quebecers are suspicious of him because he is English-speaking and wears a religious sign. I am for the secularism of the state. But I fear the Legault government and its misleading vision of secularism. In fact, a Christian can wear non-visible religious signs, such as a cross attached to a chain, hidden under his shirt.
On the other hand, the religious symbols of Jews, Muslims and Sikhs are inevitably visible. We must be careful not to use secularism as a weapon against other religions. Jagmeet Singh claims the right of every Canadian, regardless of ethnic origin or social class, to commit to their country. His election as party leader is a sign of a civilized country.
However, his sincere and determined support for the LGBTQ+ community, the right to divorce, as well as abortion, does not seem to fully convince many potentially progressive voters. One thing is certain. This anomaly explains why the social status in Canada is weaker than in other Western countries.
What should the NDP do, then?
1. He shouldn’t hide his social-democratic calling the way he does. On the contrary, it should declare itself openly as a social ecological party. Imagine for a moment adding to the acronym of the NDP the following acronym: SE, that is to say social ecologist. We are all concerned about climate change and the cost of living. It would be unifying.
2. The NDP must become the party of various social and cultural groups, even distant from each other, but which in reality share a common point: the loss or threat of a fundamental right. Families have difficulty finding a place in a CPE, women are underpaid, the elderly are abandoned in dilapidated and neglectful structures, the cost of a house and rent is increasingly prohibitive, world peace is seriously endangered.
The NDP must be the party of workers, women, students, artists, teachers, scientists, NGOs, aboriginal people, cultural diversity and “world peace”.
3. During the work of the NDP convention, I was able to discuss with a woman member of the Laval association. She asked herself the following question: “Our party would need a hymn, a song. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. So I recited to him People Have the Power by rock poet and progressive Patti Smith.
The song has a pleasant rhythm and an easy melody. The lyrics and the message are more than relevant, accurate and still relevant, maybe now more than ever (the song was composed in 1988). This title could also become the party’s slogan. I can very well imagine it being sung during a parade or a convention. With his consent, of course.