Why Mulcair is dancing with separatists
Holding tenuously onto 60 seats in primarily nationalist Quebec, he knows that he must cultivate such passions for his own political benefit.
Two words tell us that Tom Mulcair finds himself wedged into the tightest corner in Canadian politics: Bora Laskin.
Alone among federal party leaders last week, the NDP leader seized upon unproven allegations against the former Supreme Court Chief Justice contained in a new book by historian Frederick Sebastien. Actually, that’s not true. Tellingly, Mulcair was joined by the Bloc Québécois’ Daniel Paille. Both insisted on a formal investigation into whether Laskin kept a backchannel open with Canadian and British governments during the repatriation battles of the early 1980s.
If true, this would seem to violate the principle of separation of powers between the judicial and executive branches of government. More importantly, this kind of report is red meat to hardcore Quebec nationalists for whom the 1982 repatriation remains an enduring symbol of humiliation.
Hence the motivation for Mulcair.
Holding tenuously onto 60 seats in primarily nationalist Quebec, he knows that he must cultivate such passions for his own political benefit. For the very same reason, he has remained steadfastly committed to the party’s Sherbrooke Resolution, which declares that Quebec could legally separate based on a simple vote of 50 per cent plus one. To most it would appear absurd that a country like Canada could be ripped apart by such a threadbare margin. But to many Quebecers who voted NDP in the last election, Sherbrooke is appealing — a guarantee that Ottawa won’t be able to stack the deck in any future referendum.
Mulcair’s views on these issues have been widely condemned. But spare a moment to consider the incredibly challenging spot he finds himself in — a spot made all the more uncomfortable by the electrifyingly loud arrival of Justin Trudeau. A man whose last name stirs strong reactions in Quebec and who is already rewriting the province’s public opinion polls.
The 2015 general election is vital to the long-term project of the NDP. Either the party will ratify its position as the clear alternative to the Conservatives or it will slide back behind the Liberals, a historic opportunity turned to ash.
Mulcair doesn’t need to beat Harper. But he must triumph over Trudeau and keep the Liberals locked in third-party position. Such a result would probably result in the permanent demise of the Liberal party, which so many have predicted for so long.
Which makes Quebec ground zero to the NDP’s hopes and aspirations. The arithmetic is unyielding: Hold onto those 60 seats and it will be nearly impossible for the Liberals to leapfrog into second place. Lose them and all hope of success evaporates.
Unfortunately for Mulcair, it’s a challenge that is even more complicated. Not only will he face a resurgent Liberal party led by Trudeau, who will stake, at minimum, a bold claim to nearly every seat on the Island of Montreal. But he’s also facing a quietly improving Bloc Québécois which, aided by a Péquiste government, is seeking to claw its way back into relevance throughout French-speaking Quebec.
Mulcair is left to dance a delicate line. He waltzes with Sherbrooke and Laskin to keep the Bloc at bay. But every pas de deux with nationalist voters is seized upon by Trudeau and others as evidence that he’s flirting with the unity question for purely partisan gain.
The NDP will argue that such a perspective is dated, that Quebec politics can no longer be viewed through the strict lens of separatism and that theirs is a post-unity appeal that resonates with nationalist and federalist voters alike. Perhaps. Certainly it has become fashionable to dismiss unity as a driving force of contemporary Canadian politics. But if all that were true why would Mulcair risk alienating his English Canadian supporters with Sherbrooke and Laskin? Why open himself up to the potency of Trudeau’s criticisms unless he felt he had no choice?
The fact is Mulcair faces a sharply defined dilemma: drape himself in vaguely nationalist robes to protect his Quebec caucus, or risk those 60 seats, and by extension his entire political project, with a more typical federalist posture. Confronted with similarly difficult choices, most party leaders opt for indecision. Mulcair at least appears unlikely to be guilty of such cowardice. Signs like the Laskin gambit suggest that he has decided he must guard those Quebec seats from the Bloc at all costs.
Some will call it unprincipled. And the NDP will be forced to face that critique. But from a purely political perspective, it is hard to argue with the logic. The bird-in-the-hand of his Quebec caucus must be given priority attention. Otherwise his historic goal of supplanting the Liberals is endangered as he becomes sandwiched between Trudeau and the Bloc.
Last weekend, the NDP pledged that by removing the word socialism from their constitution they were readying themselves to govern. They had us focused on the wrong -ism. When it comes to 2015, it will be nationalism, not socialism, that determines the NDP’s political future.