Movement to ‘bring back Mulcair’ grows
NDP members challenge party leadership rules
OTTAWA • Amid a leadership race with few candidates, there is a growing grassroots movement in the federal New Democratic Party to try to convince leader Tom Mulcair to again run for the job from which he has resigned.
However, calling the movement “heartening after a tough year,” and saying “not a day goes by” where he doesn’t receive messages of support, Mulcair told the National Post his mind’s made up to move on.
“My decision is made,” he said. “I’d love to emulate somebody like Stephen Lewis, you know, and be that elder statesman who gets called upon sometimes. I’m going to stay close to the party. They’re all friends. But at this stage in my life, I’m just going to move on.”
Still, more than 5,000 people have pledged their support to the “Bring Tom Mulcair Back Campaign” on Facebook — significantly more than have signed up for various pages trying to draft other potential leaders (Ontario deputy leader Jagmeet Singh is in second place, with about 3,600 likes).
More than just wanting Mulcair to return as leader, they’re hoping for a change in the NDP’s rules, perceiving unfairness in how the leadership review was conducted at the April 2016 convention in Edmonton, where only 48 per cent of the room voted to keep Mulcair on as leader.
Behind the campaign is Dale Jackaman, a private investigator from Richmond, B.C., who was a three-time federal candidate for that riding under former party leader Jack Layton.
He told the Post there was “a lot of anger among the membership” after Mulcair lost in Edmonton, and his opinion is “the party just royally screwed up.”
“The membership still consider him to be the man that we want,” Jackaman said. “We all know that he would win (if he ran).
"He’s an ethical individual but he’s also a pretty stubborn individual. I think he’s angry. He’s angry at the party.”
Adding fuel to the fire for Jackaman is a recent Campaign Research poll of 1,457 voters that found Mulcair’s overall approval rate (41 per cent) to be slightly higher than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s (39 per cent) and Rona Ambrose’s (36 per cent).
“It doesn’t seem right to me that a few people in the party make a decision that overturns what all of us decide,” said longtime NDP member Robert Wiseman, who lives in Scarborough and supports Jackaman’s campaign. Many party members can’t afford to travel to a convention, he said.
Asked whether he thought Mulcair would’ve won if the vote was open to all New Democrats, he says: “I think overwhelmingly Tom would’ve won.” But rather than rehashing the past, he said, “my whole hope is that enough of us can speak up and change Tom Mulcair’s mind about not running.”
Sue Stroud, from Brentwood Bay on Vancouver Island, is another supporter and is an administrator of another Facebook group with 5,700 New Democrat members.
“I see all kinds of people weighing in and saying, ‘I want Tom to stay,’ ‘I would’ve voted for Tom,’ ‘I couldn’t afford to go to a convention,’” she said. “It seems unfair to me that we pick him in a onemember, one-vote situation, but we allowed his leadership review not to be that way. I think he knows, and I think the party knows, that there is a groundswell of support for him.”
Stroud said she noticed “there was a lot of organizing going on” before the Edmonton convention, and received calls from riding association presidents who said they were being asked to transfer seats they were allotted at the convention to people from other ridings.
It’s a practice that has persisted in the party for the last 15 years, explained a source close to the process, especially since it helps to fill rooms with more people.
But with the Edmonton convention, party officials expected controversy, the source said. They wanted to ensure everything was above board and imposed stricter rules: riding associations could only transfer delegate credentials to members in the same province.
“If the party had … a referendum among all members, would the results have been different? Absolutely. Probably, Mulcair would have been able to go through,” the source said. “The truth is that people who showed up were motivated to show up, and they were the people who were angry.”
Still, said Stroud, “I think it was a mistake for the party to allow (delegate-swapping) at all.” Online voting where every party member could participate would’ve been fairer even though it wouldn’t have created a “sexy” fullhouse visual, she added.
Just because the practice was common at past conventions doesn’t make it right, Jackaman argues, saying the party goes against its own constitution when it allows delegate-swapping. He sent a letter to all of the NDP MPs in the House of Commons a few weeks ago, which described the Edmonton crowd as a “tainted delegate body” and asked MPs to push for a full investigation and a suspension of the current leadership process.
“The party has investigated these allegations very carefully and concluded there is no evidence to support them,” national director Robert Fox told the Post Friday. “We are satisfied the rules for accrediting delegates to the Edmonton convention were fully and fairly applied, and that every delegate who voted had the right to vote.”
A contingent of party members plans to bring resolutions forward at the party’s next policy convention, in February 2018, asking for the rules to be changed and an open vote held on future confidence votes.
Mulcair said he’d rather not comment on whether that’s a good idea.
He acknowledged he’d have support in caucus if he wanted to stay. “I’ve got a lot of friends and supporters in caucus, but I’m not looking for that, so the question just doesn’t arise,” he said. “I’m going to continue in the House, standing up and holding the Liberals to account, and I think that’s the most important thing I can do to hand off to the next leader.”
B.C. MP Peter Julian is the only contestant registered in the leadership race so far, but others, including Ontario MP Charlie Angus and Quebec MP Guy Caron, are expected to announce bids in the next couple of weeks. A new leader will be chosen this October.