A healthy common life needs the contribution of religious believers, not just those from one side of the partisan divide, lest the gospel be subordinated to…
Blaikie, who retired from the House of Commons in 2008, was first elected in 1979, the same election that marked the retirement of Tommy Douglas as an MP. Like Douglas, Blaikie was an ordained Protestant minister.The NP Comment newsletter from columnist Colby Cosh and NP Comment editors tackles the important topics with boldness, verve and wit. Get NP Platformed delivered to your inbox weekdays by 4 p.m. ET.
It is impossible to understand Douglas’ drive for medicare or his opposition to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s War Measures Act apart from his deep Christian faith. But now, the left is thought of — and worse, thinks of itself — in largely secular terms. It has even become hostile to the role of faith in our common life.
Recall that in 2003, Layton — the Montrealer who became a Toronto city councillor — was not expected to win the leadership of the federal New Democratic Party. The favourite, at last initially, was Blaikie, the highly respected MP from Winnipeg. “I went because I’m a journalist, of course,” Valpy wrote in 2011. “But primarily I went because I am attached to my country’s history and a westerner steeped in the West’s historical tradition of social gospel — the tradition of Baptist pastor Tommy Douglas and Edward Scott, the former Anglican primate of Canada.
Something had changed, though. Blaikie became distant from the NDP’s centre of gravity. He served as deputy speaker, a nonpartisan role, and then retired in 2008. He evidently was not finished with politics, as he returned in 2011 as a member of the Manitoba legislature. But not as part of the federal NDP.
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