Local Viewpoint — NDP showing true colours by defending Kinew

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/03/2016 (3519 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With the provincial election campaign fully underway, political parties will be launching a full-court press for our votes. In addition to lots of talk about policies, promises, and critiques of what each party has done (or hasn’t done) over the last several years, one of the things that we will undoubtedly be flooded with is talk about trust and integrity. Who we can trust, who we can’t, and which leader has the moral capacity to lead.

And while many will dismiss much of this talk about ethics and values as simple electioneering, this would be to our detriment. Governments are more than delivery agents of programs and services to their clients. For sure, things like properly managing the economy or making sure our hospitals have sufficient resources to provide quality care are important to all of us. But a responsibility of government should also include inspiring its citizens to become better versions of themselves, to fostering greater respect and civility within our communities and to demonstrating their commitment to these ideals by leading by example.

It is in this vein that we should pause to consider the way in which the NDP has chosen to handle the ongoing controversy surrounding one of its candidates. Wab Kinew, widely touted as a star candidate for the NDP, has come under fire for a series of disturbing comments he has made in the past towards women, gays and lesbians, and indeed, his own people.

Over the period of several years, Mr. Kinew rapped and tweeted homophobic, racist and misogynistic statements, some of which were made while he was working in a leadership role at the University of Winnipeg. While Mr. Kinew claimed that some of his derogatory tweets were done in the name of satire, we can question whether the suffering of children is ever an appropriate subject matter for mockery and sarcasm.

This point aside, my issue, quite frankly, is less with Mr. Kinew himself. I am all for redemption, for the granting of second chances. To be sure, we are too quick sometimes to forgive ourselves and each other for our missteps. And, to his credit, Mr. Kinew has apologized for his statements (albeit somewhat defensively, as some media commentators have noted, during the recent press conference held by Mr. Kinew and Greg Selinger).

What I am more troubled about is the way in which Mr. Kinew’s party, the NDP, has so readily come to his defence and attempted to justify actions that they would roundly vilify their opponents for if the tables were reversed. Can you imagine if Mr. Kinew was a Liberal — or even worse — a Progressive Conservative candidate?

The NDP is quick to attack the other parties for some of their choices in candidates (the former Liberal candidate for Southdale, for example) and to continually paint Brian Pallister and the Progressive Conservatives as the worst thing to happen for women’s rights since we first won the right to vote in this province in 1916. Yet when baldly faced with the same issue among one of their own, instead of leading by example, they instead close ranks.

This kind of hypocrisy is inexcusable for any political party. It is especially inexcusable for a party that has been in government for 17 years and which has staked out much of its moral high ground as the guardian of women’s rights and progressivism in the province.

So what is really driving the NDP’s support of Mr. Kinew? The simple fact that he happens to be their star candidate in Fort Rouge, a Winnipeg riding that, in the face of their plummeting support in the polls, the New Democrats are desperate to keep in their fold. Fort Rouge also happens to be the riding that Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari is running in. Holding on to this riding, and blocking the Liberal leader from taking her first seat in the legislature, would therefore be a real coup for the NDP.

As one of my colleagues pointed out the other day, it is safe to say that if Mr. Kinew was running in Arthur-Virden instead of Fort Rouge, it would be a different story.

As the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words. If the left in this province wants to claim moral superiority when it comes to the promotion of rights, respect and tolerance, then it needs to make sure that its actions follows its words. And in this case, the NDP has shown its true colours.

» Kelly Saunders is an associate professor with the department of political science at Brandon University.