Tommy Douglas says Farewell in 1971, David Lewis watches
The video starts as Tommy Douglas is saying his farewell as NDP leader to a national convention in 1971. It was not, to say the least, a “nice hair, though” moment for Douglas. What is interesting is his suggestion about the 9-minute mark that the party make a commitment to ending Canadian poverty, even if the Bank of Canada had to create special financial instruments (would they be bonds?) to get the job done. His model for this enterprise is how Canada funded World War II. An interesting, if somewhat open-ended project. The screen cap below is of David Lewis listening to this idea, possibly for the first time. Is that a look of exasperation on his face? He thought he’d finished purging the party of woolly-headed Waffle quixotics. Here was a new looney heresy breaking out in a farewell address. Irony anyone?
There are a lot of ironies here. Like the fact that Lewis family played a small part in Mulcair removal and is now being portrayed as “looney leapers” by worthies like Robin Sears. Anybody remember how relentlessly David and Stephen Lewis went after the Waffle forty-five years ago? Or how Waffle-purge survivors gave David Lewis the slogan that actually won the balance of power in 1972 and then provided the actual demands to make of the minority Liberals after that election? You can look it up.
*NAMB is the acronym of a new political consulting firm (Nobody Asked Me, But…) the boss and I are putting together.
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