Jack Layton, who passed away yesterday, was the leader of the Canadian version of the Greens Party, the NDP. Having just led the NDP to its greatest election success, with 101 seats he had become the Leader of the Opposition. The Liberal Party, Canada’s ALP (what’s in a name?), is now nowhere, a tiny nothing on the political landscape. This obituary paints a rather accurate picture of the politics of the man who has now passed on. Here is his final (earthly) judgement:
Canadian politics was more lively because of Layton, but his policies were atrocious. Where he successfully implemented them, they do harm. Where he pushed for them, he has changed the political landscape for the worst. Our country is worse off because of politicians like Jack Layton and those traits that are so admirable were put to work for ends that shouldn’t be celebrated.
May God have mercy on his soul and may humility and honesty rain upon future discussions of Jack Layton’s legacy. Charity is great at times like this, but not at the expense of truth.
I hope, by the way, the ALP is paying close attention to what happened in the last Canadian election.
For those who believe that the 50-50 snapback is an ironclad guarantee, observe what happened to the Canadian Libs.
The same thing is happening to Labor right now. We’re possibly witnessing a historical event in slow motion, the remnants of the once-mighty ALP glacier sliding into the sea. And the first person to call it, anywhere (as far as I know), was the Currency Lad, on the day Gillard signed her pact with the Greens.
daddy dave
25 Aug 11 at 12:49 pm
Ever since Deakin jumped into bed with the Free-Traders, the Australian Right has been an unholy alliance of ideological enemies united by little but its opposition to the ALP. That was not so bad at first, when the ALP actually stood for something: Andrew Fisher fought the next election on a platform of imposing a Federal land tax, and won.
But now that the ALP no longer stands for anything, its demise might clear the way for more ideological honesty in other parties.
Gavin R. Putland
25 Aug 11 at 1:17 pm
Be nice if the Libs split into our two main parties and formed the wets and the drys.
Infidel Tiger
25 Aug 11 at 1:22 pm
Yesterday? I thought he popped his clogs a few days ago.
Oh come on
25 Aug 11 at 2:56 pm
I wonder what makes Canada so different. I couldn’t imagine Bob Brown becoming leader of the opposition in Australia.
Or even PM…
With a secure majority…
In both houses.
Adrien
25 Aug 11 at 3:27 pm
My understanding is that the NDP has formal links with unions, which makes them analogous to the ALP.
The Liberals are more like the Australian Democrats (the closest comparison I can think of).
I see your point, but there are a few vital differences between Canada and Australia. First, Canada (federally at least) has a a 3.5 party system (the big three and the Quebec separatists sovereigntists, the Bloc Quebecois). Second, Australia has preferential voting, Canada doesn’t, which increases the “brittleness” of their parliamentary numbers (e.g. you can get wipeouts like the Liberals at the Canadian election just past, or the New Brunswick election of 1987).
Overall though I agree when you say the Labor glacier is melting (probably because of market fundamentalists and their deadly carbon dioxide warming the globe), but the ALP’s demise is getting stretched out because of the ALP reaping Green preferences – the ALP would be really stuffed without them.
benson
25 Aug 11 at 3:43 pm
Er, that New Brunswick link should have been more like this.
benson
25 Aug 11 at 3:47 pm
Canada is like Australia in many ways, but their politics can be wacky sometimes. In 1993 they went nuts & voted out a conservative government leaving them with only two seats. There’s also a strong regionalism at play meaning for most of the past 20 years, the west and east voted for different right-wing parties, and the separatists in Quebec regularly hold the rest of the country to ransom, even in the federal parliament.
I lived in Canada for a couple of their federal elections, but only some elements of them were familiar to me as an Australian. I wonder if Australia is capable of producing the kinds of swings & shifts they have in Canada. Wouldn’t mind seeing Labor reduced to 2 seats for a few years though…
south
25 Aug 11 at 4:15 pm
I’m sure I’ve seen people on the left, who think Labor is meant to be like the Greens except with union ties instead of environmentalism as its purported raison d’être, have been predicting the demise of Labor since the rise of the Greens.
As for Labor being reduced to two seats any time soon, South, with preferential voting it just ain’t gonna happen. The Greens certainly aren’t popular enough out there to pick up the slack, so Labor candidates will be able to scrape together a lot of 50%+1s for some time to come.
About the only way I can think of for Labor to die is if they split, and the defectors are more successful than the DLP, or if the Liberals (or the Coalition) split, and they both fight for seats in the city.
Felix the Cassowary
25 Aug 11 at 4:39 pm
In 1993 they went nuts & voted out a conservative government leaving them with only two seats.
Yep. Musta been nuts. Booting out a conservative government. I mean they always do a good job. Just ask Currency Lad.
The Progressive Conservatives? You know they have problems right away. They introduced neo-liberalism, there was pain. There was high inflation and when they finally pricked the bubble there was a deep fall. Just like here. But, unlike Keating, they got punished.
And then the Liberals took over and reaped the benefits. Just like here.
Adrien
25 Aug 11 at 7:41 pm
I’m not the conservative, Adrien.
You are.
C.L.
25 Aug 11 at 7:45 pm
And no, the Liberals didn’t reap the ‘benefits’ here. Paul Keating presided over the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression during his failed premiership. Howard and Costello turned the country around and created the surplus the Gillard government laughable claims credit for having spent on toilet blocks and burning houses down. They made many mistakes, as you would over 11 years, but they were executively excellent as a government. How much the country misses them is plain now for all to see.
C.L.
