Gary Doer’s small ‘l’ legacy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/08/2009 (6126 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ten years in power and three majority election victories, what does Gary Doer have to show for it? These facts themselves attest to the effectiveness of his political career. He took the NDP from disaster in 1988 to power 11 years later and then to a decade of government.

Doer is a shrewd political animal, a natural at it I think, and with the help of shrewd advisers, a compliant caucus and a submissive party he has transformed the NDP. No more a party of natural reform and sometimes fractious debate, it has become a vehicle for pure electioneering and governance.

Doer had the good sense not to fiddle with the economy as Ed Schreyer had especially done, although the Crocus Fund might have been his stealth strategy for something different. Business people created wealth and Doer was happy to avail of the revenues. He nodded in the direction of lower taxes but like much of Doer’s achievements this was smoke-and-mirrors. Yes, some business and income taxes were reduced but overall much ballyhoo was made of little in order to fend off the critics that the NDP was a tax-and-spend party.

Indeed, that was a major part of the Doer success. Crank up the publicity machine and its controls and make much of little and hope that the negative stuff could be kept out of the public arena. And so he goes down in history as a low-tax politician except that he did nothing about the indexing of tax brackets so that taxpayers would not be paying higher proportionate taxes as the economy grew.

Circumstances, too, made him a successful politician. Has there been a more consistent period of economic growth in Canada and the province than the last 10 years? Revenues have flowed like the Red River in flood and Ottawa has been inordinately generous to the provinces in general.

Think as well of the brilliant sleight-of-hand of his policy of a fee freeze for college students. What a clever idea to give a subsidized education for everyone and justify it in the name of equity and accessibility. Middle-class students were grateful and so were their parents and the votes rolled in from the suburbs for the NDP. Except that the policy did little for accessibility and as well was doing great damage to the universities’ ability to finance their own development. And wonder of wonders, after 10 years of this charade, the Doer government actually admitted that its critics were right all along, but of course they did not have to hand back those middle-class votes. Clever politics indeed but hardly good social policy.

Gary Doer has a genial Manitoban charm and he has clearly connected with the feelings of many citizens of the province. Yet his going leaves me with a sense of disappointment. Ten years and where really was the reform agenda? Name one speech by Doer that will resonate in history in which he took a difficult stand and planted a great flag of justice? (His stand on photo radar does not qualify!) I can’t think of any. Name an instance in which we were encouraged by Doer to imagine a different world for our province and city, in the manner of an Ed Schreyer or a Glen Murray or as Lloyd Axworthy constantly does. I can’t think of one.

Lake Winnipeg’s eco-system remains under stress. Poverty is endemic in Winnipeg as are certain kinds of crime and social disorder. The roads and much of the infrastructure of Winnipeg are abominable and in his cavalier treatment of the legislature — keeping it out of session for as long as he could — Doer showed that he could be a supreme manipulator and hardly a model of democratic accountability. If you think Gary Doer is a congenitally nice man, watch his performance in the legislature: all bombast and nastiness.

All in all, Doer has been a superbly successful politician, a man of nice impressions but replete with political guile. What a shame that with all these assets he could not have brought 10 years of consistent reform to the province.

Allen Mills is a political studies professor at the University of Winnipeg.