NATIONAL VIEWPOINT: Notley NDP to the core

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This article was published 23/01/2024 (707 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Notley, 59, choked up as she spoke of her mother, Sandy, and father, former NDP leader Grant Notley, ‘demonstrating daily the value of hard work, the duty of compassion for neighbours and the importance of social democratic convictions.’”

— The Canadian Press, Jan. 16.

 

Long before I studied political science at the University of Calgary in the ’70s, I was privileged with unique access to the political teachings of a person who never graduated high school. No matter how much formal university education I received in Calgary, Montreal and Boston, there was no seminar I ever attended, with more passion, compassion, and real life experiences than those offered on the 800-square-feet campus of Adler’s Tailor Shop.

Readers know that my father was both a Holocaust survivor and a prisoner in Stalin’s Siberian Gulag for three years. When Rachel Notley was barely out her teens, she lost her dad, one of the founders of the Alberta NDP, in a plane crash. When Mike Adler was her age, he lost his dad and mum and siblings and almost every single member of his extended family to the Fascist jackboot.

I don’t diminish political views shaped by those who study politics in classrooms or newspaper columns. But there will always be a special place in my heart for those whose politics are shaped by their personal lives and losses.

When you grow up in a tiny tailor shop in the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, the safest Liberal riding in Canada, one represented for nearly two decades by Pierre Elliot Trudeau, your politics tend to be Liberal.

My father always voted Liberal, federally and provincially. Most of his customers did the same. But while my dad was a reliable vote for the Liberals, the harshness of his personal history gave him a soft spot for political personalities from across the spectrum.

There were four western Canadian personalities he had deep respect for, two from Saskatchewan, John Diefenbaker and Tommy Douglas, and two from Alberta, Peter Lougheed and Grant Notley — two progressive conservatives and two New Democrats. My dad’s voting record appeared partisan, but his mind never was. It was open to the views of those politicians who connected with common people.

This eyewitness to history saw the most egregious examples of the manipulation, exploitation and sacrifice of human beings. He favoured politicians who placed the service of common people above personal ambition.

Nine years ago, Alberta’s NDP leader, Rachel Anne Notley, a graduate of Toronto’s prestigious Osgoode Hall law school, became the 17th premier of Alberta. Nobody reading the Winnipeg Free Press Think Tank section needs any explanation of how unlikely it is for an NDP leader to become premier in Canada’s most conservative province. It’s not immaterial that the conservative vote was split between two parties, the Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose.

Notley’s team went up the middle, and made history. In the most recent provincial election, nine months ago, Rachel Notley came within a whisker of doing it again, despite facing a unified conservative party, the UCP, led by Danielle Smith.

If not for a few thousand votes in a handful of ridings, Notley would have been returned to the premier’s office.

My late father’s legacy never leaves my shoulder when his son touches the keyboard for these regular visits with fellow Manitobans. Mike Adler’s words were very much on my mind when I endorsed Rachel Notley’s party on New Year’s Day of 2023, three months in advance of Notley’s final election as leader of the Alberta NDP.

I had never endorsed the NDP in any election. But my father taught me that character matters more than anything else in government.

I felt Rachel Notley’s leadership character, particularly her aversion to chaos, was exponentially better suited for government than her UCP opponent, Danielle Smith.

Rachel Notley has the NDP brand bred into her bones because of her connection to her late father who helped found the Alberta NDP in 1971. If the federal NDP choose fresh leadership after the next election, Notley would have to be considered a serious option for them. Canadian democracy would benefit from having Notley in opposition.

And who knows? The Notley brand is about changing history with big dreams and hard work. Rachel Notley led her party to forming government for the first time in Alberta. Some day she may do the same for the federal NDP in Ottawa.

» Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. This column previously appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press.