It’s the interims’ turn

July 28th, 2011 - 468017 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.filibustercartoons.com%2Findex.php%2F2011%2F07%2F28%2Fits-the-interims-turn%2FIt%27s+the+interims%27+turn2011-07-29+02%3A36%3A57J.J.http%3A%2F%2Fwww.filibustercartoons.com%2F%3Fp%3D4680

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Though it was somewhat overshadowed by the carnage in Norway and the US’ ongoing debt ceiling woes, Canada had a huge story of its own this week.

At an unexpected and hastily-arranged press conference, a very gaunt and raspy-voiced Jack Layton announced that he has contracted a new form of cancer. The NDP leader’s health has been publicly failing for quite some time, and his once energetic and athletic image has slowly given way to that of a thin, tired-looking man hobbling with an omnipresent cane. In 2009 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he continues fighting to this day. Then, earlier this year, he had a nasty fall and fractured his hip, requiring substantial surgery. Though the NDP maintained that neither treatment would impair their leader’s ability to campaign vigorously in the May, 2011 federal election, it now appears that the campaign — one of the most rollicking and tumultuous in decades, especially for the NDP — may have taken a toll.

Though Layton refused to state the new form of cancer he has contracted, he did say that his treatment process will be significant enough to impair his ability to fully discharge the duties of Leader of the Opposition, a position he’s only held for little under three months. He would therefore be stepping down as head of Canada’s second-largest political party. Quebec MP Nycole Turmel would assume the job as his hand-picked succesor.

And so it was done. Today the NDP caucus and leadership council formally assented to Layton’s wishes, and Turmel is now in charge.

Granted, there are some caveats. Layton explicitly described his resignation as “temporary” and stated a desire to re-apply for the position of leader as soon as he finishes treatment. Though Layton himself optimistically speculated that this could happen as early as September, NDP president Brian Topp downplayed the enthusiasm somewhat, saying the party would be willing to give Jack “a little bit more time, if he needs it.”

The decision to install Ms. Turmel as acting leader does reflect a sort of short-term thinking, however. A first-term MP and former union boss who is completely unknown and fairly uncharismatic, Turmel was chosen over any number of more qualified and high-profile alternatives, largely, the pundits have presumed, because she’s neutral and bland enough to appease the party rank-and-file while also staving off any possible internal warfare. Had someone more dynamic, like deputy NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, been picked instead, there doubtless would have been all sorts of squabbling over the “new direction” this would herald, and so on. Turmel, in contrast, like so many acting party leaders in Canadian history before her, is precisely the sort of uninteresting person who gives off no aura whatsoever beyond “status quo all the way.”

Still, the fact that Layton has not disclosed his latest form of cancer has raised a great deal of eyebrows. Since Layton affected no stagey modesty when disclosing his prostate cancer last year, this latest bout of secrecy bears all the hallmarks of daddy not wanting to see the children cry, and has fuelled much gossip that this new cancer must therefore be something really bad.

So who knows what to think. In the meantime, however, Canada’s political system has clearly undergone yet another major quake, since, temporary absence or not, Layton’s departure makes for a seriously dramatic shake-up in an already jittery parliament.

Layton, after all, was Mr. NDP. Once a failing fourth-place party, the astonishing rebirth of the NDP into Canadians’ (and especially Quebeckers’) prefered vehicle of left-wing interests was a victory achieved almost entirely on the back of Layton himself, whose undeniable charms and articulate, optimistic vision was really unlike anything we’ve seen from an NDP leader in a long time. (Layton’s two immediate predecessors, who ran the party from 1989 to 2003, were both fussy, uptight, and exceedingly humourless women who fulfilled just about every stereotype one can have about a dour, left-wing feminist. In that respect, they were actually quite a bit like Mrs. Turmel). During the last election, the NDP primarily pitched itself as the Layton Party first, and the NDP — and everything else for that matter — a distant second. It’s thus more than a little difficult to understand how much of the “orange wave” that catapulted the NDP into second place could be duplicated under the leadership of a different candidate gunning for the prime minister’s office.

And speaking of the prime minister’s office, here’s a fun fact: the man currently sitting in it is now the only party leader in Canada without an “acting” prefix before his title. The 2011 federal election was very bad for the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois, we may recall, and both their leaders were ditched in the immediate aftermath. Michael Ignatieff was replaced in May by former NDP guy Bob Rae, while Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois slunk off very quielty in early June and was replaced by Louis Plamondon, a former Progressive-Conservative MP-turned-separatist, who is now — rather ironically — the longest-serving member of the Parliament of Canada. (To say Mr. Plamondon is unknown would be putting things politely. I actually got the National Post to publish a correction in today’s edition after Tuesday’s paper wrongly identified someone else as acting leader).

Like the NDP, the Liberals and the Bloc had a lot riding on their old leaders, and their respective departures have caused equal bouts of soul-searching uncertainty. All three events likewise highlight the fairly unhealthy degree of hierarchical dependency Canadian political parties have come to demand from their all-powerful leaders (an office which lacks any other, more formal title, it should be noted) at the expense of any other source of guidance or direction. The idea that political parties should be run by their members and elected politicians is a very odd idea indeed in Canada, though if there was ever a good opportunity to examine the downsides of the country’s partisan leadership cults, it would be now.

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