Issues
The main issues in contention between the Labour Party and the NDP centered on how the party was to be run and in what direction. MacEwan maintained that freedom of speech was important in politics and that elected representatives should be free to represent their constituents as they best determined. The Halifax NDP, led by Alexa McDonough throughout this period, emphasized established party policy and expected MLAs to subscribe to this first before formulating their opinions on issues.
Much of the tussle was over geography, and whether Cape Breton, or downtown Halifax, should be in control of operations. The Halifax NDP claimed that the Labour Party was "separatist," but never identified how. There is no mention found advocating any constitutional change for Cape Breton Island in the advertising run by the Labour Party in the 1984 election. The party issued a multi-point election platform, but its contents were confined to such traditional Cape Breton issues as "proper" levels of government support for the coal and steel industries, a higher minimum wage, reform of workers compensation, and improvements to highways.
The dispute was accentuated by bad personal relations between MacEwan and the new NDP provincial leader, Alexa McDonough, each viewing the other as unworthy. MacEwan considered that McDonough had encouraged his expulsion from the NDP for political advantage, and had gained the NDP leadership by intrigue. Each was inclined to criticize the other publicly, McDonough depicting MacEwan as an unrepentant enemy of all the NDP stood for, while MacEwan described McDonough and her father, industrialist Lloyd Shaw, as seeking to use their wealth to try to prevent democracy in Nova Scotia politics.
Read more about this topic: Cape Breton Labour Party
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