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LARRY ZOLF:
The Last Rae of SunshineCBC News Viewpoint | April 23, 2002 | More from Larry Zolf
Bob Rae, the badly defeated and only Ontario NDP premier, may still be the NDP's last Rae of Sunshine. Rae has risen from the political graveyard to smite NDP MP Svend Robinson hither and yon. Since Rae's intervention, party leader Alexa McDonough has removed Robinson from the Middle East file.
Bobby Rae's foray into Middle East politics comes naturally to the last Rae of Sunshine. In one way or another, Bobby Rae has for many, many years lived the Jewish experience, imbibed it and married into it.Rae's grandfather, a Jewish gambler and wastrel, abandoned his Scottish wife Nell and their five children. Granny Nell formed the five Raes of Sunshine and they hit the boards of any vaudeville theatre that would have them.
Jackie Rae, an early CBC variety star, was a Rae of Sunshine. So was Saul Rae, Bobby Rae's father, later a legendary Canadian diplomat and an International Joint Commissioner in South East Asia.
The Rae children were not raised Jewish. Granny Nell raised them as good Christians. Prominent Jews who attended the University of Toronto with Saul Rae said he showed no signs of his Jewishness and was seemingly ashamed of it.
Nor did Saul Rae talk about his Jewish origins to his own children: Bob, John the Chrétien advisor and Power Corp. powerhouse, David, and the beauteous Jennifer, an early and steady date of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Rae family folklore has it that Saul finally revealed his Jewish secret to his family when plans for a Jennifer-Pierre engagement seemed imminent.
Rae family folklore has it that the children took the Jewish news in stride, all except Bob. From that revelation on, Bob Rae was fixated on Jewishness, dating only Jewish girls and often frequenting Jewish restaurants and delicatessens, sometimes in the company of Inside Zolf.
Bob Rae married a nice Jewish girl, Arlene Perly. Bobby Rae agreed to raise his children as Jews. This marriage, plus his ardent support of Israel, led The Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson to conclude that Bob Rae was "the first Jewish premier of Ontario."
By 2002, Bobby Rae the Christian had become more Jewish than the Jews. Rae's reading in Judaica was very extensive; so was Rae's feel for the Jews, his Jewish street smarts, so to speak.
The recent dramatic military incursions into the West Bank did not deter Rae from defending Israel and forcefully attacking the one-sided Svend Robinson approach of jumping in and confronting Israel only. In a column in the National Post, Rae dismissed Robinson as "a histrionic crank" whose views are "not a vision of social democracy worthy of support." Rae said he was "parting company" with the NDP over its "handling of the Middle East file."
Then the NDP Left got into the act. They sensed a weakness in Bob Rae. Many members of the NDP blamed him personally for the NDP debacle that brought the Harris beast into power in Ontario. Still other left NDP members saw Rae as being co-opted by his Bay Street law practice into becoming an enemy of the working class.
Speaking on behalf of the Socialist Caucus of the NDP, Marcel Hatch, who lost the leadership race to Alexa to the tune of 648 votes to 120, told the National Post that he and his 120 socialist stalwarts are "diametrically opposed to everything that Bob Rae stands for. Good riddance. I consider the exit of Bob Rae to be a victory for working people in this party."
On television, Mr. Hatch looks so fierce he makes Svend Robinson look like a benign Vienna choir boy in contrast. Mr. Hatch seemed to be unaware of the slew of labour legislation that the Rae government had passed and Harris rescinded. Mr. Hatch was quick to add that he was fully behind "Svend Robinson's support for the Palestinian struggle."
The New Politics Initiative, the NPI, which supported Alexa against Hatch on tactical and strategic grounds, agreed with Hatch that losing Rae was a good thing. Said an NPI leader: "We also say good riddance to Rae."
But the last Rae of Sunshine got the last laugh. The rallying of the NDP establishment around Rae was swift and decisive. Particular thunderbolts came Alexa's way from Manitoba's NDP Premier Gary Doer and the NDP seats in North Winnipeg.
Premier Doer, Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre) and Patrick Martin (Winnipeg Centre) all called for Svend Robinson's head. Patrick Martin called Alexa's handling of the Svend affair not "as aggressive" as it should have been. Les Campbell, chief of staff for former leader Audrey McLaughlin, said "extremists are running the show."
Alexa's official NDP version of a plague on both Middle East houses, plus the demotion of Svend Robinson, may just get the NDP out of the Middle East morass it willy-nilly fell into. But one positive thing the Svend affair has done for the NDP is to hopefully put an end for a long time to come to the party's demotion of Bob Rae by the ultra leftists of the party.
The leftist view that Rae is not really a social democrat and accomplished nothing for ordinary people and ordinary workers is not shared by the labour movement, NDP moderates and the party establishment.
For these socialists, the last Rae of Sunshine still burns brightly - in the heart of Canada's political darkness.