A new star rising over left field

Abstract

The NDP supporters in Ward 6 are a close-knit bunch whose members share many deeply-rooted convictions and yet they've shown a tendency to scatter when issues heat up. During the 1980 municipal election campaign, infighting between two NDP heavy factions - the Ward 6 Community Organization and ReforMetro - helped rookie [Gordon Chong] bounce reform candidate George Hislop out of the race and dislodge Dan Heap from the senior alderman's chair.

A new star rising over left field

Saturday, January 08, 1983

DAVID R. HAYES

BY DAVID R. HAYES "I SPEND my first day in City Council," reports freshman Ward 6 alderman Jack Layton into a hand-held tape recorder. "Things went well. It doesn't look too likely that I'll be getting home for a while . . ." The alderman is dictating a Christmas letter to his mother in Montreal.

He is immensely pleased that it will be typed up on his newly delivered, personalized stationery, so fresh the ink on the city's coat of arms is still wet. If it all sounds a little like a boy after his first day of school, chalk it up to enthusiasm.Layton is expected to be just the transfusion Council's left wing needs after being badly weakened following last November's municipal election. From his seat between ward-mate John Sewell and Ward 3's Richard Gilbert, Layton, some say, will prove to be both an implacable opponent of Council's conservative flank and the kind of skilled political analyst many feel the left needs.

Layton was an unknown to most of Toronto prior to the November 8 election. The big news was Sewell's battle with Gordon Chong, a well- connected Tory whose Chinese-Canadian background was seen as a trump card in this downtown ward that includes a 6,000-member Chinese community. Coverage of the contest in the Toronto dailies gave Layton, a political science professor on extended leave from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, little credit for his victory. "Mr. Layton swept into office on the coat- tails of John Sewell," reported one, and "Sewell . . . carried New Democratic Party running mate Jack Layton with him in a stunning upset . . .

In fact, Layton effectively campaigned at the helm of a well-organized team piloted by the NDP - his campaign manager was Dan Fast, chairman of the party's St. George riding association - and manned by a typically energetic crew of Ward 6 community activists. Coming out of left field and beating the odds even had historical precedents. Layton had previously managed Ward 3 reformist Michael Goldrick's 1972 campaign and worked for Ward 6 NDP candidate Allan Sparrow in 1976. In both cases, left-leaning underdogs ousted the favored incumbents. If destiny plays any part in municipal politics, Layton's success was already in the stars.

The NDP supporters in Ward 6 are a close-knit bunch whose members share many deeply-rooted convictions and yet they've shown a tendency to scatter when issues heat up. During the 1980 municipal election campaign, infighting between two NDP heavy factions - the Ward 6 Community Organization and ReforMetro - helped rookie Chong bounce reform candidate George Hislop out of the race and dislodge Dan Heap from the senior alderman's chair. The party had no intention of permitting a repeat performance in 1982. Fences were mended and the NDP rallied behind one candidate. Most agreed that Jack Layton, a familiar face in local NDP circles and among community groups and a prospect whose affiliations with municipal politics nearly matched his academic pedigree, was one very qualified candidate. He won the nomination by acclamation. "Jack knows the subject of city politics and its issues," confirms former reform alderman Michael Goldrick, a professor of political science who taught Layton at York University, "but he's unique because he has more of a well-defined, coherent perspective than most progressives. I predict he'll be the analyst on the left who interprets city issues in some philosophical context." A 32-year-old of medium height and build, Layton is sitting with his feet on the desk in his tiny office at City Hall. He sports a bushy mustache and glasses, and today is wearing a neat pair of jeans with a shirt, tie and preppy sleeveless sweater - in short, the uniform of a hip young political science professor. He has already explained that he cannot provide his guest with a coffee because, well, it's nine a.m. and there's only enough left for one mug. Coffee, which he says is his only addiction, presumably fuels his 60 hours-plus work week. "This is the level (of governments) where ordinary people can make a difference," Layton says, explaining this fascination with municipal affairs. "The redistribution of power starts at local politics." Layton wears his NDP stripes with conviction. He does not hesitate to agree with one supporter's description of him as a socialist. "Wherever doors are closed, I would open them up to public participation. And by participation, I don't mean a smoke-and-mirrors situation where everyone gets to stand up and say their bit but nobody listens. To have access to the decision-making power is more important than expressing opinions only." As usual, Layton's date book is filled with commitments even during the holiday season. There is nothing yet of substance to judge him on, although it would be no great challenge to predict how his votes will be cast on most issues. Much of his time now is spent familiarizing himself with the ward and supporting pet projects. (His office is a casual City Hall base for the Citizens' Independent Review of Police Activities and the People's Coalition for Housing).

