The failure of the federal NDP

A speech I gave behind closed doors to the federal NDP caucus in 2016

It’s been ten years to the day since Alberta’s NDP swept to power.

I had planned to dissect the federal NDP's catastrophic electoral performance last week. The draft sits on my desk.

I will address the confidence and supply agreement that stands as perhaps the most strategically indefensible decision in the long history of Canada's social democratic movement. But that's for another day – next post.

This week, my thoughts returned to the moment I fundamentally broke with the federal NDP – nearly a decade ago.

As Alberta's Environment and Climate Change Minister, I watched as the Leap Manifesto – that exercise in privileged political vanity – slithered on to the federal Convention floor in April 2016. This piece of self-indulgent posturing fractured the party, undermined our credibility, and squandered the party’s momentum after our win in Alberta in May 2015. It delivered precisely nothing: no electoral advantage, no expanded supporter base, no compelling candidates, no enhanced credibility with Canadians.

What it did accomplish was proving Rachel Notley's assessment correct – the federal NDP was more interested in "writing letters to ourselves" than improving the material conditions of people's lives. They walked straight into the traps our conservative opponents had laid, validating every caricature they'd drawn of us.

That 2016 Convention – and Tom Mulcair's failure to provide decisive leadership in response – was the pivot point for Canada's NDP. It exposed fundamental weaknesses: an inability to engage with complex issues with intellectual rigor; an unwillingness to confront necessary trade-offs; and a retreat into academic theory divorced from the lived realities of working Canadians. From April 2016 onward, the federal NDP has functioned more as an abstract intellectual exercise than a serious electoral force.

It's taken nine years for these fundamental failures to reach their inevitable conclusion – the overwhelming rejection of the federal NDP by the vast majority of Canadian voters.

So on this ten-year anniversary of Alberta's NDP forming government, I'm sharing the speech I delivered to the federal NDP caucus during that fateful Edmonton Convention.

These remarks were never made public. They were delivered behind closed doors, before the Leap Manifesto officially reached the Convention floor and before Tom Mulcair received his devastating rebuke from the membership.

In these words from nearly a decade ago, you can see every element that led to last Monday's electoral collapse. The western sections of the NDP – grounded in the practical priorities I outlined in that speech – continue to drive the most successful expressions of social democracy in Canada. Abandon those priorities, and Canadians will abandon you. That's the hard lesson the federal party must finally confront.

Shannon Phillips’ Speech to federal NDP Caucus, April 8, 2016. Warning: it’s long.

Good afternoon. Welcome to Edmonton! Welcome to the seat of power for the New Democrats, welcome to a town where every single seat is held by a New Democrat, welcome to a place where, even in the depths of a recession, we’re polling at 44%!

Yeah, it still feels good!

This afternoon I would like to share with you a bit about what is happening in our province, and how Alberta’s new government under Premier Notley’s leadership is facing our challenges head-on. I want to report to you directly from Alberta, so you can hear about our province and our programme straight from us.

I want to talk about what it is like to govern this province in the tradition that New Democrats on the prairies have always governed - with a determined, steely pragmatism that puts working people at the heart of our movement.

I want to share with you how we can work together to move forward. How we do that will be determined by how well we remember who we are as New Democrats.

Eleven months ago, the Alberta NDP won an election. We swept to power. We won seats in the northern rural parts of the province, in the suburbs, in the southern cities, in the central part of the province, in the rural and small-town areas to the west of Edmonton, and in the two big cities. We won every single seat in Edmonton and surrounding areas. You have to drive at least 90 minutes from where you sit right now to reach an opposition seat. I undertook to win my own seat in 2012 - we understood that the southern Alberta seat of Lethbridge West was winnable, but it would take two elections and so I knocked on doors for 4 years - and I thought I would maybe - with a bit of luck - be part of a well-meaning but mighty opposition caucus, the only voice for New Democrats outside Edmonton. That was the job I expected to have. In the end, I won with 60 percent of the vote and took the other side of the city with me. All of the city of Lethbridge, Alberta is represented by the NDP in the Legislature. 

May 5 was the culmination of my adult life’s work. I am a New Democrat in my heart, in my bones, these veins run orange. As I often joke, I am the original hipster New Democrat, I was an NDPer in Alberta far before it was cool. 

