How We Almost Gave the Tories the Boot: The inside story behind the coalition [Paperback]

 

 

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Too often the workings of government in Canada are shrouded in mystery and speculation. Just as often the public are left wondering how ideas, policies and agreements are reached amongst our elected representatives in Ottawa and the provincial capitals. From this endless night of conjecture comes a startlingly clear view of the closed door negotiations of some recent events that monopolized the headlines from the end of 2008 until early 2009. Brian Topp's new book is an vivid account of the negotiations that lay behind the attempt to form a working coalition between the Federal Liberal Party and Federal NDP, who abetted by the Bloc Quebecois hoped to brush aside the minority government of the federal Conservatives the after the election in the fall of 2008.

The author Brian Topp was the NDP Federal Campaign Director during the 2008 vote and so he is well placed to provide this riveting first-person memoir of the high level negotiations he took part in. Topp played a lead role for the NDP in the promotion and negotiation of the coalition. He was also instrumental in formulating the idea of a coalition during a NDP election planning conference in October of 2008. Throughout the book Topp often excerpts word for word messages sent and received from his Blackberry and this only helps to add to the insider feeling this book has.

In fact the book is so loaded with email and text chat that it seems as if a new genre of political writing is evolving before the readers eyes. No doubt as messages were being sent no one foresaw them forming the basis of this book and their unguardedness only adds to the behind the scenes atmosphere of the book. Gone are the smoky backrooms of the corridors of power, seemingly replaced by an unlimited data plan and an omnivorous 24 hour news cycle.

Still the old world does rear its head at times as when Topp recounts how on December 1st, 2008 when the NDP was called by CTV reporter Robert Fife to comment on his scoop that the Liberals and NDP had agreed to create a four person economic panel to guide the new government on finance, budget and economic issues.

"It seemed like a pretty good idea to me," Topp writes. "The only thing surprising about it was that we learned about it on CTV, not during the many hours of meetings we had just had with our Liberal partners."

Instances like this will be ring all too true to any political professional.

The back and forth of the negotiations is fascinating reading for those interested in how an accord such as this would take form and the obstacles it faced. One of the more interesting things noted is the unwillingness of some Liberals to give any cabinet seats to the NDP since they saw this as a chance to finally get the cabinet position they had waited for. Though anecdotal this to me is a telling sign of a sense of Liberal entitlement that many of the electorate had grown tired of. Obviously though a dip in popularity did nothing to get the message to its intended Liberal recipients.

This was not the first time Brian Topp had worked on forming a political accord between rival parties. He draws on his work in Saskatchewan and Ontario and he also brings up the accord that was discussed between the NDP, the Tories and the Bloc in 2006. All in all it is hard to think of a timelier entertaining read.

Recent news stories are indicating that the Federal Conservative party is preparing to run in the next election against the idea of an anti-Conservative coalition - make this memoir exceedingly relevant. One of the recurring ideas in the book is Topp musing aloud about next time. It is apparent that at least from Brian Topp's perspective (and in all likelihood the leadership of the NDP) a coalition government is a reasonable option to consider following the next federal election in Canada. This is doubly interesting as the continued popularity of the Bloc Québécois continues to hinder realistic chances of any party forming a majority government in Canada.

While the "progressive" coalition of late 2008 may be dead, as long as the Canadian electorate continues to return minority parliament, the promotion and negotiation of a Canadian governing coalition will continue to be a very hot topic over the next several years. A newly minted coalition government in Great Britain may also help to soften up the talking points in the Canadian media landscape as well.

I also recommend the book because Brian Topp runs you through much of his decision making strategies he uses when constantly faced with incomplete information and lack of time. You see the kind of skill set, he possesses - the cool headedness mixed with aggression and a very broad set of common sense skills that are necessary for performing at his high level where he does.

I do need to quibble with one part of the book, however. When it comes to the Canadian media, Topp has a bizarre view. He opens the book with a real whopper in his preface when states that we live in an era of "monolithically conservative media in English Canada". Is he talking about the same media that include the Toronto (Red) Star and the politically correct monotony of the CBC? Just how is that "monolithic"? I found it really jarring, especially when it is clear that the practical-minded Topp is otherwise quite a realist. In fairness, this warped victim-like world view of the media seems de rigueur in NDP/Green/leftie circles.

The couple key themes that you learn when reading the book: First - the Federal NDP has not given up on the coalition idea - at all. Second: the Federal Liberals are really cagey and are one tough group to negotiate with. Third: former- NDP leader Ed Broadbent and former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien remain big players in their respective parties (they were brought in to negotiate the coalition).

Students of Canadian politics will be fascinated by the emerging left-right cleavage that the emergence of the coalition indicates. Always when Topp is talking about the difficulties in locking down negotiations with the Liberal Party of Canada, it is because of an existence of what he calls "Blue Liberals" as opposed to "Red Liberals". It was the "Blue" Liberals that Topp identifies as having the most problems in accepting a coalition. This suggests a cleavage within Canadian politics that runs right through the middle of the Liberal Party that is the cleavage between "Progressives" on the left and "Traditionalists" on the right

We recently saw the influence and staying power of these "Blue" Liberals recently when they voted in the House of Commons with the Conservative party to block a Liberal Party motion that they viewed as pro-abortion.

I strongly recommend this book. It is a very easy read and congratulations to Brian Topp for taking the time to compose this fascinating chronicle of Canadian Politics at its highest levels.

Despite a remarkably inacurate title, this book is a very interesting and fun read. The work is written from a refreshingly authentic insider's view, and offers unparalleled insight into how staffers, leaders, and caucus members from the both the Liberals and the NPD crafted and honed the 2008 coalition deal, and then sold it to their own internal naysayers. However, that is what this book truly offers: a rare inside look at how ideas within a party form, are debated, and grow to become the outward party strategy and message. What it does not offer is anything resembling the book's title (and presumed thesis): that the coalition ever came within a mile - let alone a hair - of removing the Tories from power. If anything, the evidence suggests that even taking into account inside information coming from the highest-placed party sources, the coalition never had a chance. At best, the book suggests that there was a window of a few hours in which the coalition had enough momentum to alter the Canadian political scene; at worst, it suggests that this goal was never actually possible. Nothing in this account suggests that anyone outside the leadership and staff of Liberal and NDP party caucuses ever supported the idea, just that the two parties eventually did. In other words, the book could have taken the opportunity to explain just how rare such high-level cooperation between two (even three) political parties is and how it was acheived, as well as highlighting the true impact that staff, party elders, and caucus members - all of whom are not regularly covered in 8-second nightly news spots - have in influencing the diretion of their parties. Moreover, it could have explained to readers just how rare this level of agreement is between the major political parties, or even within the various factions of each party. Instead, the book never really abandons the original - and fundamentally flawed - contention that the plan almost worked, perhaps something the author will only be able to do with more distance and perspective from the events it describes. It seems the author's only basis for the book's title claim is that all these insiders, all these factions and leaders, finally agreed after long, difficult, and ground-breaking negotiations, not that anyone else - most notbaly the voters - ever did. Perhaps the truest insight it offers, then, is that the Liberals and NDP never truly realized that agreeing amongst themselves could always only constitute the beginning, the first step of the plan, not evidence that it had been successfully acheived.

This is a pretty detailed chronicle of the events surrounding the formation of a Liberal-NDP coalition in late 2008. Fascinating not just for partisans, but for anyone who is interested in learning about the negotiations required to create a coalition government. Especially interesting for Canadians, but is good reading for anyone living in a country that regularly forms coalition governments (New Zealand, Australia, and now the UK).

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