The Waffle
Encyclopedia
The Waffle was a radical wing of Canada
's New Democratic Party
(NDP) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It later transformed into an independent political party, with little electoral success before it permanently disbanded in the mid-1970s. It was generally a New Left
youth movement, that espoused Canadian nationalism, and solidarity with Quebec's sovereignty movement.
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.
's book The New Democrats, has the name originating 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 of Jean Howarth's editorial piece in Canada's The Globe and Mail
on September 6, 1969. Howarth heard about the waffle line from Hugh Winsor
, who also worked at The 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.
Apparently, another possible origin for the name comes from a film-clip excerpt from a CBC documentary on the NDP, taken during a meeting of the group some months prior to the October 1969 NDP Winnipeg convention. According to the film excerpt, the Waffle term appears to have originated with Jim Laxer when he stated, "in terms of the proposed manifesto, that if it doesn't talk about nationalization of key industries, it becomes a 'waffle document.'" The term "waffle" was picked up by subsequent speakers in the discussion. However, Broadbent still likely mentioned the term first, prior to the filmed sequence, and this section of the debate could just as easily be a response to that. The scholarly histories of the party — from writers such as McLeod, Morton, and Smith — indicate that it was Broadbent, not Laxer that came up with the name.
, Saskatchewan
Waffle — ran unsuccessfully for the party presidency. She was up against former Ontario NDP leader, Donald C. MacDonald
and lost to him during the April 23, 1971 vote. University of Toronto professor, Mel Watkins, lost his vice-president position, but managed to get elected to the party's federal council. The campaign for leader of the NDP pitted David Lewis
against James Laxer. Through the strong support of the labour unions Lewis succeeded in defeating Laxer on the fourth ballot on April 24,1971. Laxer did surprisingly well, by getting approximately 37 percent of the final ballot vote, and established that the Waffle had some strength in the party and were no longer a small fringe group.
. The Waffle's Ontario chairman, Steve Penner, managed to get nominated in the Dovercourt riding
as the Ontario NDP
's candidate. Despite the public infighting between him and Stephen Lewis, Penner managed to come within 55 votes of winning the seat. The Waffle considered this a success, because in the 1967 election, the previous NDP candidate lost by over 1400 votes.
The next year Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis
, David's son, accused the Waffle of being "an encumbrance around my neck". On June 24, 1972, at the party's Provincial Council held in Orillia
, Lewis was able to successfully shepherd a resolution ordering the Waffle to either disband or leave the NDP. Debate on the motion lasted for three hours, with labour leaders leading the charge to expel the Waffle. Finally, the council approved the motion to disband the Waffle with a 217 to 86 vote, thereby ending months of public feuding.
when it unsuccessfully ran candidates for Parliament
in the federal election. Laxer ran in the Toronto riding
of York West
— placing fourth in a field of seven with 673 votes and only 1.26 percent 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" had 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.
's youth wing in 1972, 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 was handled.
, which was composed of Marxists
and Trotskyists
, and these groups became the inheritors of what was left of the Waffle. They relaunched themselves as the Independent Socialists in 1975, and then one year later, renamed the organization the International Socialists
. Other key participants, grouped around Leo Panitch
, formed an Ottawa based group called the Ottawa Committee for Labour Action.
The Waffle was also the progenitor of the NDP Socialist Caucus and the New Politics Initiative (NPI)
. The NPI were seen as a major force in the federal NDP during the period after the 2000 federal election. Like the Waffle, they too wanted the party to move left, and were aiming to do this by closing down the NDP and forming a new party. The NPI's attempts at reforming the party were crushed, similar to the Waffle, at the 2001 Winnipeg convention. However, it seems that the party did learn a lesson from how it dealt with the Waffle, because there was not the kind of acrimony that occurred after the 1971 federal leadership convention. Unlike the Waffle, the NPI was not seen as a party within the party, and the establishment did not try to disband it. Many of the NPI supporters ended up in Jack Layton
's 2003 leadership campaign
, though they were outnumbered by the forces that opposed the NPI, like NDProgress
, which was a moderate reform group comparable to the Waffle's old foe: NDPNow. After he won the leadership, Layton was able to unite the many factions within party, and that facilitated the NPI choosing to dissolve itself in 2004, again without any of the same bitterness that infused the Waffle's dissolution.