As an Alberta New Democrat I have always encouraged my fellow organizers, volunteers, members, the elected officials for whom I worked over the years, and our labour partners for whom I also worked - to think like winners. This used to confuse my friends from other parties and probably quite a few of my brothers and sisters in our own party. They would wonder how I could possibly have such an attitude - that yes, the Alberta NDP can win, we deserve to win, we should win, and we will win. 

The reason for that is the CCF-NDP was formed to WIN. There is no point in engaging in electoral politics if you do not want to win seats. If you want to talk about change, or effect it through legal means or social means, go join a PR firm, join a law firm, or, I suppose, you could make a book and a movie and then promote it on the floor of a political party’s convention. But I have dedicated my life to our social democratic electoral project, where the object of the game is to win, with a purpose, with determination, and then to govern according to the mandate given by the working people who elected us. 

And that is what we did as Alberta NDP, so let’s discuss the situation in which we now find ourselves.

The province of ALberta is in the midst of the worst economic downturn since 1982. The price of oil has dropped by two-thirds. Ten billion dollars of resource royalty revenue has been wiped off our balance sheet. 

This can only be termed a fiscal collapse. The situation is dire, my friends. 

There are graphs and charts to illustrate the point, but I prefer to speak of it in its human terms. 

There are thousands of families that have lost their good-paying, mortgage-sustaining job. Families are losing their homes and vehicles. The number of people using food banks is rising. So are domestic violence and suicide rates. Charitable contributions have plummeted. Social assistance rolls have ballooned. 

When people from other parts of the country speak to me about “leaving the oil in the ground,” I point them to this looming social disaster. I paint them a picture of what is happening right now in communities right across this province, which is essentially a situation in which oil is being, quote, “left in the ground.”

In these same communities,  people voted NDP because they trusted us to put working people first. People who work in the oil sands are real people, with real families. Economic hardship is real, no matter who signed your cheques before you were laid off. The struggle to make ends meet and find a good job is the same for people who work in mining or aerospace in Quebec, in the auto or steel industry in Ontario, or the forestry industry in BC. 

Alberta is an energy producing province. We rely heavily, as I’ve just explained, on one commodity, to one market, at one price. This is the situation we have inherited. And while Premier Notley is really good, she is not a wizard - we have not yet waved a magic wand and fully diversified the economy or set in place all the pieces to ensure resilience in a carbon constrained future. 

The collapse in the price of oil is an object lesson for New Democrats. It shows the degree to which Alberta’s economy relies on capital investment. And in these times, capital investment can be easily spooked by political instability. So it is not the position of this government to make a bad situation worse. The Alberta NDP will create conditions for investment and employment. The Alberta NDP will move forward with a thoughtful plan to diversify and build resilience into the economy. I know I am a profound disappointment to some of my friends on the Left, but we will do this without impolitic statements or rash pronouncements that will result in damage to our economy, let alone our electability. 

Our province’s political history contains within it a long dream of diversifying the economy - a dream first given life under Premier Lougheed, when he faced a fiscal challenge very similar to the one in which we find ourselves. His dream was partially realized - through Alberta’s investments in medical research, petrochemical value-added investments, and growing small and medium-sized enterprises using various forms of investment capital via our sovereign wealth fund, the Heritage Fund. Over a period of a decade and a half, Premier Lougheed picked up the pieces from an oil price crash and began the work of diversification. However, in the early 1990s, there began a long, dark period of mean-spirited cuts and narrowly ideological right wing conservative government, in which many of these diversification initiatives were outright abandoned or left to wither on the vine. 

The dream of diversification never died. It is even more urgent today given the economic and environmental imperative of a carbon-constrained future. And that is why our government has brought in an ambitious new Climate Leadership Plan.

In November of last year, I stood on a stage with Premier Notley, the Grand Chief of Treaty 6, and several oil sands CEOs and heads of national environmental organizations. Again, Premier Notley did what no one ever thought possible: we announced a plan that would re-write the terms of orderly industrial development in the oil sands, and set Alberta on course toward the most progressive climate policies on the continent - and most certainly the most forward-looking climate policies for energy producers.

The Climate Leadership Plan has four elements. I’d like to ensure you are all very aware of the level of ambition we have undertaken as a government on the environmental file.