A confirmed cyclist, Layton has finally acknowledged winter and is today driving to appointments in his late-model sub-compact. He is engaging and attentive throughout a briefing with the staff of one of the dozens of community centres in the ward. Next he's rushing back to City Hall for a press conference held by concerned peace groups to protest the police investigation into the bombing of Litton Systems Canada Ltd. The media is there in full force but Layton's presence to the left of the panelists proves to be ornamental as the principals involved are peppered with questions. Layton is attentive throughout. He looks every inch the model student.

Layton grew up in Hudson, a wealthy municipality outside Montreal. His grandfather was a cabinet minister in the Duplessis government and led a cabinet revolt over the conscription issue in the late 1930s. His father, an engineer, was active in the Quebec Liberal party and later, the Parti Quebecois. Layton credits his church-going father with bringing to his early development "a humanistic philosphy." Past president of his highschool student council, Layton once told some classmates that he "was going to be prime minister one day." He studied at McGill University and married his highschool sweetheart, Sally, before moving to Toronto to obtain a Masters degree in political science at York. (His doctoral thesis will focus on the federal Foreign Investment Review Agency as a tool of nationalism for social change). Not content to let his education remain theoretical, Layton became active in community politics, and even applied for a political internship in Ottawa but accepted a teaching position at Ryerson instead. He co-produced a radio series called Understanding Urban Problems for Ryerson's Open College on CJRT-FM that fellow alderman Richard Gilbert calls "first-class," suggesting that some of the older members of City Council might learn something from the series. In 1981, Layton was the host of Council Insight, a cable television program for Rogers Cablesystems Inc., that featured profiles and an analysis of municipal issues.

As a result of Council Insight, Richard Gilbert feels that Layton has a big advantage over many new aldermen because he already has a firm grasp of the issues and procedures of council. His impression of Layton has changed since the young alderman has been at City Hall.

During the election campaign, Gilbert says, "I thought he was very smart, maybe too smart for his own good, and somewhat devious. I've discovered that he's not super-smart, just ordinary-smart like the rest of us, and far from being devious, he's extremely straightforward." As for the many predictions that Layton will become the shrewd policy analyst of the left, Gilbert is cautious. "It's too early for me to tell. You have to be quickly analytical as a politician. Leisurely academic analysis doesn't always translate into sharp, tactical assessments on the political floor." Ward 6 represents a broad cross-section of interest, sentiments and political allegiances. Upper-middle-class professionals in renovated downtown homes live next to working-class property-owners. There is Chinatown and a large Portuguese community west of Spadina as well as other minority groups. There are also 6,000 non-resident voters who own businesses in the central core area. But the true power bloc in the ward is a group traditionally distinguished by a lack of cohesiveness and, frequently, indifference to municipal politics - a melting pot of 28,000 tenants, many of them facing massive rent increases.

