In the wake of two combative Conservative Party attacks against the NDP over the last week— reminiscent of the relentless assaults against the Liberal party and its two past leaders—a top NDP official says the New Democrats will avoid mistakes the Liberals made in the same battle zone and "push back, push back right away." Brad Lavigne, director of the NDP's campaign for the May election and one of the most experienced backroomers in the party, said the Conservative Party, which appears to have taken on the pit bull role against the NDP and left Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) to stay above the partisan fray as a majority government leader, should not expect the easy time it had as it attacked former Liberal leaders Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.) and Michael Ignatieff for nearly four years.
"We've watched over the years that with the Conservatives, their methods, and also the mistakes that the Liberals made in not punching back right away, they let accusations made by the Conservatives stand, and an accusation left un-countered is an accusation accepted," Mr. Lavigne, now principal secretary to interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel (Hull-Aylmer, Que.), told The Hill Times.
"We don't wait to push back, we push back right away," he said last Friday, shortly prior to the party's announcement it would hold a party-wide leadership vote next March 24 to elect Jack Layton's successor, with a delegate convention at the same time in Toronto.
The Conservative Party launched its first round of post-election attacks against the New Democrats last Sunday, a surprise delivered to inboxes in the Parliamentary Press Gallery on the long Labour Day weekend.
Like the second salvo the party fired last Thursday, another email inbox delivery, the first attack focused on what the Conservatives may believe is an NDP vulnerability—the close ties it has had with organized labour since the party was founded 50 years ago as the former Prairie-based Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation merged with national elements of the labour movement and the Canadian Labour Congress.
The Conservatives, on a Sunday when any kind of substantive response or comment from Elections Canada was impossible, for two days, distributed a letter its counsel Toronto lawyer Arthur Hamilton, had written to Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand asking him to review union sponsorships for at least one leader's dinner and other events at the NDP's 50th anniversary convention in Vancouver last June.
Mr. Hamilton claimed the support, captured on camera by Conservative agents who roamed the convention corridors taking pictures of billboard signs announcing the sponsorships from big unions like the United Steelworkers, might have violated Canada Elections Act provisions that since 2004 have prohibited financial contributions to political parties from either corporations or trade unions.
The issue has come up before, and as Mr. Lavigne acknowledged in his interview with The Hill Times, as long as there is no financial benefit to the party that exceeds the difference between the costs of the sponsorships and the "tangible benefits" the unions would receive—likely in the form of advertising value—there is no donation.
"We work very closely with Elections Canada prior to conventions. In the lead up to the 2011 convention we worked with Elections Canada, in the lead up to the 2009 convention," Mr. Lavigne said. "We've had outside sources over the years who offer an objective evaluation of what the market value of a particular promotion is, and we've worked closely with Elections Canada to ensure that we are not only keeping with the letter of the law but also the spirit of the law."
The second Conservative round followed news reports last week that indicated a split in the NDP over whether its union affiliates should have more influence than rank-and-file party members in the leadership vote next March. In the past, when the party elected its leaders through delegate votes at special conventions, union affiliates were guaranteed a minimum number of delegates, adding to the weight the unions had in leader selections. But the NDP in 2006 introduced a party-wide, one-member-one-vote, election process and its governing council last Friday confirmed that is the system it will use to select the next leader, with no special consideration for unions and their NDP members.
In the Tory attack release last week, the party quoted MP Dean Del Maestro (Peterborough, Ont.) as saying: "The NDP is choosing the next leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and it is in all Canadians' interest to know that they will be doing so with an open process not controlled by big unions and special interests. The influence of big unions and special interests in the NDP is yet another worrying example of their big government union agenda."
The Conservative round missed its target, but New Democrats say they expect more attacks, and they're ready.
"They are facing the strongest most united opposition that the House of Commons has seen in a long, long time," Mr. Lavigne said. "We can push back as well as they can. If they want to spend the next four years behaving in a manner unbecoming of the governing party, that is their business. We will never let an accusation go uncontested. Our attacks are going to be much more grounded in fact, much more meaningful and I think ultimately much more harmful than the attacks we've seen in the first three months of this term from them against us."
Mr. Layton's widow, NDP MP Olivia Chow (Trinity Spadina, Ont.) also dismissed the Conservative assault, as well as a Conservative charge that the NDP "continues to hide" the preamble of its party constitution from the public. The preamble, which contains support for the principles of "democratic socialism" and a regulated economy devoted to the public good and not just profit, was published by the party in the 2009 version of its constitution but is now under review by the party's national executive and not included in a version the party posted last Thursday.
"The NDP is never obscuring what we stand for and what we believe in, we are very clear in our values and our mission, we never obscure," Ms. Chow told reporters.
"If the Conservatives feel insecure about us, I can understand why, and if they want to continue the bogus attacks, like what we saw just before Labour Day weekend, they may continue to do so, but Canadians can see through it," she said. "Canadians want New Democrats and all politicians to work together, not throw out these bogus, groundless attacks."
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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