We are:

1. Putting a price on CO2 emissions on an economy-wide basis. BC phased in its carbon tax over a period of several years. We are starting with $20/tonne in 2017, and ramping up to $30/tonne in 2018. As a point of comparison, Québec just sold their first cap and trade permits for $17.50, and their system is not economy-wide. Quebec’s current system actually resembles the old Alberta conservative approach, that we are in the process of phasing out, more than it does the Alberta NDP’s new system. This is an important point.

2. Capping emissions from the oil sands, so development will only take place within the confines of what is permitted by law.

3. Phasing out coal in favour of renewables, and

4. Reducing methane emissions from oil and gas. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas from conventional oil and gas processes - processes we find in Quebec, Manitoba, SK, AB and BC. Alberta was the first, last fall, to write a policy to dramatically reduce methane. That policy was subsequently copied by Trudeau and Obama last month. 

The price on carbon will then be recycled straight back in to the economy. Over the next few years, our province will invest billions in renewables, clean tech, infrastructure, transit, flood mitigation and climate adaptation, indigenous communities, training and apprenticeship, and transitioning communities. This is to say nothing of the door we have opened to private investment in renewables. The last estimate I saw was $30 billion over the next five years is well possible as we effect the transition from coal-fired electricity. 

There will be a massive diversification effort that accrues from our Climate Leadership Plan. Alberta has the youngest and best-educated population in Canada. We have what it takes to grow clean technology and green jobs. We’re already an energy province - and we have all the expertise we need to deploy that know-how in to renewable storage technology, reducing the carbon intensity of a barrel of oil, building transit, ensuring creative solutions for low-impact municipal development, retrofitting homes and businesses, adding value to agricultural products in sustainable ways, and so on. There is no end to what we can accomplish with the fiscal capacity of the economy-wide price on carbon, because we will be keeping all of that wealth right here in Alberta. 

I want you all to know that all of these initiatives are being done in cooperation with industry, in consultation with them, and with their public, in some cases quite vocal, support. We are moving forward in a way that tries our best to take the conflict out of this conversation. That is how New Democrats govern. 

Between winning government in Alberta and re-writing an environmental and energy consensus for the Canadian oil sands, I think we have gone beyond even what Jack Layton, our eternal optimist, who always urged us to be brave and think big, even dreamed possible. And so now we have to implement all of these plans. It is hard work. And as the minister responsible for the pass-fail, high stakes assignment the Premier has given me, I get a little jumpy when people from outside suggest we are not doing enough, or that we should sacrifice all of the amazing concrete achievements we have made so far in favour of aspirational talk. 

The truth is that we are a party of doers. This is what scares our opponents so much. They would much rather have us be a party of dreamers, not doers. The greatest gift we can give our opponents is to undermine or render small and insignificant our actual actions as New Democrats. We are really GOOD at governing - we proved it when Tommy Douglas rebuilt the province of Saskatchewan after the Depression, and we are proving it in Alberta today as we lead the country in figuring out a path forward in a carbon-competitive future. That’s what is scary to them.

I want to talk to you about the fiscal situation and the Budget that Finance Minister Joe Ceci will deliver this coming Thursday April 14.

Like I said, we are facing a massive budget deficit. However, we ran on a platform of ensuring stable, predictable funding for public services, and that is what we have delivered.

Let’s look at our accomplishments so far.

We outlawed corporate and union donations. We restored fair taxation, so that high income individuals no longer benefit from a regressive flat tax. We restored normal rates of corporate taxation. Because our platform rested on the idea that you must pay for your promises. So within thre weeks of being sworn in to cabinet, we went in to the Legislature, faced an angry, butthurt, meanspirited conservative opposition, and passed those bills in record time.

We restored $800m in cuts to public health care.

$200 million in cuts to public education.

$200 million to social services.

We stabilized funding to municipalities and froze tuition.

We raised the minimum wage, the first step toward getting to $15/hour. A commitment we made in the platform, and from which we are not backing down. 

