Congratulations to Keith Porteous for his incisive and thoughtful interview with Avi Lewis, one of the candidates for the leadership of the federal NDP. The answers provided by Lewis to Keith’s excellent questions demonstrate that Lewis would be a formidable and well qualified leader of a Party trying to resurrect itself. And with Naomi Klein as his partner, a Lewis victory would bring a wealth of intellectual and literary talent to the NDP’s top job. Reading Keith’s comment afterwards about his own perspectives on the traditional Party system in Canada made me reflect a bit on my own ‘journey’ in that fractious domain.
In my callow youth, I was attracted to the Red Tory side of the Progressive Conservative Party. People like Robert Stanfield, Flora Macdonald, Joe Clark, even Mulroney on his good days—they seemed to have the right balance between fiscal prudence and social justice. Of course, I was a civil servant for most of my career, so never got involved in partisan stuff. If I ever had a ‘hero’ in politics, it was probably the Liberal, Lester Pearson, who was responsible for so much good legislation even while leading a minority government. Yet it had to be acknowledged that much of the best legislation of both Conservative and Liberal administrations would not have happened if not for the ideas and inspiration of NDP leaders like Tommy Douglas, David Lewis, Ed Broadbent and Jack Layton.
You’re supposed to become more conservative as you get older. Didn’t happen to me. Over the last 20 years, my votes have gone to NDP and Green candidates, both federally and provincially. And since it’s unlikely the traditional Party system is going to disappear in the near future, I personally feel it is important to have a dynamic social democratic Party, i.e. the NDP in Parliament to keep Governments as honest as possible and to keep fighting for the needs and rights of ordinary people. Gord Johns to me is an ideal Member of Parliament, and whoever is elected leader of the NDP would do well to find more candidates of the same ilk as him. Parliament needs a more numerous group of NDP MPs, and Avi Lewis may well be the best person to achieve that objective.
Thanks, Keith, for introducing him to us.
Stewart Goodings.
