The Waffle (officially known as the Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada after 1972) was a wing of Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It later transformed into an independent political party, with little electoral success before it permanently disbanded in the mid-1970s. It was generally a New Left youth movement and espoused solidarity with the Quebec sovereignty movement.
Formation
The group formed in 1969. Its leaders were university professors Mel Watkins and James Laxer. It issued a Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada and, with support in the NDP caucus and membership, worked to push the party leftward. The Waffle supported the nationalization of Canadian industries to take them out of the hands of American interests. The group was endorsed by the New Democratic Youth. The Waffle manifesto stated, "A socialist society must be one in which there is democratic control of all institutions, which have a major effect on men's lives and where there is equal opportunity for creative non-exploitative self-development. It is now time to go beyond the welfare state." According to the manifesto, "The New Democratic Party must provide leadership in the struggle to extend working men's influence into every area of industrial decision-making.... By bringing men together primarily as buyers and sellers of each other, by enshrining profitability and material gain in place of humanity and spiritual growth, capitalism has always been inherently alienating. Today, sheer size combined with modern technology further exaggerates man's sense of insignificance and impotence. A socialist transformation of society will return to man his sense of humanity, to replace his sense of being a commodity. But a socialist democracy implies man's control of his immediate environment as well, and in any strategy for building socialism, community democracy is as vital as the struggle for electoral success."
Name origin
The name was meant ironically; one story, quoted in historian Desmond Morton's book The New Democrats, has the name originating during the drafting of the group's manifesto when, at one point, Ed Broadbent said "that if they had to choose between waffling to the left and waffling to the right, they waffle to the left." "The Waffle Manifesto" was the published headline of Jean Howarth's editorial piece in The Globe and Mail on September 6, 1969. Howarth heard about the waffle line from Hugh Winsor, who also worked at The Globe and Mail, and was also a co-signer of the manifesto. When Laxer and other members of the group read the headline, they adopted it. According to the film excerpt, the Waffle term appears to have originated with Jim Laxer when he stated, "in terms of the proposed manifesto, that if it doesn't talk about nationalization of key industries, it becomes a 'waffle document.'" The Waffle tried to get as many of their supporters onto the party's governing bodies, but were rebuked by the large bloc of rank-and-file union voters at the convention. Carol Gudmundson — of the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Waffle — ran unsuccessfully for the party presidency. Laxer won approximately 37 percent of the final ballot vote, and established that the Waffle had some strength in the party and were no longer a small fringe group. Despite the public infighting between Penner and Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis (son of national NDP leader David Lewis), Penner lost by only 55 votes. The Waffle considered this a success, because in the 1967 election, the NDP candidate lost by over 1,400 votes. Then at the NDP's Provincial Council on 24 June, Lewis obtained a resolution ordering the Waffle to disband or else leave the NDP. Laxer ran in the York West electoral district in Toronto, placing fourth in a field of seven with 673 votes and only 1.26 percent of the popular vote.
Legacy
The dispute over the Waffle led to the disbanding of the Ontario NDP's youth wing in 1972, which was not revived until 1988. The federal NDP also disbanded the New Brunswick NDP for a period in late 1971 after a local Waffle group gained control of it.
Many of its leaders eventually came back into the party and held important positions within it, which also shaped many of the NDP's policies in the 1980s through to the early 21st century.
Ideology
The Waffle supported democratic socialism and Canadian economic and military independence from the United States.
Economic policy
The Waffle supported public ownership of key industries to replace private American ownership.