25 Aug 11 at 7:49 pm
Howard and Costello turned the country around and created the surplus the Gillard government laughable claims credit for having spent on toilet blocks and burning houses down.
I love watching Currency Lad’s Slave Galley the HMAS Mythology riding majestically on economic waves which have little to with the government and, when they do, are usually the result of expert advice.
There’s a political pattern wherein neoliberalism is introduced and there’s a change of political guard in the 90s. Usually the new guard, whatever they are, continue their predecessor’s economic policy more or less.
But as all that’s doubleplusbadthinkfulthoughtcrime to you I reckon the CRM-114 will turn it into a series of great holograms of Rumsfeld in leather pilot’s gear.
And no, the Liberals didn’t reap the ‘benefits’ here.
Because they’re the ‘right’ kind of Liberals laddie who believe in a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.
I’m not the conservative, Adrien.
I know CL, all your OrthoSpeakWrite posturing hereabouts is a front. The fact is you’re Bob Brown’s boyfriend and do this to get back at him for spending so much time away in Canberra.
You are.
Okay, I’ll add that to the list shall I?
Adrien
25 Aug 11 at 8:04 pm
Yes, but that didn’t happen with Rudd/Gillard. Everyone thought it would, and Rudd even encouraged the notion with his talk of being an ‘economic conservative’… then Gillard government’s frequent use of the word ‘reform’. This was all to lull us into the fantasy that they’d continue in some sort of neoliberal economic reform pattern.
But they didn’t an they haven’t. They don’t understand capitalism and don’t like it, not one little bit.
daddy dave
25 Aug 11 at 8:42 pm
Exactly right DD…
There are two types of Labor pollies, the pragmatists that are suspicious yet tolerant of capitalism and unreconstructed lefty haters of capitalism. The PM is the second type. People are saying that she has no agenda and no principles. I disagree. Her agenda is identical to the Greens’ agenda. However she is happy to deny that it is her agenda and let the Greens be tagged as extremists.
Even she knows that openly adopting such an agenda would spell political death for the ALP.
Look at every single policy (Malaysia solution excepted) and how they give in to the Greens even when people say she should take a principled stand and pick a fight with them to boost Labor’s credibility. She actively wants to adopt the Greens’ policies. It is no accident, in my view. If it is an accident, she’s a bigger moron than I thought.
Skuter
25 Aug 11 at 9:27 pm
You know , when I got back here in 2003 I thought the place would be similar to how I left it in 88. However I found it to be really humming along. there was government certainty, deals were being done and I thought that we were moving closer to capitalism in lots of ways.
I thought the labor market reforms were like the end of history.
And then 2007 came along. The most despicable thing is how they lied to all of us.
JC
25 Aug 11 at 9:44 pm
But the fraud was all obvious to us, wasn’t it?
They’ll find some way of blaming it on Liberal voters.
benson
25 Aug 11 at 10:14 pm
But as all that’s doubleplusbadthinkfulthoughtcrime to you I reckon the CRM-114 will turn it into a series of great holograms of Rumsfeld in leather pilot’s gear.
W.T.F.?
wreckage
25 Aug 11 at 11:51 pm
Don’t try and understand it Wreckage. The only thing worse than Adrien’s ability to hold his liquor is his writing.
Infidel Tiger
26 Aug 11 at 12:01 am
The real shock in Canada – the real scene-changer – was the obliteration in meaningful terms of the Bloc Quebecois as well as the Libs (with the leaders of both losing their seats). I’m not sure anyone really expected not just one but two of the major opposition parties to be hammered like that.
Now the Canucks have a lower house similar to how Australia’s normally is – two larger parties, one of which is in majority and forms government, and one or two small players making up the numbers. Like Australia, Canada has one Green in the Lower House, but from what I’m told, Elizabeth May is infinitely more rational and pragmatic than Bob Brown.
perturbed
26 Aug 11 at 5:37 am
The only thing worse than Adrien’s ability to hold his liquor is his writing.
I drink with the Sudanese pal. Ye past that test and live there ain’t nuthin’ you can’t face.
Wreckage Translation Services:
But as all that’s doubleplusbadthinkfulthoughtcrime to you
It’s Newspeak from 1984. It means ‘very unorthodox criminal opinions’ which pretty much sums up CL’s attitude to 97% of everything I’ve ever written.
I reckon the CRM-114 will turn it into
The CRM-114 is a device designed only to receive authorized signals. CL wears one every day.
a series of great holograms of Rumsfeld in leather pilot’s gear.
I agree. A man’s sexual fantasies aren’t fair game in public discourse. I apologize CL. I won’t mention your collection of Hot Middle-Aged Republican Hawks.
Adrien
26 Aug 11 at 11:56 am
No, it wasn’t; certainly not to me.
daddy dave
26 Aug 11 at 3:53 pm
Why not? It was obvious to me from the the policies the ALP had, and still have, on industrial relations and Fudd’s inane attempts at intellectualising. Both of those things made it plainly obvious how fraudulent and regressive the ALP would be in government.
I’m not surprised that the average vote-wielding moron didn’t see things with my clarity, but I would have expected that market-oriented types would have seen right through the ALP’s palaver.
(Then again, we had libertarians right here at Catallaxy, and elsewhere, who praised Fudd to the skies nonetheless. Maybe libertarians aren’t as smart as I think?)
benson
26 Aug 11 at 11:47 pm
Maybe libertarians aren’t as smart as I think?
Nobody is smart.
wreckage
27 Aug 11 at 12:15 am