The NDP exists for a reason: to express certain principles and to represent certain voters. Today it is not easy to say what the Ontario party’s principles are or for whom it speaks.
This lament, which Gerald Caplan places near the beginning of his open letter to Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, expresses both the sadness and the frustration I suspect many feel. For those of us who still believe that government can be a force for positive social change, Andrea Horwath's direction and leadership as it is emerging during the Ontario campaign has been a profound disappointment. No vision. Just what many call populist policies or 'chequebook issues' that promise a modicum of relief from a few financial burdens, while leaving the fundamental underlying issues untouched and unspoken.
Her rejection of a progressive Liberal budget in the hope, presumably, of pursuing political gain, disappointed many, as Caplan makes plain:
Here was a win-win for the party: Many of those in need – the NDP’s people – would have directly benefited, and the NDP could have taken the credit. It would’ve been an entirely plausible claim, since it was true. The Liberals crafted it expecting your support. I expected it too, as did many others. Our disappointment was compounded when you could offer no sensible rationale for doing the opposite.
Pointedly, he chides her for what is missing in the current incarnation of the NDP:
No coherent theme, no memorable policies, nothing to deal with the great concerns of New Democrats everywhere: increasing inequality, the precarious lives of so many working people, reduced public services, global warming.
Instead, here is where her sights seem to be set:
...your real target seems to be business people large and small. Yes, they have their needs too, some of them legitimate. But they also have their parties who cater to those needs. If business want a sympathetic party to support – and they do – you can be sure they don’t need and won’t buy the NDP.
There are, of course, those die-hard NDP politicos who will be outraged by Caplan's letter. A circling of the wagons seems a natural reaction when attacked by one of your own. But what they need to remember is that he speaks for many who have grown disaffected with a party apparently more interested in pandering than in adhering to principles that provide a voice for those who have none.
For me, he speaks a sad but undeniable truth: the NDP has lost its way.
UPDATE: The discontent expressed by Gerald Caplan is spreading:
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