Toronto – Ontario’s New Democrats are in a race to choose a new leader that is almost a secret, but a couple of bolts of lightning have emerged from the obscurity.
The NDP’s search for a successor to Howard Hampton has been almost unnoticed because of the difficulty of whipping up excitement in summer over a third-biggest party that shows no sign of becoming a contender and a federal election that seems to have dragged on forever.
Gilles Bisson, an MPP from Timmins, has entered the fray with a battle cry unusual for New Democrats.
Bisson said the NDP has much to be proud of in having championed social policies that became law — and many would agree with him — but its success in elections has been modest.
One reason, he said, is voters want to be assured the NDP will place as much emphasis on economic and fiscal policy as it does on social policy.
Government and society cannot provide social programs, such as improved health care and education, new infrastructure and public transportation that meets the needs of commuters, he said, without a strong economy that provides the money.
Bisson said he will focus in his campaign on how to build a strong economy that will create more wealth and jobs and generate money to strengthen public services.
This is something of an innovation for the NDP, which tends to talk more of improving services, protecting workers and increasing welfare benefits and the minimum wage, than how to pay for them.
One time this was painfully evident was when the New Democrats were elected to govern for the only time in 1990 and had endless promises to fulfill, but had to abandon some, the most famous being public auto insurance, because they lacked money.
Such failings, coupled with their willingness to run up huge deficits to finance other promises, set them back and they have never recovered. They still get a much smaller share of the vote than they were able to count on regularly in the 1960s and 1970s.
Other parties are having to rein in ambitions. Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has warned he will have to move slower than he hoped in tackling some social concerns, particularly poverty, because the economy has slowed and less money is available.
Bisson’s candidacy is interesting also for reasons including he is an electrician, largely self-educated, who says he learned a lot by reading, particularly history and economics.
Previous leaders have been predominantly from what traditionally has been called the intellectual wing of the party. Hampton is a lawyer, as is former premier Bob Rae, Michael Cassidy is a financial journalist, Stephen Lewis is almost an intellectual by profession and Donald C. MacDonald is another journalist.
Bisson, notwithstanding, holds his own in debates on issues, including sub-prime mortgages, as well as problems in forestry and mining.
He says he does not think being from the North will hurt him, because “it is important what you have done, not where you come from” and, as an MPP, he has lived part-time in Toronto for 18 years and been immersed in many southern issues.
Few leaders of parties have come from the North, but Hampton is from Fort Frances and former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris from North Bay
Michael Prue, who announced earlier for NDP leader, also transcended the monotony of most Ontario politics when he called for a debate on which religious schools the province should fund.
The Conservatives, under John Tory, proposed funding schools of other religious groups in addition to Roman Catholics in the 2007 election.
This was rejected overwhelmingly by voters concerned this would further divide children by faith and will not raise this issue again.
Prue stressed he is not advocating ending funding for Catholic schools and his record suggests he is having difficulty accepting an inequity that in many ways works and this will harm his chances of becoming leader.
Bisson, a Roman Catholic, said he strongly supports funds for Catholic schools, which is safer.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
