The Waffle - Origins of The Waffle Name

Origins of The Waffle Name

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 Canada's 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.

Apparently, another possible origin for the name comes from a film-clip excerpt from a CBC documentary on the NDP, taken during a meeting of the group some months prior to the October 1969 NDP Winnipeg convention. 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 term "waffle" was picked up by subsequent speakers in the discussion. However, Broadbent still likely mentioned the term first, prior to the filmed sequence, and this section of the debate could just as easily be a response to that. The scholarly histories of the party — from writers such as McLeod, Morton, and Smith — indicate that it was Broadbent, not Laxer that came up with the name.