The NDP party is currently in its 50th year in this province. During that time it has seen a few ups but many more downs. The party has had 11 leaders and 9 MHA's during those 50 years. It is a party that has many policies that people in this province can agree with but because the party lacks a strong, charismatic leader it has never come close to forming the government in this province.
In the past few blogs I've talked about the best premier in the province's history and the best opposition leader in the province's history but today I want to talk about the NDP leadership provincially and who their best leader was and I can tell you right now that only Jack Harris and Lorraine Michael should be in consideration for this. (All due respect to Ed Finn, Esau Thoms, John Connors, Gerry Panting, John Green, Fonse Faour, Peter Fenwick and Cle Newhook). Still for all they did for the party Harris and Michael are the only 2 people that should merit consideration for this. Let's bio both:
Jack Harris: You think of the NDP here in this province and you got to think of Jack Harris. I consider Jack Harris to be one of the best MHA's in this province's history to never sit in government or in cabinet. I can't be to sure, of course, but I'm willing to bet that more than 1 premier invited Jack Harris to cross the floor and sit with them in cabinet and government. Jack though stuck to his guns and stayed with the NDP through the thick and thin so kudos to him for that. Quite often Jack was by himself on the NDP side of the house. First elected to the House of Assembly in a 1990 by-election, Harris became the party leader in 1992 following the resignation of Cle Newhook. Harris was subsequently re-elected in the 1993, 1996, 1999 and 2003 elections. In 1993 Harris won his seat by 608 votes over Liberal Joan Cook. Cook was involved in the Liberal backrooms for a long time and would go on to become a senator in 1998. For all that she was not the strongest of candidates and Harris' win was aided by a split of the vote between the Liberals and the PC's (The PC candidate in that election got 1285 votes to finish a strong 3rd). Cook came back for a rematch in 1996 but lost by 1139 votes to Harris, all of this despite the Liberals being at the height of their popularity of the 90's. Harris' toughest election was 1999 when he won his seat by 169 votes. He gained a seat mate in 1999 with Randy Collins in Lab West. In 2003 Harris won the seat over a virtual unknown for the PC's in Karen Carroll. While the result was close the fact that the Liberals where running Ray O'neil certainly helped out the PC vote. Harris resigned 3 years later in 2006 after a 16 year provincial political career. The NDP became more respected during his time as leader but they only saw marginal growth both in # of seats and popular vote. Harris has since gone onto federal politics where he has become a good opposition MP for the NDP. Harris was a federal politician for a year back in the 80's with the NDP. When he resigned many people, myself included, praised him for his work during all his years in provincial politics. In fact if I had to construct a political party out of all the MHA's in the province's history, Jack Harris' name would be on that list, bearing in mind the list would include 48 names for the 48 seats in the House of Assembly.
Lorraine Michael: Michael has been the party leader since the spring of 2006 and has become somewhat of a heavyweight beater. In her first election she beat Jerome Kennedy. The same Kennedy who is now the minister of natural resources and also held the posts of finance and health and someone that many people thought would have replaced Danny Williams as premier. Her win in 2007 was over Mario Afonso, who may not be well known to most but is a good background worker for the PC party. Her win in 2011 was over John Noseworthy. Noseworthy stood a good chance, if elected, of getting into cabinet right away. People probably knew that and yet Michael won handily.
Both did wonders for the party, they had different ways of leadership. Harris was more statesmanlike, yes he critcized the governments of the day but he did so fairly. I remember him also agreeing with the restructring of the FPI act in 2005 which was a controversial act, I've been around the PC party for 9 years now and been a PC supporter for longer than that but I always respeted Harris and think when the annals of political history are wrote in this province Harris' name will be near the top.
Lorraine Michael, on the other hand, has been more abrasive during her time as leader. More of her policies have come under fire than those of Harris. Her policy last year of charging a 3 percent surtax on the oil industry certainly caused a stir as the oil industry is the main reason this province is currently booming. My mother who is only into politics because of me has called Michael negative. I don't think anyone could have called Jack Harris negative.
But the question is who was the best leader the NDP in this province ever had? While Jack Harris did a lot for the NDP in this province the fact is in 2011 the NDP won 5 seats in this province, their previous high had been 2. I know the NDP had a resurgence last year due to Jack Layton but in provincial elections in this province since Layton's death the Ontario NDP went to 17 seats from 10 (Though that had to do with general dissatisfaction with the Mcguinty government there and the poor campaign of the PC's up there), the Manitoba NDP held onto government but that was widely expected with or without Layton, the PEI NDP barely put up a whimper in that province's election. The Saskatchewan NDP actually lost seats. So even with the Layton factor provincial elections went for the NDP the way they where expected to except for down here. So for that reason I think Lorraine Michael is the best leader the NDP has ever had in this province.
The blogger welcomes all comments on his blog, he can be reached by email at tducey1@gmail.com.
