Dead Centre
by Jamey Heath
(John Wiley and Sons Canada Ltd.)
REVIEW BY John Degen
Jamey Heath’s central argument in Dead Centre is compelling. The federal Liberals are down on the floor; let’s kick them now, really hard, while we have the chance. By losing their unsteady minority under Gomery’s cloud, and scratching at their only parliamentary allies for votes, the perennial last-minute, foul-weather friends to progressive politics in Canada have collapsed. And the majority of Canadians who want a meaningful national daycare program, social equality, a green economy, and hope for both the lowest wage earners and the abandoned middle class have an historic opportunity to grow something new from the rotting fertilizer that is the Liberal Party’s corpse. Works for me.
That said, Heath should have written a concise campaign strategy rather than a book. The call to arms in Dead Centre comes around page 136, and there’s a rhetorical jungle to get through on the way there. If only Canadians were brave enough to vote NDP; if only we could see how evil Martin really was. Meaningless, pedantic logical forays. If a truly new, democratic, progressive party is to rise on the Canadian landscape, the politicos controlling the NDP (and Heath has been one of these) need to drop their most blinding excuses for failure.
