Should Mulcair’s fate be decided on a 50%-plus-one vote at review?
THE NDP THINKS QUEBEC SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO BREAK UP CANADA ON A VOTE OF 50 PER CENT-PLUS- ONE. WILL IT SET A DIFFERENT STANDARD FOR MULCAIR’S FUTURE?
Thomas Mulcair wants to stay on as leader of the NDP and says he won’t resign. He says it’s up to NDP members to decide his fate, as they will ( sort of ) at an automatic leadership review in April.
In striving to hang onto his job, he’s presenting his party with a puzzle: Mulcair suggests that all he needs to keep hanging his coat in the leader’s office is a vote of 50 per cent- plus- one at the review. That might seem awfully low: Cheri DiNovo — who isn’t even an MP but has made it her goal in life to get rid of Mulcair — say’s it’s “absurd.” But what’s the party to do? Official NDP policy holds that Quebec should be allowed to break up Canada on a vote of 50 per centplus-one. Are DiNovo and her supporters going to argue the NDP deserves to be governed by a higher standard than the country it seeks to lead?
The NDP’s quandary is becoming must- see TV. In most cases, a party that appeared to have a real chance of victory, only to plummet to third place in the latter stages of an election it had years to prepare for, would quickly jettison its boss. Whatever the excuses — and there are many legitimate ones — 2015 was the NDP’s best chance of running Canada and it fumbled the ball. Fair or not, the buck stops with Mulcair. He took a secondplace party and moved it to third. Been nice to know you.
But Mulcair begs to differ. Facing the press on Monday, he declared himself energized and ready to take up the cudgels once again. There was no more talk of balanced budgets or other nambypamby middle-of-the-road proposals aimed at the political centre. The new Mulcair is devoted to good, old left- wing anti- free- trade and is dedicated to defeating its latest iteration, the Trans- Pacific Partnership.
He’s up against history. The Parti Quebecois’ Bernard Landry resigned after getting just 76 per cent support in a leadership vote ( he wanted 80 per cent). Former Alberta premier Ralph Klein resigned after receiving a 55 per cent vote of confidence. Former Progressive Conservative Leader Joe Clark called a leadership convention after deciding that 67 per cent support wasn’t enough. Mulcair’s 50 per cent-plus-one sets the NDP bar well below the minimum that’s acceptable to any other party.
But, again, if the NDP is willing to give Quebec its independence at such a meager level of support, why should it expect different treatment? The party’s 2005 Sherbrooke Declaration states that it would recognize a “majority decision (50 per cent plus 1) of Quebec people in the event of a referendum on the political status of Que- bec.” Mulcair defended that position any number of times during the election, insisting it is “at the heart of (the NDP’s) approach with Quebecers.”
You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Mulcair is now under fire from within, in particular from DiNovo, who is an NDP member of Ontario’s provincial government and has made herself a onewoman anti- Mulcair movement, dismissing the election as “a disaster” and insisting Mulcair has “got to go.”
“Fifty- plus- one is absurd; it’s absurd to me,” she told the Huffington Post. “Even in the 70s.… For an incumbent leader, you want incredible support behind you, that’s what you need.”
That’s not the way Mulcair sees it. “I’m also determined, very proud to lead this party, and I’m going to go before the membership without presuming anything … and ask for their support, and it has to be, of course, beyond 50 per cent,” he said Monday.
“I know that that support can be there. I sense it is there, but I’m not taking anything for granted.”
Mulcair is no fool. He realizes a leader who can command the respect of barely half his party is not likely to last long. He also knows he has no obvious rivals at the moment. By refusing to set a minimum level of support, he leaves his options open and avoids handing malcontents like DiNovo a target.
A vote in the low 50s would almost certainly be the end of Mulcair. The NDP may be willing to break up the country at one vote over 50 per cent, but there’s little chance they’d saddle themselves with a leader who can barely command the support of his own party.
THE NDP’S QUANDARY IS BECOMING MUST-SEE TV.
‘MULCAIR REALIZES A LEADER WHO CAN COMMAND THE RESPECT OF BARELY HALF HIS PARTY IS NOT LIKELY TO LAST LONG.’ — KELLY McPARLAND