Ed Broadbent's Gift to Us

 Ed Broadbent’s Legacy to Us

I met Ed Broadbent once,  in 2003, at an all-candidates’ debate in my Ottawa  community. At Jack Layton’s urging, he had come out of retirement to run in Ottawa Centre. His performance was outstanding. Afterwards, I and other audience members went up to the front to congratulate him. Another party’s candidate, who had a TV presence, was younger and perhaps better looking than Ed, assumed that I and the others were coming to greet him, and looked crestfallen on realizing we weren’t. Meanwhile Ed looked surprised and pleased to have so many fans come up to shake his hand.

On January 28th, 2024, watching his state funeral, I was moved by the inspirational eulogies about his strivings to bring about a social democratic Canada, I was pleased to hear the co-authors of his recent memoir, Seeking Social Democracy, pay tribute to him.  

“Broadbent wanted to write something concerned with political ideas in the broadest sense” wrote one of his co-authors, Luke Savage, in the book’s introduction.  Seeking Social Democracy: Seven decades in the fight for equality (Toronto, ECW Press, 2023)  was a collaborative effort.  Each chapter begins with a short essay by Ed, followed by a Question and Answer discussion of each topic, including Frances Abele, an academic and Ed’s life partner; Luke Savage, a writer, and Jonathan Sas, a policy strategist.

Broadbent (1936-2024), an Oshawa auto-worker’s son, was the first in his family to go to university. As a graduate student in political science, he studied for a year at the London School of Economics. He then taught at York University.  Several influences led him to enter politics in 1968 as the New Democratic Candidate for Oshawa-Whitby: These included his upbringing in a trade union family; his part-time work as a student; his studies of liberal democracy, and his awareness of the authoritarian nature of the Soviet Union, as shown by its violent suppression of the Hungarian and Czech uprisings (in 1956 and 1968).  He was convinced that a social democratic society within a mixed economy had a “greater chance of holding the powerful accountable than either neo-liberal capitalism or Soviet state socialism had.

Seeking Social Democracy is a great legacy of a book, an articulation of Broadbent’s vision of a social democratic society. He wrote that such a society must go beyond the post-war welfare state and bring about a “fuller and richer democratic life for ordinary citizens... It must challenge the colossal power of the modern corporation...extending democratic principles into the area where most people spend the bulk of their time - the workplace.”

Workers should have a voice in companies’ decisions that affect them and society as a whole. Broadbent advocates extending the scope of union activity beyond representing workers in “a purely defensive way”; union members should be represented on corporate boards, where they can take a stand against company policies that have a negative effect on their employees and society. Pollution produced by a mine or factory, for instance, affects both the workers and their communities

Seeking Social Democracy, as a history of Canada under liberal democracy during Broadbent’s lifetime, shows the limitations of  liberalism and the necessity of a social democracy.   Housing is in crisis now, in 2024. Why? Broadbent dates the problem way back to the first five years of Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s administration, in which “moderately priced housing virtually disappeared from the private market.”  Investors and speculators profited by building expensive homes, while everyday Canadian home-buyers found it hard, even back then, to find something they could afford.

Broadbent reminds us that giving tax concessions to private companies, popular among Liberal and Conservative administrations, is misguided. The expectation that the companies will use these breaks to produce jobs or “be otherwise economically constructive” hasn’t produced the desired results, and inequality increases. 

Also pertinent to our present time are Broadbent’s thoughts on the changes in Conservative philosophy  since the 1970s. He says that while nineteenth century Conservatives supported capitalism, they also felt that the upper classes had a moral duty to care for those below them in the social hierarchy.  Those who have studied 19th century Britain may question this notion of Conservative goodwill. Yet there is a real contrast between the 19th century British Conservative Prime Minister, Disraeli, pointing out that “The palace is not safe if the cottage is not happy,” and  Margaret Thatcher, who said, "There is no such thing as society. "Old-time Tories believed that there was a social fabric, a shared sense of values arising from a shared past.  The father of British conservatism, Edmund Burke, wrote that society is a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born. 

