Layton has record to run on
Bolstered by a budget deal with the Liberals that put corporate tax cuts on hold and boosted spending for NDP priorities, leader hopes track record turns into new seats
OTTAWA— NDP Leader Jack Layton’s first election campaign served up a crushing disappointment that fell far short of high hopes the party might break through with a record number of seats.
Seventeen months later, Layton gets to try again, bolstered by an NDP election budget topping $ 14 million — the biggest ever — and fresh ambitions of translating a track record in Parliament into more seats.
Layton, 55, will be campaigning on the theme that his party “ gets more done for people.”
“ Our record shows it,” he said in Vancouver on Sunday. “ We’ll be able to go to the door and talk about what we’ve delivered.” Topping Layton’s list of achievements is the NDP’s spring budget deal with the Liberals. The government agreed to delay corporate tax cuts and add $ 4.6 billion in spending on NDP priorities such as foreign aid, housing and education. The party can boast about victories on other fronts. The Liberals backed down on controversial plans to join the U. S- led missile defence program, which the NDP had made an election issue last time around. And the government passed legislation recognizing gay and lesbian marriages, another key plank in the NDP platform.
“ We have a record now that we can show Canadians that we produce,” Layton told reporters in the Commons foyer yester- day, just hours before joining with the opposition parties to topple the Liberals. “I think we’ve got a real potential to have a much larger contingent of New Democrats in the House the next time around.”
Layton is less of a mystery to voters. In the 2004 vote, this veteran of Toronto city politics was unproven as a federal politician, untested in the daily question period. A question mark hung over his ability to serve as a power broker at the national level. Now he’s done all that, and NDP officials are hoping it makes a difference with voters.
Certainly, Layton enters this campaign something of a changed man. The firebrand who first took his seat in the House of Commons in October 2004 has morphed into a more serious politician, who speaks less off the cuff and more on script. But in his attempt to appear serious, even prime ministerial, he comes off at times seeming humourless. The federal NDP holds 18 seats. NDP officials admit it will be tough to hold on to the Ottawa Centre riding held by party stalwart Ed Broadbent, who retired from politics yesterday. And they expect a fight in Manitoba’s Churchill riding, held by Bev Desjarlais, who lost the NDP nomination and is running as an Independent. But party strategists are also quick to rhyme off ridings where they expect NDP candidates have a good shot of winning. The federal New Democratic leader will campaign a lot in the Greater Toronto Area, to boost local candidates such as union leader Sid Ryan, running again in Oshawa, and long- time NDP MPP Marilyn Churley, who faces off against Liberal Maria Minna in Beaches-East York. And Layton’s wife, Olivia Chow, yesterday resigned her Toronto council seat to run in TrinitySpadina, where she has twice lost to Liberal incumbent Tony Ianno. Layton will also try to take back lost seats in Saskatchewan — Lorne Nystrom is trying to win Regina- Qu’Appelle — and he’ll devote a lot of time to British Columbia, where the NDP hopes to build on its five seats. A weekend Star/ Ekos poll pegged the Liberals at 43 per cent, New Democrats at 33 and the Tories at 21 per cent in that province.