NDP is often jokingly translated as the No Dissent Party or as meaning No Discernible Prospects.  While the latter is just a mean attack on their flagging fortunes it may be more related to the former than first glance reveals.  No Dissent necessarily means no new ideas and why would anyone vote for a party without ideas?  It is equally a wonder why the party would cling to the same old same old when it faces loss after loss.  No Dissent Party is not just a mean joke at the NDP’s expense but a legitimate description.  Of all the Canadian political parties the NDP is arguably the most dogmatic.  The Liberals and Conservatives stand for little beyond trying to get their man (usually) into the Prime Minister’s residence.  The Bloc has similar dogmatic problems to the NDP but these are sometimes softened by the coalition it needs must bring together around its special policy of getting Quebec the hell out of Canada.  To make a comment, ask a question, or worse actually make an argument at an NDP meeting that is not in lock step with the sanctioned view of the party establishment is to invite an atmosphere comparable to a commissar failing to clap long enough for Stalin or suggesting health care is a good thing at a Republican Party convention.  (I wanted to provide a metaphor from the Left and the Right lest any of my readers fall into the trap the only the Left becomes dogmatic.  It can happen to any political group).

To give you an example:  I attended the 1997 Ontario NDP Leadership convention in Hamilton Ontario as a Riding delegate.  The second evening I spent enjoying the benefits of free Scotch from a number of hospitality suites and conversing with fellow members of the party from across the province.  In one of these conversations the topic of open shops came up.  Only in Canada, Britain and the United States is the automatic check off system exclusively used.  This is called a closed shop because workers have no choice but to join the union if they wish to work at that ‘shop’.  In Europe an open shop system is used where workers choose not only whether or not to join the union but which union they want to join.  Their membership and the benefits of it continue even it they are unemployed.  I have always believed that the closed shop, automatic check off system was a mixed blessing.  Canada adopted it during the second world war in a deal between the union organizations of the time and the government.  While it benefits workers by making if very difficult to break a union or to set worker against worker, it also has a tendency to make unions complacent toward their membership and narrow in their outlook.  European unions are broader organizations and far more politically active and effective than North American unions who cannot see beyond the legalism of the contract.  Anyway such was what seemed a pleasant argument between two men well into their cups.

Little did I know that my conversation in its entirety would be reported to union and party delegates who would duly descend upon their minions within my own Riding group at the convention to set me straight.  Slightly hungover and badly needing more coffee I stumbled onto the convention floor the next morning oblivious to the ambush that awaited me.  Suddenly surrounded I was accused of being a dupe of corporations and anti-union.  I was told I did not know what socialism was (it apparently having been conclusively defined by the NDP without my awareness) and that I was damaging the party by having discussions like that of the night before even in  such a private setting as a hospitality suite of an NDP convention.  I suppose there might have been Liberal or Conservative spies present who might have used my words to undermine the prospects for the party to take power.  Considering the party has No Discernible Prospects I thought this fear a little far fetched.  The whole affair seemed to me to be over dramatic.  Again this was just a casual academic conversation over the pros and cons of two sides of an issues to pass the time fueled by liberal (oops. Oh my God! they were right see how it sneaks in) amounts of alcohol.  The idea of a plan to raise a resolution concerning the matter on the floor of the convention didn’t even exist.  We were killing time so we could continue to drink, nothing more.

My relationships within the Riding Association were permanently affected by this incident and  a couple of more like it.  Times when I just, erroneously, believed that I could question the status quo, explore new ground or freshen those things we had come to believe in for a long time by giving them a thorough examination at a meeting or in conversation with another member without being labeled a heretic and my motives and loyalties coming under suspicion.  The final break for me with the NDP came three years after the events described above when a rather innocent incident concerning a strike was twisted into an assault on me by someone who felt it appropriate to settle an unrelated personal grudge using the mechanisms of the party.

So today I avoid joining political organizations of all sorts.  It saddens me because I love the social interaction of people of like mind but I have yet to see one not fall victim to dogmatism, a set truth from which variance is discouraged.  The world is not a set place.  As I said above that which refuses to grow must die.  It is true for organizations as it is for human beings.