The Waffle can be seen as the NDP's first reform movement, that ultimately did produce changes, such as: gender equality in its governance and the selection of federal candidates for the House of Commons. Although many of these changes occurred after the Waffle was ejected from the NDP, it can lay claim to proposing and attempting to get these policies entrenched in the party's internal policies. Many of its leaders eventually came back into the party and held important positions within it, which also shaped many of the NDP's policies in the 1980s through to the early 21st century.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...
(NDP) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It later transformed into an independent political party, with little electoral success before it permanently disbanded in the mid-1970s. It was generally a New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
youth movement, that espoused Canadian nationalism, and solidarity with Quebec's sovereignty movement.
Formation
The group formed in 1969, a product of campus radicalism, feminism, Canadian nationalismCanadian nationalism
Canadian nationalism is a term which has been applied to ideologies of several different types which highlight and promote specifically Canadian interests over those of other countries, notably the United States...
and left-wing nationalism
Left-wing nationalism
Left-wing nationalism describes a form of nationalism officially based upon equality, popular sovereignty, and national self-determination. It has its origins in the Jacobinism of the French Revolution. Left-wing nationalism typically espouses anti-imperialism...
in general. Its leaders were university professors Mel Watkins
Mel Watkins
Mel Watkins is a Canadian political economist and activist. He is professor emeritus of economics and political science at the University of Toronto...
, James Laxer
James Laxer
James Laxer is a Canadian political economist, professor and author.In 1969, Laxer, along with his father Robert Laxer and Mel Watkins, founded the Waffle, a radical left wing group influenced by the New Left, the anti-Vietnam War movement and Canadian economic nationalism, that tried to win...
and Robert Laxer
Robert Laxer
Robert M. Laxer was a Canadian psychologist, professor, author, and political activist.Laxer was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1915 and graduated from McGill University with a B.A. in 1936 and an M.A. in 1939. Laxer joined the Communist Party of Canada during the Great Depression...
. It issued a Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada
Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada
The Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada was a document drafted by a leftist faction of Canada's New Democratic Party, known as the Waffle, in 1969. When that group briefly left the NDP between 1972 and 1974, it became their party's main programmatic statement.The Manifesto for an...
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.
Origins of the Waffle name
The name was meant ironically; one story, quoted in historian Desmond MortonDesmond Morton (historian)
Desmond Dillon Paul Morton, OC, FRSC, CD is a Canadian historian who specializes in the history of the Canadian military, as well as the history of Canadian political and industrial relations....
's book The New Democrats, has the name originating during the drafting of the group's manifesto when, at one point, Ed Broadbent
Ed Broadbent
John Edward "Ed" Broadbent, is a Canadian social democratic politician and political scientist. He was leader of the federal New Democratic Party from 1975 to 1989. In the 2004 federal election, he returned to Parliament for one additional term as the Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre.-Life...
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 of Jean Howarth's editorial piece in Canada's The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
on September 6, 1969. Howarth heard about the waffle line from Hugh Winsor
Hugh Winsor
Hugh Fraser Winsor, is a Canadian journalist, noted for his work with The Globe and Mail and CBC Television's The Journal...
, who also worked at The 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.
Apparently, another possible origin for the name comes from a film-clip excerpt from a CBC documentary on the NDP, taken during a meeting of the group some months prior to the October 1969 NDP Winnipeg convention. According to the film excerpt, the Waffle term appears to have originated with Jim Laxer when he stated, "in terms of the proposed manifesto, that if it doesn't talk about nationalization of key industries, it becomes a 'waffle document.'" The term "waffle" was picked up by subsequent speakers in the discussion. However, Broadbent still likely mentioned the term first, prior to the filmed sequence, and this section of the debate could just as easily be a response to that. The scholarly histories of the party — from writers such as McLeod, Morton, and Smith — indicate that it was Broadbent, not Laxer that came up with the name.
