When I think of Jack Layton, may he rest in peace, I think of a politician who I could not disagree with more, and yet respect at the same time.
I expect it was the same for many Albertans.
I do not know Jack Layton personally, so it is difficult for me to sort out exactly what kind of man he was.
In the days since his passing, much has been said and written about the man, and much of it seems to hold true to the image created by his political handlers during the non-stop campaigning of the past eight years.
In truth, I suspect Layton was even more strident in his beliefs than his handlers made him out to be. I think he only became the ‘let’s make a deal’ buddy you want to have a beer with in the past few years, and behind closed doors he was a no-holds-barred old school union negotiator. That’s the sort of conviction required to keep a man engaged in the political process as long as Layton was. In fact, he lost twice for the federal NDP in Toronto in the 1990s. Without this unwavering drive, the sort that often seems off-putting to regular folks, Layton would surely have given up.
So, it is likely that had I met Layton in 2003, the year he took over as NDP leader, I would have hated his guts.
Prior to that time, I’d only heard of him during his days with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. As head of such a left-leaning organization dealing with primarily big city issues, he became the spokesman for those seeking to improve mass transit in cities and pay for it by taxing gasoline. In his mind, I’m sure he saw it as government encouraging a reduction in green house gasses. For me, living in small-town in Saskatchewan at the time, it was nothing short of a tax against rural Canadians.
Suffice to say, I had no respect and plenty of venom for the man.
However, in the years since, I’ve come to grudgingly respect Jack Layton. Over the next four federal campaigns, the NDP slowly but surely dismantled the Liberals from government to third-party status.
Like the Reform Party did for disgruntled Conservatives, the NDP gave left-leaning voters a real choice. The Liberal government’s only guiding principles seemed to be “We’re for winning, and we’re against losing.” The NDP, under Layton, became the antithesis of the Liberals. He seemed to be saying “I don’t give a damn if we win, we stand for what we stand for.”
Some people blamed the Conservative Party’s string of attack ads for destroying Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff’s personal leadership. In truth, I think it was Layton’s startlingly effective leadership style that made Dion and Ignatieff look like also-rans.
The combination of heavyweights Layton on the left and Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the right was too much for the Liberals. All the bafflegab and posturing in the world cannot take the place of a firm policy position. Together, Harper and Layton successfully brought an end to a decade of empty words and inaction in Canadian politics.
For that, more than anything else, Layton earned my respect. And, with every year of Harper’s slide towards the mushy middle, I came to respect Layton more and more.
Despite what the current generation’s young, ambitious political types think, winning isn’t everything. Layton taught us that.
Now that he’s gone, the push will be on to unite the political left. If it happens, one can only hope the left doesn’t just become another incarnation of the stand-for-nothing Liberals. Our country, not to mention Layton’s legacy, deserves better than that.
