Path to power tough for federal NDP

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Brian Topp is proposing a huge tax increase on the wealthy. (TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

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OTTAWA -- If there was anything that stood out on the stage at the Pantages Playhouse Sunday during the NDP leadership debate, it was that the party born on the Prairies doesn't have much "prairie-ness" left to offer.

It is sort of sad that more than half the debate appeared to focus on the fact that the NDP has been virtually shut out from the region that gave birth to it, and how to change that.

Just one of the nine candidates on the stage was from the Prairies. Out of the 56 seats on the Prairies right now, the NDP has just three.

The NDP might have been born in Saskatchewan but it hasn't won a seat there since 1999. In Manitoba, the NDP federal caucus has been cut to just two.

Linda Duncan's breakthrough win in Edmonton in 2008 is the only bright spot for the party in the Prairies in more than a decade.

There has been a lot of talk about the NDP needing to hang on to its 59 seats in Quebec, which is true. If the NDP want to defeat the Conservatives, losing seats in Quebec isn't going to make it any easier.

However, there will be 61 seats up for grabs in the Prairies in 2015, and if the NDP wants to win even a minority government, it is going to have to win more than three of them.

It stands to reason that shouldn't be that hard.

Manitoba voters have elected four consecutive NDP majorities to the provincial legislature since 1999. It was not that long ago that Saskatchewan voters did the same thing.

It may not sound plausible that voters will move between the Tories and the NDP but in Manitoba and Saskatchewan they obviously do.

There were few signs in the debate Sunday the party has any clue how to attract those middle-ground voters to the NDP side.

It is noteworthy that the provincial NDP in Manitoba and the federal NDP do not see eye to eye on everything. Perhaps with the one recent exception of the Canadian Wheat Board, the Manitoba NDP, under Gary Doer and now Greg Selinger, has been more onside with the federal Conservatives than the federal NDP.

On economics, the NDP in Manitoba cut the corporate tax rate more than four points, eliminated the small business tax rate and incrementally reduced personal income taxes.

It was not enough for some and too much for others.

But most people love to hear they are going to get to keep more of their own money. It's a smart doorstep policy to pitch. And it worked.

Are any of the federal leadership candidates proposing tax cuts? Not really. Most are proposing reversing the corporate tax cuts or putting strings on them. At least one candidate -- Brian Topp -- is proposing a huge tax increase on the wealthy.

That might play well with the NDP base but it's unlikely going to go very far in attracting new people to the party.

The provincial NDP and the federal NDP are also on separate pages when it comes to fighting crime.

The Manitoba government has led the charge for many of the crime bills introduced by the federal Conservatives -- ending two-for-one credit for pre-trial custody, mandatory minimums for gun crimes, tougher love for kid criminals.

These are the same bills the federal NDP has opposed at every step.

It is true there is a lot of evidence to suggest jails aren't the best place for everyone who breaks the law and that there has to be more creative solutions than simply locking everyone up.

But that doesn't go over well on the doorsteps in cities where residents are bombarded with news of drive-by shootings, stabbings and firebombs.

Opposition to the gun registry was always strongest in the Prairies. The Manitoba NDP seemed to get that and never supported it. The federal NDP for the most part voted to keep it. Even Niki Ashton, who had long spoken out against the gun registry, voted against getting rid of it last fall, likely after the party threatened to punish any MPs who did not.

It is a tough political dance to appease one's base and appeal to a wider audience at the same time. Sometimes it seems like broadening your appeal is abandoning your values or compromising your morals.

But if the NDP continues to do what it has always done, it will always get what it always got.

And that will not be the keys to 24 Sussex Drive.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 27, 2012 A6