So it appears with the official Opposition in Ottawa, an NDP caucus dotted with rookies, students and accidental MPs drawn from a demographic that sparked post-election jokes about the daycare centre in the Commons.
The caricature, of course, was overdrawn, but the mass of unfamiliar faces sitting across from the Conservatives was a large unknown.
That a good number of their Quebec MPs — 58 of their 101-member caucus was elected in that province — would find the siren song of solidarity with striking students irresistible seemed to be a given.
That they, largely, have stayed away from the turmoil on their streets displays a discipline that is required for any party styling itself as a government-in-waiting.
It also threatens to alienate a traditional constituency in the province that looks to the potential push their movement would receive if the Orange Wave joined them on nightly marches and spoke out forcefully in their favour.
Their supporters and staffers are marching, but the MPs have largely remained apart.
“Some of them are taking flack from supporters for not joining,’’ said one party insider.
And some in the caucus are silently chafing at the leash, feeling that those are “their people” on the street.
Tom Mulcair, who as a provincial minister had a very public falling out with Premier Jean Charest, did not lay down the law at caucus, but there was a discussion at the outset of the student strike.
That was followed by a more specific discussion at a Quebec caucus meeting under the leadership of Trois-Rivières MP Robert Aubin.
The caucus was told that education was a matter of provincial jurisdiction and there was no federal role to play.
Not everyone has stayed away.
Alexandre Boulerice, the high-profile MP from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie has joined the marchers, as has 23-year-old Ève Péclet, the MP from La Pointe-de-l’Île.
Boulerice also blogged his opposition to Bill 78, the Charest law that broadened police powers and sought to limit the right of protesters to take to the streets.
Sherbrooke MP Pierre-Luc Dusseault, 21, told his hometown newspaper that a year ago, as a student, he would have been on strike. Instead he was elected to Parliament.
“We are seeing young people standing up for themselves. It’s an important moment in our history,’’ he said.
But if there is a tightrope walker in the caucus, Boulerice has become the Wallenda of the NDP.
He told me Thursday that he is proud of the people mobilizing in his riding, and the nightly marches and pot-banging are good for democracy.
“But this is not the battle of a federal NDP MP,’’ he says, and those trying to pull him into a more public position understand that.
The only official NDP position on the matter is a call for an $800 million increase in federal transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education.
The perils for the caucus of diving into the Quebec street protests would have been obvious.
The party would have been tarred by their opponents for aligning themselves with protests that now include smoke bombs in the Métro, vandalism of ministers’ offices, and threats to disrupt the Montreal Formula One Grand Prix this weekend and deprive the city of tourism revenue during festival season.
Pictures of an arrest of an NDP MP — see this week’s arrest of Québec Solidaire MNA Amir Khadir — would have raised questions outside Quebec about the maturity of an opposition caucus.
The downside, of course, is that there will be voters in Quebec who will feel the party has lost its way, that the exuberance personified by the late Jack Layton has been neutered in the pursuit of power.
If much of what is driving people to the streets in Montreal is occupy-style disgust with income inequality, the party has lost a chance to address what should be a signature issue.
On balance, though, the restraint has to be seen as a win for a caucus that has held the line.
It is a necessary step for a party that is, in Mulcair’s words, trying to get the centre in Canadian politics, to move to them.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Tim Harper
No comments:
Post a Comment