Under Siege: The Federal NDP in the Nineties

Agar Adamson is the author of Letters of Agar Adamson, 1914–19 and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

Political scientists like to talk about “the pendulum theory of
politics” to explain extreme deviations from whatever passes as “the
norm.” The general election of October 1993 illustrates the pendulum
theory in the extreme insofar as the NDP is concerned. In 1988, the
party won 43 seats and received 20.4 percent of the popular vote. In
1993, the party won only nine seats and received just 7.4 percent of the
popular vote. During the 1993 campaign, Ian McLeod was the NDP’s
communications coordinator in Ottawa. This book is thus an
“insider’s” view of what went wrong.

Two chapters—“In Search of Ms. McLaughlin” and “ A Caucus
Adrift”—are particularly telling. Audrey McLaughlin, McLeod writes,
“was not the ideal vehicle for the new politics.” Concerning caucus,
former MP Phil Edmonston is quoted as saying that “in the NDP, caucus
discipline was an oxymoron.” McLeod’s description of the NDP caucus
should be a primer for any politician on what not to do with caucus.

Does the NDP have a future? This is where the pendulum theory comes
into play, but, as McLeod points out, the NDP will require patience and
a redesigning of its philosophy if it is to assist in the building of a
new Jerusalem in this “green and pleasant land.” This important and
useful work gives students of Canadian politics a glimpse into the
workings of one Canadian political party. For this fact alone, one must
be thankful for McLeod’s decision to lay bare the NDP’s electoral
and parliamentary mismanagement in 1993.