1971 Ottawa leadership convention
The 1971 NDP leadership convention was a battleground between the party establishment and the Waffle. About 2000, out of the NDP's approximately 90,000 membership, were members of the Waffle in 1971. The Waffle tried to get as many of their supporters on to the party's governing bodies, but were rebuked by the large block of union voters at the convention. Carol Gudmundson — of the SaskatoonSaskatoon
Saskatoon is a city in central Saskatchewan, Canada, on the South Saskatchewan River. Residents of the city of Saskatoon are called Saskatonians. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Corman Park No. 344....
, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
Waffle — ran unsuccessfully for the party presidency. She was up against former Ontario NDP leader, Donald C. MacDonald
Donald C. MacDonald
Donald Cameron MacDonald, CM, O.Ont was a long time Canadian politician and political party leader and had been referred to as the "Best premier Ontario never had." He represented the provincial riding of York South in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1955 to 1982...
and lost to him during the April 23, 1971 vote. University of Toronto professor, Mel Watkins, lost his vice-president position, but managed to get elected to the party's federal council. The campaign for leader of the NDP pitted David Lewis
David Lewis (politician)
David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...
against James Laxer. Through the strong support of the labour unions Lewis succeeded in defeating Laxer on the fourth ballot on April 24,1971. Laxer did surprisingly well, by getting approximately 37 percent of the final ballot vote, and established that the Waffle had some strength in the party and were no longer a small fringe group.
The Waffle's demise in Ontario
Even during the leadership convention, the Waffle was being described in the press as a "party within a party." One of the last hurrah's for the Waffle came during the October 1971 Ontario provincial electionOntario general election, 1971
The Ontario general election of 1971 was held on October 21, 1971, to elect the 117 members of the 29th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
. The Waffle's Ontario chairman, Steve Penner, managed to get nominated in the Dovercourt riding
Dovercourt (electoral district)
Dovercourt was the name of a provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada. It existed from the 1926 election to the 1999 election. When it was established, it bordered Parkdale on its west-side, York South on its north-side, and Bracondale on its east-side.Lake Ontario was its southern border...
as the Ontario NDP
Ontario New Democratic Party
The Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...
's candidate. Despite the public infighting between him and Stephen Lewis, Penner managed to come within 55 votes of winning the seat. The Waffle considered this a success, because in the 1967 election, the previous NDP candidate lost by over 1400 votes.
The next year Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis
Stephen Lewis
Stephen Henry Lewis, is a Canadian politician, broadcaster and diplomat. He was the leader of the social democratic Ontario New Democratic Party for most of the 1970s. During many of the those years as leader, his father David Lewis was simultaneously the leader of the Federal New Democratic Party...
, David's son, accused the Waffle of being "an encumbrance around my neck". On June 24, 1972, at the party's Provincial Council held in Orillia
Orillia, Ontario
Orillia, pronounced ōrĭl'ēə, is a city located in Simcoe County in Southern Ontario, Canada, between Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe, 135 kilometres north of Toronto.Originally incorporated as a village in 1867, the history of...
, Lewis was able to successfully shepherd a resolution ordering the Waffle to either disband or leave the NDP. Debate on the motion lasted for three hours, with labour leaders leading the charge to expel the Waffle. Finally, the council approved the motion to disband the Waffle with a 217 to 86 vote, thereby ending months of public feuding.
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, but still commonly referred to as the Waffle. The group existed until the 1974 federal electionCanadian federal election, 1974
The Canadian federal election of 1974 was held on July 8, 1974 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 30th Parliament of Canada. The governing Liberal Party won its first majority government since 1968, and gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau his third term...
when it unsuccessfully ran candidates for Parliament
Parliament of Canada
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...
in the federal election. Laxer ran in the Toronto riding
Electoral district (Canada)
An electoral district in Canada, also known as a constituency or a riding, is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based...
of York West
York West
York West is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1867 to 1904 and since 1917.Its population was 110,384 in 2001...
— placing fourth in a field of seven with 673 votes and only 1.26 percent 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" had 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.