In contrast, since the 1970s, conservatives have become neo-liberals, convinced that what’s good for capitalism is good for everybody. The North American Free Trade Agreement of 1989 reflected this changed attitude.  To Broadbent, neo-liberalism has undermined the cooperative institutions in society, taken away social entitlements; interfered with progressive taxation and limited the ability of elected governments to regulate corporate activity.  It has also taken away “the very notion of democratic citizenship itself” by redefining “citizens’ as “taxpayers” and ‘consumers.’” The late U.S. President Reagan’s administration declared  that tax breaks and benefits for corporations and the wealthy would trickle down to everyone else - but that didn’t happen.  Between 1998 and 2007, the richest 1% of Canadians increased their share of wages and salaries by 100%, while the average wage for full-time Canadian workers rose at less than the rate of inflation.

When Broadbent became federal leader of the NDP in 1975, he felt a “moral imperative” to lead his party to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons. He didn’t want to “just improve the rules made by others”, but  to “make the rules from a social democratic perspective.”  His colleague, Stanley Knowles, and some others in the party, were content to let the NDP be “the conscience of Parliament” and try to work the system  to improve on the social legislation introduced by Conservatives or  Liberals.  

 Ed and the NDP won 43 seats in Parliament, the most the party had ever won, federally, at that time. In 2011, with Jack Layton as leader, the party won 103 seats and became the Official Opposition to the right-wing Harper government.

Ed admired the attitude of NDP  B.C. Premier, Dave Barrett (1930 – 2018) who, at his first cabinet meeting, adapted a quotation from a popular  song: “Are we here for a good time, or a long time?”  His government passed an ambitious series of social democratic policies during his first term, in case there wasn’t a second.

Several times in his memoir, Broadbent mentions that he learned early on to put aside academic language and talk in an everyday vocabulary to ordinary people. Unfortunately, the first chapter of Seeking Social Democracy, has a lot of exposition on the philosophy of 19th century political economist, John Stuart Mill.

         My first introduction to J.S. Mill was The Subjection of Women, an 1869 feminist essay containing ideas he  developed jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, and I knew before reading Broadbent’s book that Mill was a believer in liberal democracy (though not social democracy.) Because Broadbent wrote his B.A. thesis on Mill, and proceeded through his memoir somewhat chronologically, there is some logic to telling readers early on how Mill shaped his thinking. Also, these pages will interest academic readers. Many potential NDP voters, however, have never heard of John Stuart Mill and are too busy trying to earn a living and make ends meet to make time to learn about him.  They may be turned off, which would be a pity.

On the plus side, the book has a conversational tone. Reading the co-authors’ questions and Ed’s answers, I thought of questions I'd like to ask.  In one section, he talks about world leaders whom he considered to have authoritarian personalities, including Fidel Castro, who got cross with Ed in a conversation over the need for free elections in Cuba.  Ed also says that Lenin was authoritarian.

I would ask if Ed believed that a country needs to go through a liberal-democracy stage of development before it’s  ready for social democracy.  Russia was governed by absolutist tsars for centuries, and her experience with legal rights and elected government was very brief, prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. By1924, Stalin had come to power.  Since then, except for Gorbachev’s period in office, the USSR, and now Russia, have had authoritarian regimes.

Similarly, as Ed points out, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas  ousted a dictator and tried to establish social democracy, but in recent years their administration has come to resemble a state-socialist authoritarian regime.  There are many examples of former colonies who aspired to social democracy but haven’t succeeded. Is it because they first needed the experience of being liberal democracies?

On the whole,Broadbent has provided us with a thorough discussion of democratic socialism over seventy years.  Anyone with current awareness would have to agree that the establishment of social rights (health care, unemployment insurance, national pensions etc.) “have allowed Canadians to feel free for the first time in their lives.”) and that these “remarkable achievements” are now at risk of “full blown collapse” in the political climate of 2024.

Political democracy is not enough. As Ed reminded us, “Social democracy alone offers the foundation upon which the lives of people everywhere can be made dignified, just and exciting.”