What's Layton got to say for himself?

The new federal NDP leader has come out with a book on the eve of what promises to be a hotly contested national election.

by Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

The Canadian federal Liberals have recently selected a new leader (and hence a new Prime Minister), but anyway seem on the cusp of electoral catastrophe while they are mired in a multitude of financial scandals and a profound rift cracks across the middle of the party. The opposition Alliance party no longer exists, having merged with the former Progressive Conservatives, whose past leader has publicly declared the new leader "a dangerous person." As if to confirm the confusion and dissention such rancor creates, polls over the last year have showed wild fluctuations for all parties contesting what is widely agreed to be an imminent election.

All parties, that is, except for the NDP. They too, like the Liberals and Conservatives, come into the 2004 election with a new leader and great hopes. But their fortunes, judging by the polls, have neither improved nor deteriorated. So long as old hippies never die, it seems the NDP are fated to garner about 18% interest among the Canadian electorate till the cows come home.

It is against this stasis that new great hope of the left, Jack Layton, dynamo from Toronto city council, has gamely flung himself. Layton took over leadership after a string of federal NDP leaders put the traditional left asleep and alienated any non-graying Canadians who vehemently oppose globalization, look for alternative economic systems that are more fair and sustainable, and otherwise scream out loud that they want to vote left if they could only find them.

Now that he has become leader of the left, it is important for Layton's success in addressing that scream that the rest of Canadians, those not living in Toronto, get to know him, learn of his philosophy, and hear his proposed solutions to unwieldy problems besetting our nation.

To that end, Layton has published a book called Speaking Out. It may be presumed that Speaking Out is Layton's coming out, since it may well be the first time any Canadians outside Toronto have heard of him, or at least have read of him. Canadians have never been looking for an alternative vision more than they are now, and the NDP, with new leader Layton stepping up like a latter day (and as yet untarnished) Tony Blair, have never been looking more widely for those Canadians. This book, coming from where it does at the precise moment it has, could be important not only for Layton's career, not only for the NDP, but potentially for the near-future direction of the country.

Canadians do not fully realize the profound nature of the crossroads the country is presently at. Touted by a cynical, jaded, and corporate-directed media as only the latest flurry of more shallow anti-Americanism, the actual undercurrents of national mood right now are making tectonic-scaled shifts in the geography of the Canadian polity. This is not your usual swing in the polls from center right to center left. The measure of Canadian political mood has taken on a new dimension, and the spectrum of left and right itself is what is receding, to be replaced with an entirely new set of coalitions and confrontations of ideas hinged around an altogether new, as yet unlabelled and un-planted, pivot.

Though it's come to sound tired and Chicken Little-ish to raise the spectre yet again, this time there is solid reason to consider the possibility that Canada will soon face an existential crisis. For just one example, consider that world oil production levels will begin to decline due to lack of supply between 2007 and 2010-as early as during the next federal election mandate. That estimate was produced by world energy scholars before major US oil companies began to reveal a practice of overstating the amount of reserves in their holes.

The US is the world's largest oil importer. Canada is among the world's major exporters of oil, and sits atop one of the world's greatest reserves. When the US dollar declines in value, which it will do soon, according to US Federal Reserve planning, Canada may be tempted to seek buyers of its oil who can pay in richer currencies. We have seen what America is capable of doing to secure oil supplies in the Middle East. The flag of Canada, were a real energy and price crisis to develop in America, would hardly hamper their claims to our resources.

This is just one of the many potential threats to Canada in the next few years. These are serious times and they call for serious political leadership. With parties of the center and the right embroiled in self-destructive and self-absorbed internecine battles, it is the obligation of the left to articulate to Canadians a vision of leadership for which they can, if not vote, at least apply as a standard against which to judge the others, and demand that they meet.

This is what fueled my great anticipation when I received a copy of Layton's new book. And this is what I read in it: "It's time to build again. I'm a typical Canadian in that I've always loved building. Canadians are builders."

What in the world is this? I asked myself.

It doesn't get better. "Our cities need a cardiovascular workout. Witness our clogged arteries. Check out the traffic reports for varicose veins. Ever been a part of a metaphorical blood clot on a broken-down subway train?" On and on it goes in this happy metaphorical spirit, does the book subtitled Ideas that work for Canadians. On the scandals destroying the present government: "Paul Martin must realize that the root of this problem...is too many Liberal MPs who have become so comfortable that they believe they can do what they like." Yes, Jack, old friend, I feel like moaning. Why, you sound more and more like Ed Broadbent all the time.

There is, it turns out, nothing new here. If his new book is any guide, Layton brings to the table a Dr Seussian review of public policy high points, and for someone new to the scene, he comes across as horribly out of date. The people of Canada know very well there are big problems lying flat across the road ahead. Once again, they prove to be way far ahead of anyone proposing themselves as their leader, Layton included. It doesn't matter if you've harnessed Secretariat if you've still got your cart ahead of your horse.

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