Effect on NDP youth movement
The dispute over the Waffle led to the disbanding of the Ontario NDPOntario New Democratic Party
The Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...
's youth wing in 1972, which was not revived until 1988. The federal NDP also disbanded the New Brunswick NDP
New Brunswick New Democratic Party
The New Brunswick New Democratic Party is a social-democratic provincial political party in New Brunswick, Canada linked with the federal New Democratic Party .-Origins and early history:...
for a period in late 1971 after a local Waffle group gained control of it. Mel Watkins and even Elie Martel
Elie Martel
Elie Walter Martel is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1967 to 1987, as a member of the New Democratic Party .-Personal life:...
have argued that the NDP lost a generation of volunteers and members due to the way the Waffle was handled.
Legacy
The Waffle also had its own leftist wing the Red CircleRevolutionary Marxist Group (Canada)
The Revolutionary Marxist Group was a Trotskyist political organization in Canada in the 1970s. Though not a registered political party it did field small numbers of candidates in several elections....
, which was composed of Marxists
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and Trotskyists
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
, and these groups became the inheritors of what was left of the Waffle. They relaunched themselves as the Independent Socialists in 1975, and then one year later, renamed the organization the International Socialists
International Socialists (Canada)
The International Socialists is a Canadian socialist organization. It is part of the International Socialist Tendency. The I.S. publishes an English-language monthly paper, Socialist Worker and holds an annual Marxism conference every spring in Toronto....
. Other key participants, grouped around Leo Panitch
Leo Panitch
Leo Panitch is a Distinguished Research Professor, renowned political economist, Marxist theorist and editor of the Socialist Register. He received a B.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1967 and a M.Sc. and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1968 and 1974,...
, formed an Ottawa based group called the Ottawa Committee for Labour Action.
The Waffle was also the progenitor of the NDP Socialist Caucus and the New Politics Initiative (NPI)
New Politics Initiative
New Politics InitiativeFounded:2001Dissolved:2004Political ideology:social democracy,democratic socialismThe New Politics Initiative was a faction of Canada's New Democratic Party...
. The NPI were seen as a major force in the federal NDP during the period after the 2000 federal election. Like the Waffle, they too wanted the party to move left, and were aiming to do this by closing down the NDP and forming a new party. The NPI's attempts at reforming the party were crushed, similar to the Waffle, at the 2001 Winnipeg convention. However, it seems that the party did learn a lesson from how it dealt with the Waffle, because there was not the kind of acrimony that occurred after the 1971 federal leadership convention. Unlike the Waffle, the NPI was not seen as a party within the party, and the establishment did not try to disband it. Many of the NPI supporters ended up in Jack Layton
Jack Layton
John Gilbert "Jack" Layton, PC was a Canadian social democratic politician and the Leader of the Official Opposition. He was the leader of the New Democratic Party from 2003 to 2011, and previously sat on Toronto City Council, serving at times during that period as acting mayor and deputy mayor of...
's 2003 leadership campaign
New Democratic Party leadership election, 2003
The New Democratic Party leadership election of 2003 was held to replace New Democratic Party of Canada leader Alexa McDonough, after her retirement...
, though they were outnumbered by the forces that opposed the NPI, like NDProgress
NDProgress
NDProgress was a pressure group or faction within the Canadian federal New Democratic Party. Founded in 2000, NDProgress pushed for structural reform of the party as a means of increasing its electoral success....
, which was a moderate reform group comparable to the Waffle's old foe: NDPNow. After he won the leadership, Layton was able to unite the many factions within party, and that facilitated the NPI choosing to dissolve itself in 2004, again without any of the same bitterness that infused the Waffle's dissolution.
The Waffle can be seen as the NDP's first reform movement, that ultimately did produce changes, such as: gender equality in its governance and the selection of federal candidates for the House of Commons. Although many of these changes occurred after the Waffle was ejected from the NDP, it can lay claim to proposing and attempting to get these policies entrenched in the party's internal policies. Many of its leaders eventually came back into the party and held important positions within it, which also shaped many of the NDP's policies in the 1980s through to the early 21st century.