megram - Index

megram - 55GTA - Index

Just eight votes among the 45,000 cast.That was all
that separated John Edward Broadbent from his
nearest rival in the 1968 federal election.
At that point, the former York University professor
was a political neophyte, running against a popular minister
in John Diefenbaker’s Conservative cabinet. But
tight as the race was, the New Democratic Party candidate
defeated the then Minister of Labour Michael Starr
and the Liberal candidate (who was just 200 votes
behind) to became the Member of Parliament for
Oshawa-Whitby.
“It was the closest three-way race in Canada that
year,”he recalls with a smile.“After the recount,I won by
a grand total of 15 votes, so I always say I had a 100 per
cent increase.”
That win marked the beginning of an illustrious parliamentary
career, through which Ed Broadbent spent
23 years in the House of Commons, 15 of them as his
Ed Broadbent and Ellen Wood.
party’s leader. He held the Oshawa seat for 21 years. In
1975,he became leader of the NDP.By the mid-1980s,he
was the most popular politician in Canada.
Under his leadership, the NDP achieved a 41 per
cent approval rating in a 1987 opinion poll (compared
to 35 per cent for the Liberals and 23 per cent for the
Tories) and won 43 seats in the 1988 federal election —
still the party’s best result to date.But Ed called it “disappointing.”Partly
because of this result (his goal had been
for the NDP to become the official opposition) and partly
because of some dissent in the party, he stepped
down as leader, also giving up his Oshawa seat at the
end of 1989. (Some members of the NDP caucus had
expressed concern that their leader did not make oppo-
May 2008 • 13 • Fifty-Five Plus Magazine
sition to the North American Free Trade Agreement the
main issue in his election campaign and had disapproved
of his support for the Meech Lake Accord.)
Shortly after Ed left politics,the then Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney named him the first president of the
International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic
Development, a position he held until 1996.
“The mandate of that institution was international,”
Ed says. “Our priority was not to take a Canadian or
European women’s rights agenda to the women of
Pakistan, say, but to go to them and find out what their
concrete problems were and what they thought should
be done within their culture.”
“You don’t try to remake other people’s societies
and you don’t try to rebuild your own either,” he adds.
“You build on solid foundations, understand that societies
are complex entities and that different societies
have totally different political, cultural, religious and
social frameworks from your own. You have to
be very careful about intervening. Even good
purposes don’t justify terrible negative consequences.And
just as we would respect other cultures’
priorities in human rights abroad, families
from other cultures in Canada should comply
with the Canadian Charter of Rights, as other
Canadians do.We have a country built on immigrant
traditions and accommodation going both
ways. The common framework — the global
standard that all members of the United Nations
are obligated to live up to — is the International
Bill of Human Rights.”
During the 1990s, Ed’s global perspective
was evident through such work as being one of
four international judges on the United Nations
Tribunal on Violations of Women’s Human
Rights. His continuing commitment to human
rights at home was demonstrated through his
membership on the boards of such organizations
as the Canadian Civil Liberties’ Association. He
returned to the academic life as a visiting fellow at
Oxford University, was a guest lecturer at several universities
and contributed to a number of publications,
including editing the University of Toronto Press publication
Democratic Equality: What Went Wrong? in
2001.
Despite his busy schedule, the elder statesman, by
this time a Companion of the Order of Canada, listened
when the current NDP leader, Jack Layton, asked him to
return to the political arena.
“I’d love to chalk his coming back up to my own
powers of persuasion,” says Jack Layton,“but the root of
it really is his commitment to the movement we’re in. I
really think he surprised himself by ultimately saying