The Waffle

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This is about a Canadian political movement. For other uses, please see Waffle (disambiguation).

The Waffle (also known as the Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada) was a radical wing of Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP) and later an independent political party.

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[edit] Formation

The group formed in 1969, a product of campus radicalism, feminism, Canadian nationalism and left-wing nationalism in general. Its leaders were university professors Mel Watkins, James Laxer and Robert Laxer. It issued a Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada and with support in the NDP caucus and membership worked to try to push the party leftward. The Waffle supported the nationalization of Canadian industries to take them out of the hands of American interests. The group was endorsed by the New Democratic Youth.

[edit] Origins of the Waffle name

The name was meant ironically — one story, quoted in historian Desmond Morton's book The New Democrats, has the name having originated during the drafting of the group's manifesto when, at one point, Ed Broadbent said "that if they had to choose between waffling to the left and waffling to the right, they waffle to the left." The "Waffle Manifesto" was the published headline to Jean Howarth's piece in Canada's The Globe and Mail on September 6, 1969. Howarth heard about the waffle line from Hugh Windsor, who also worked at Globe and Mail, and was also a co-signer of the manifesto. When Laxer and other members of the group read the headline, they adopted it.[1]

[edit] 1971-1973 NDP internal battleground

The 1971 campaign for leader of the NDP pitted David Lewis against Laxer. Through the strong support of the labour unions Lewis succeeded in defeating Laxer. The next year Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis (David's son) accused the Waffle of being a party within a party and the party's Provincial Council passed a resolution ordering the Waffle to either disband or leave the NDP.

[edit] Independent party: end of the road

Some members of the Waffle remained New Democrats but Laxer, Watkins and the bulk of members quit the NDP in 1972 and continued the Waffle under the official name, the Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada (misc.) but still commonly referred to as the Waffle.

The group existed until the 1974 federal election when it unsuccessfully ran candidates for Parliament in the federal election. (Laxer won 673 votes in the Toronto riding of York West -- placing fourth in a field of seven with only 1.26% of the popular vote.) In the aftermath of its electoral failure, the group went into a deep crisis. A left wing group, based at York University, argued that during the election, the campaign for "Independence and socialism" and been reduced to the narrow nationalism of just a campaign for "independence." At an acrimonious meeting, this group won the most votes, but several key figures -- including Laxer -- walked out. The inheritors of what was left of the Waffle, reformed themselves as the Independent Socialists in 1975, renamed the International Socialists one year later. Other key participants grouped around Leo Panitch, formed an Ottawa based group called the "Ottawa Committee for Labour Action." Laxer, Watkins and several other former Waffle leaders eventually rejoined the NDP. (For a view of these events from two leading members of the I.S., see "Origins of the International Socialists", [1]).

[edit] Effect on NDP youth movement

The dispute over the Waffle led to the disbanding of the Ontario NDP's youth wing, which was not revived until 1988. The federal NDP also disbanded the New Brunswick NDP for a period in late 1971 after a local Waffle group gained control of it. Mel Watkins and even Elie Martel have argued that the NDP lost a generation of volunteers and members due to the way the Waffle were handled.

[edit] Legacy

The Waffle was one of a long line of left oppositions within Canadian social democracy. See also Ginger Group, the NDP Socialist Caucus and the New Politics Initiative. The Waffle also had its own leftist wing the Red Circle, which was composed of Marxists and Trotskyists.

There are differing claims about why the leadership of the NDP in Ontario and federally decided to move against the Waffle when it did. Some claim that the prime motivator was a fear that the faction was hurting the party's electoral prospects by miring the NDP in internal disputes and by also making it appear more radical than they wished. Others claim that the Waffle's decision to organize a radical faction within trade unions such as the United Auto Workers and United Steel Workers of America led the leadership of those unions to pressure the NDP leadership to move against the Waffle.

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ Smith, p.579