We boosted funding for women’s shelters. We expanded midwifery care. We canceled a multi-million dollar health privatization contract. We established a ministry for the status of women. We wrote gender identity and gender expression in to the Human Rights Act as prohibited grounds of discrimination. We established two new parks and added 100,000 new hectares of protected areas. We finally stopped being the last province in Canada without health and safety protections for paid workers on farms. We set the table for more rationalized, fair collective bargaining with teachers. We ordered school boards to make sure all kids are learning in safe schools - regardless of gender identity - because that’s the law now in Alberta. We ordered each Department to implement the principles of the UN Declaration on Indigenous peoples within government’s work. We have a new, for the first time ever, Metis Consultation Policy between the province and Metis people. Soon, we will have a new framework for indigenous engagement with First Nations as well. 

And in this budget, we will bring forward a $34 billion capital plan to repair our neglected public infrastructure. We’ll invest in hospitals, 230 new schools, roads, bridges, emergency response facilities, municipal water treatment, flood mitigation infrastructure, parks and campgrounds. Acting on the advice of former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, we significantly boosted our public investments in infrastructure during this downturn because that’s not only good economic advice, it is also the kind of counter-cyclical spending that we, as New Democrats, have always advocated.

We’ll also provide $500 million in royalty credits for petrochemical diversification and a whole package of new jobs and training initiatives in the upcoming budget. We’re protecting consumers with an Act to end predatory lending. Instead, we’ll give credit unions the tools they need to provide more financial services to low-income people. Again, because New Democrats have always understood  - since the Depression, and even before - that access to capital is something working people need if they are to live in dignity.

And through all this, we have made the case for pipelines out of Alberta. Right now, Alberta’s current production, which is permitted under our cap, is bottle necked. It is not getting the price it should. Even in this low price environment, Alberta is still missing out on several dollars per barrel for our oil. This is why we need a pipeline east, and a pipeline west. Pipeline access will relieve the supply bottleneck and allow us to collect a higher price, and therefore more royalty to the government.

Albertans deserve to get full value from their resources. And we therefore need energy infrastructure to access that value. 

The province of BC deserves full value for their forestry products, and a federal-provincial partnership to ensure the most number of good-paying, value-added jobs are created from that industry. They deserve to get the full price for their products, so they need the transportation infrastructure to ship them to whatever market will pay the most for their logs. The people of BC deserve a thoughtful plan, and two levels of government, to ensure the resource is developed responsibly so that people can continue to work in that industry. If, due to external or international pressures that industry was to be forced to wind down or transition over the course of a long time horizon, the people of BC deserve a thoughtful plan from both levels of government as to how that sequence of events might come about. Likely, that transition would come about as a result of economic diversification, strong regulations, new investments, research and development. No one would suggest we set down the chainsaws tomorrow.

The same holds true for the Ontario auto industry.

The same holds true for mining in northern Quebec.

And so must be the same level of understanding of Alberta. I am aware that our province used to give the rest of the country its worst caricatures of right wing politicians. It was easy to hack on Alberta as a bunch of climate denying hillbillies. It was, and remains, an unfair characterization, even as it was, and is, a favourite past time of downtown Toronto intelligentsia.

That stereotype was never true and the results of last years’ provincial election rendered it even more irrelevant. The future of social democratic governance in Canada lies in Alberta. It is our responsibility to work together to make that work for everyone in our New Democrat family. 

I have outlined what pragmatic progressive government looks like in 2016. There are voices in our party who would undermine our work, who would ask us to throw away everything we’ve built in our province - over the life of our party, the CCF was after all, founded in Calgary - and over the past 11 months. I reject that approach. If we embrace an agenda that suggests we should shut down, in the short or even medium term, the industry that powers this province and this country, then we fail to listen to the people who voted NDP last May. We betray our commitment to working people, just at a time when working people in Alberta are vulnerable and need the NDP more than ever. 

Our government has enemies. Conservative enemies. There are millions of dollars in attack ads, in campaigns of personal vilification, in hate and spin - just waiting to rain down on our government. All of Stephen Harper’s cronies and operatives are now back in Calgary eagerly waiting to take over Alberta again. Please, let’s not mince words here, they are nasty, they feed on personal attacks, they thinly veil their misogyny and astonishment that there are so many women running this province. Let’s not make their jobs easier. I, for one, will not hand my enemies a gift. I will not give them the ability to dismiss my work as that of a dreamer, not a doer. Our government will stand up for the working people of this province and their energy sector jobs and our provincial energy sector royalties so that we can fund public services. I take this position BECAUSE I am a New Democrat, not in spite of it. 

Let’s figure out a way to work together. Thank you.