Tenants, so goes conventional wisdom, are young and transitory. Since they do not pay property taxes directly, they could scarcely have much interest in the myriad issues concerning property ownership that dominate City Council affairs. But in recent years many people have come to see themselves as permanent tenants, and they know that a major tenet of the city's downtown philosophy since 1972 has been affordable housing. Although it is the provincial Ministry of Housing that administers rent controls, it is through local aldermen that grass roots tenant-rights movements most frequently find support. One local pundit went so far as to characterize the phenomenon as a kind of class politics between property- owners and landless tenants. "As a political scientist I have a certain notion of class," Layton says, indicating some skepticism with this analysis. "But the tenant population does constitute a group which is being placed in a particularly disadvantaged situation. During the election, they asserted themselves and expressed through their vote that they weren't going to sit back and take it." Layton's campaign strategy, although improvised at the beginning, proved to be flawless. The tenant issue was identified early and attention was directed to the large "swing" vote made up of hundreds of apartment- dwellers on the ward's east side. Notices of tenant rallies to fight rent increases were distributed with campaign literature. Large and enthusiastic turnouts confirmed the wisdom of this strategy and Layton soon found himself supported by left-leaning sympathizers of all stripes. "He could talk to all people and pull the ward together," says campaign manager Dan Fast. "He's a fount of leadership who loves to jump on stage and lead a rally. We could hardly have had a more credible candidate." By contrast, Chong's campaign was both ill-conceived and poorly managed. He was helpless to counter the effects of a list, distributed by the Ward 6 Community Organization, that showed a solidly anti-reform voting record on City and Metro Councils. ("I guess it was novel to go after an opponent with both fists and really sink fangs into flesh," observes Fast).

Two weeks before the election, the sale of 10,000 Cadillac Fairview Corp. apartment units stunned the city. In a desperate bit of electioneering, Chong unveiled a scheme that would see the city buy out Cadillac Fairview and offer the apartments for sale at $21,000 each. Layton spent that night at his Apple II computer preparing his own press release which was passed around at Chong's 11 a.m. press conference the following morning. In his release, Layton pointed out the possibilities of an investigation by FIRA and provided evidence that the $21,000 price tag was mathematically impossible. While the television lights were still on, Layton and Sewell held an impromptu conference of their own. Chong's proposal self-destructed.

Ironically, while much was made of Chong's choice of residence in suburban North York, Chong's own organizers failed to notice that Layton's own modest two-storey home lay outside the ward's boundary. "It was wonderful," recalls Layton's canvass co-ordinator John Goyeau gleefully. "Jack hadn't been very high-profile until that moment. The media coverage initiated by Chong illuminated Sewell and Layton together as a team, although that wasn't actually the case, and people realized they were saying the same things." In the end, Sewell, who had not wanted his broad base of support alienated by a direct association with the NDP, formally endorsed Layton.

Layton, whose strategists had warned him he needed between 7,200 and 8,000 votes to defeat Chong, watched as his tally climbed to 10,000. History had repeated itself. The left-leaning underdog had ousted the favored incumbent.

Layton enters City Council at a period when the left is particularly ragged. Classic motherhood issues for reformers have turned out to be double-edged swords. The dogged campaign against illegal bachelorettes, for example, will, as a corollary, effectively reduce the number of moderate-income housing units. ("We should try and bring them up to our standards of acceptability as well as initiating a program to create more low and moderate-income housing," Layton says, as though such sentiments haven't been the goal of moderate and reform aldermen all along.) Another conflict emerged at the first Neighborhood Committee meeting of the term when Layton spoke about an application to demolish an historic house at St. George and Bloor. "We don't want it demolished, but there is housing in the new development that's being held up." Specifics aside, the question facing the left is one of definition. As Layton admits, there will likely be some instances "where there is no hope otherwise, when we should simply raise issues in order to clarify them for the next election." Thus the left would be adopting the role of an official opposition, dramatizing the position of the right rather than compromising itself by patching together coalitions to win votes. It is in this context that Layton's rigorous academic background, the oft-expressed potential for him to emerge as analyst and policy advisor, is most often mentioned. Whether Layton can turn his background in political theory into practice is still in question. As he says, for a moment echoing the doubters: "Many academics can fudge their way past students, but not surrounded by colleagues in the political arena."