DCHP-2

Waffle DCHP-2 (November 2016)

• n. & adj. — Politics, historical

  a socialist and nationalist wing of the New Democratic Party formed in 1969 and disbanded in 1974.

  Type: 3. Semantic Change — The self-styled Waffle caucus formed in 1969 and in that year issued a manifesto, dubbed the "Waffle Manifesto" (see the 1969 quotation) calling for the party to adopt stronger socialist policies and to promote Canadian independence from American ownership. Waffles supported women's rights, opposed the Vietnam War, and sympathized with the Quebec sovereignist movement (see the 2013 quotation). In 1974, the caucus was disbanded, except for the Saskatchewan Waffle (see Canadian Encylopedia reference). Ed Broadbent, leader of the federal NDP from 1975 to 1989, is credited with naming the movement, which has its origins in a joke; Broadbent is quoted as saying "that if they had to choose between waffling to the left and waffling to the right, they waffle to the left" (Morton 1986: 92).
  The term is most prevalent in Canada (see Chart 1).
  See also COD-2, s.v. "waffle"(2. Waffle), which is marked "Cdn hist".

  See also: New Democratic Party  sovereignist  

  • 1969  Co-signers of the statement-there are 94-included two contenders for the NDP leadership when it becomes open, Laurier LaPierre and Charles Taylor; but that it also bemuses NDP members is suggested by the title some of them have given it. The Waffle Manifesto. According to the Waffle Manifesto "the major issue of our times is not national unity but national survival, and the fundamental threat is external, not internal". 
  • 1974  In Regina, Saskatchewan Waffle President Donald Mitchell and the only Waffle MLA, John Richards, gave a press conference.... /Mr.Richards/ crossed the Legislature floor to sit as a Waffle member last November, a month after the Saskatchewan Waffle formally decided to break with the NDP.
  • 1977  Many members of the federal NDP, particularly the radical Waffle element, and members of the provincial parties were probed by the RCMP because the force feared infiltration by Communists. In Manitoba, the NDP government of former Premier Ed Schreyer was a source of RCMP concern until, a source said, the force discovered that Mr. Schreyer was all right. We never had any big problems out there. There were a few extreme radicals, but they were just punks. 
  • 1982  Mr. Dowson initiated the suit against the RCMP in December, 1977, after the security force issued a report on investigations of the New Democratic Party's Waffle group in the early 1970s. The report, sent to Ontario Attorney-General Roy McMurtry, said the NDP had been under investigation because Communists and Trotskyists - including members of the League for Socialist Action - were joining the Waffle group to infiltrate the party and gain an appearance of respectability. 
  • 2006  His reluctance to put the NDP through another bloodletting like the one that followed the expulsion of the left-wing Waffle in 1972 is reasonable. 
  • 2013  The tenets of the Waffle movement he represented in 1971 -- nationalization of petroleum industry assets, recognizing Quebec as a nation, and better representation for women in the party, for example -- eventually did come to pass.