So, I wrote this last night after looking at the polls and determining that things are looking pretty good for the NDP in Canada, and particularly in my home province of British Columbia. A lot of it is obviously meant for my partisans up here, but I think the same message holds true for US Democrats.
It’s been a long, mentally exhausting year to be a New Democrat, filled with grand triumphs and the worst kind of setback a party can face, at the worst possible moment in time. We all know the history of the past year, of the election and of the tragic loss of Jack Layton at the zenith of his career. As New Democrats, we’ve come so far. From our days as the conscience of Canada, we’ve grown and become the Official Opposition, and the polls tell us that victory is within our grasp, even without a coalition of other parties to support our assumed parliamentary plurality.
Why does it matter? The accumulation of power is supposed to be a means to a more honourable end. Instead, it’s become the end goal, with the result being ever more deceitful attacks on opponents simply to sustain one’s own grip on power. We’ve become afraid, as politicians and political parties. We’re afraid of scaring voters, of innovating and creating the big policy changes that are so desperately needed in society. In short, politicians are afraid of losing, and of having to give up the perks of power they become accustomed to, without doing anything to earn those same comforts.
The US is the most decadent example of this, and it should serve as a warning to those of us left in Canada who still seek to bring something other than derisive laughter to the idea of calling our politicians “the Honourable Member” for their district. There’s nothing honourable about accusing your political opposition of extremist ideology, as was done recently. Nor is there anything honourable about attacking the very personal core of a human being, instead of the hopes and ideals they believe in. That is what happens in a system where winning is the goal instead of the means of achieving other goals.
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This is not what voters want when they step into the ballot box, it’s not what will bring back the forty percent of voters who don’t even bother taking five minutes from their day to vote, and it certainly won’t help a single problem facing our communities, provinces and nation. But it’s easy, and it doesn’t require doing anything other than winning and taking home that sweet, sweet paycheque from the taxpayers.
The truly sad thing is that it does not have to be this way. We used to be able to say that our politicians, at least as a whole, were a profile in courage. That each and every day was spent talking about the substantive issues facing our society, and that something productive was being created. This isn’t a call for unity; we have profound differences with the other parties in our political system, and the manner in which we choose to solve societal problems are absolutely fair game for debate. So why isn’t it happening? We spend our days talking about the scandal of the hour, and I get it because it guarantees a good headline the following day. But it’s not doing anything, it’s not helping the people in distress and it’s not doing a damn thing to make people put their faith in the system.
We’re better than this. We’re New Democrats, and for eighty years we’ve spoken truth to power. We blazed trails and spoke with conviction, and in doing so we made this country and each of our provinces and communities a better place because of our support for the causes we believe in. I am afraid, not that we might win, but that when we do, we will become so afraid of losing that we refuse to act on the ideals and principles that form our ethical compasses. That when faced with a chance to use the power given to us, we would rather conserve that power and live to be the Government for just a little longer, instead of facing the voters knowing we did what we believed and know to be right.
This is a call to action. It’s a reminder that all things, even legislative majorities, are impermanent and that no matter what we do, we will one day lose an election and be left without the means or opportunity to change society. We haven’t won yet. I know that, and I realize that this is probably premature because we haven’t won yet. But we will win, it’s as inevitable as the fact that we too will eventually lose. And so I write this for the New Democrats of the future, whenever and whoever they may be; don’t just think about power as a goal, use it. Make a legacy, something that people will look back on and say that WE did that, and that it outlasted names and people because it was worth something to society.
In British Columbia, we know what that means as New Democrats. Dave Barrett knew what it meant to leave a legacy of our government when he won in 1972. Forty years later, we still celebrate the existence of the Agricultural Land Reserve, of the improved labour laws that make our jobs safer and fairer for every single working person in this province. We still use the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which gives us some of the cheapest car insurance on the continent. Within that single term, we New Democrats changed the province more than any other government had in a single term of office, and those changes lasted and continue to exist now.
Not every NDP government has to be so short-lived. Locally, New Democrats also know how to stand up and leave their mark on society. The BCA, the Burnaby counterparts to the NDP provincially and federally, have served honourably and with distinction in the majority for twenty-five years now. Last year, the BCA school board left its mark; it passed a landmark policy that would prevent homophobic bullying in every single Burnaby school, and would affect both staff and students. This was done in the face of vocal public opposition during an election year. The voters responded and re-elected every last BCA candidate.
I tell these stories to remind us what we accumulate power for. It’s to do the things we believe in. It’s what the voters want us to do, they wouldn’t vote for us if they didn’t believe in the platforms and the promises we gave them each election. We need to stand tall and start promising to act on our beliefs, not to try and water them down and say ‘maybe, let’s have a look at it first’. That’s not good enough, not anymore. Not when the problems are so all-encompassing and personal that they shock every last person in the country to their core. The stakes are too high to incrementally shift away from the policies and the ignorance that led us to the precipice we stand over now.