Just short of 10:30 a.m. last Friday morning, Jack Layton stood in his place in the House of Commons and did the previously unthinkable.
The House was asked to approve various measures in last January’s federal budget and allow the government to proceed with confidence. All those voting “yea” were to stand, and after Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Québécois were counted, it was Layton’s turn to lead the NDP acquiescence. And so he did. The Liberals howled, at least until Michael Ignatieff, grimacing, waved his hand for them to settle down. A few minutes later, with Ignatieff’s side voting nay, the motion passed by a count of 224 to 74.
Layton then walked into the foyer to face a skeptical delegation from the press gallery. He was, he said, looking out for all those who had fixed up their patio this summer and were counting on the home renovation tax credit—never mind that the popular measure may or may not have actually been in real danger. A moment later, Ignatieff arrived at the same microphone, looking altogether serene. “Jack and Gilles have gone up the hill,” he quipped, “and we know how that little fairy tale ends.”
This seemed a terrible day for the leader of the NDP. But if you were thinking Jack Layton had just turned himself inside out, that the unrelenting opponent of this government had just debased himself for the purposes of political expediency, you would be wrong. At least so says the NDP.
“Canadians are fair-minded and want their politicians to use common sense,” Brad Lavigne, the party’s national director, said over coffee a few hours after the vote. “And what you’ve seen is probably Jack Layton’s best week of his leadership.”
Really? “Absolutely,” Lavigne confirmed. “I’d say it’s one of his best weeks by far. In terms of seizing the opportunity, sticking to the principles, recognizing that it actually takes strength to get things for the people that sent us here. I think what Jack Layton has done this week is give a voice to the millions of Canadians who want to see this Parliament work and don’t want to go to an election.”
Maybe so. But how to reconcile the Layton of last Friday with the Layton of the last three years? How to make sense of a party that loudly mocked the Liberals each time they wilted at the prospect of dealing the government a pivotal blow, only to fold when the onus was on it? What else to consider this but a sudden and dramatic change?
“Politicians do that all the time,” says NDP MP Peter Stoffer, the good-natured Nova Scotian. “You do something for quite awhile and all of a sudden, ‘Ah, we’ll just change our minds now.’ More or less what it means is that we looked at the situation, and I think our leader is absolutely correct, you can spend $300 million on an election or, hopefully, get a billion dollars for most of our supporters out there.”
The billion-dollar price tag is a reference to the next test of Layton’s new-found faith in the Harper government. Specifically, it is the estimated cost of a bill that would temporarily extend Employment Insurance benefits for some long-term workers. Having survived Friday’s vote, the government will be free to pursue that legislation. And assuming it passes scrutiny, the NDP will likely again cast its three dozen votes with the government, allowing the Conservatives, it seems now, to survive the fall.
