Working for the Common Good by Madelyn Holmes

Author:Madelyn Holmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
Published: 2017-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

The three New Democratic politicians from the 1980s profiled here, Pauline Jewett, Margaret Mitchell and Lynn McDonald, served in Parliament during an era of neoconservatism marked by the leadership of Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, Ronald Reagan in the United States and Brian Mulroney in Canada. The overriding military competition between East and West, which led to the downfall of communism, was reflected in Canada’s political environment. Yet, at the same time, following the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, women enhanced their participation in public affairs. Domestically, patriation of the Constitution and the concomitant adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms altered the political climate in Canada.

Ed Broadbent was elected leader of the NDP in 1975, beating a close challenge from Rosemary Brown, a women’s candidate from British Columbia who came in second place. Brown was an immigrant to Canada from Jamaica, a social worker by profession, MLA for Vancouver, mother of three and wife to a psychiatrist who had grown up in the South of the United States. She stated forthrightly when declaring her candidacy for leader that she wanted to “build a truly socialist, truly human society — here in Canada.”1 Many of her ideas, as well as her commitment to feminism, the protection of the environment and the rights of all workers and people found resonance during the 1980s in the achievements of the three women New Democrats featured in this book. Broadbent still remembers Brown as “a remarkable woman” and admits that she sensitized him to the impact of women in the party.2

Ed Broadbent remained federal leader of the party until 1989. However, the issues that engaged the women politicians’ attention, as well as their manner of tackling these problems, differed markedly from Broadbent’s. Whereas economic policy and specifically working toward full employment defined his leadership, Margaret Mitchell and Lynn McDonald focused on a social policy agenda, and Pauline Jewett devoted primary attention to issues of peace and disarmament.

The three women politicians interacted with their federal leader in the parliamentary caucus but none of them enjoyed an especially close relationship with him. Both Pauline Jewett and Lynn McDonald were strongly opinionated. Lynn McDonald, in her intensive campaign against tobacco smoking found herself working more closely with MPs from other parties. She managed to convince Ed to forbid cigar smoking in caucus meetings, but this counteracted his natural inclination as an enthusiastic cigar smoker.

Pauline Jewett also clashed with Broadbent in advocating a foreign policy for Canada that would be independent from the United States. Both Broadbent and Jewett believed strongly in Canadian political sovereignty, but Broadbent emphasized economic nationalism whereas Jewett stressed a nationalist position on defence issues. In 1979, soon after taking her seat as a Member of Parliament, they sparred over membership in NATO. Jewett expressed strong support for NDP policy to withdraw Canada from NATO. Ed Broadbent, on the other hand, tried on several occasions to modify this official party position that had been adopted in 1969 in the midst of the Vietnam War.

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