Prime Minister Stephen Harper's erroneous statement this week that the "leader of the NDP, in 1939, did not even want to support war against Hitler" has triggered a torrent of Twitter messages mocking the mistake — all identified with the hashtag "#HarperHistory" — and prompted New Democrat MP Dan Harris to gleefully recite several examples in the House of Commons on Friday.
The effort to ridicule Harper's misplaced dig at the NDP — founded in 1961 after the eclipse of forerunner CCF, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation — had Twitter users blaming the NDP for everything from the fall of Rome to the Boston Tea Party to the betrayal of Jesus Christ.
On Thursday, in a heated exchange about when Canadian troops would be leaving Afghanistan, Harper responded to pointed questions from NDP leader Thomas Mulcair by stating: "Unlike the NDP, we are not going to ideologically have a position regardless of circumstances," he said. "The leader of the NDP, in 1939, did not even want to support war against Hitler."
Harper was referring to pacifist CCF leader J.S. Woodsworth, well known for voicing lonely opposition in 1939 to Canada's participation in the Second World War.
After howls from the opposition benches about Harper's misstatement, he tried to laugh it off by blurring the distinction between the NDP and CCF.
"OK, CCF, same difference," Harper said. "Parties do change their names from time to time."
Harper's casual rewrite of history gave creative Twitter users all the inspiration they needed: "It is a fact that, at the time, the #ndp refused to support our troops during the War of 1812," read a typical example from the flood of tweets unleashed by the Harper-NDP flap.
"Yesterday, the Prime Minister accused the NDP of not doing enough to stop Hitler," Harris, a Toronto-area MP, noted in a member's statement on Friday. "I am sure the NDP's founding members would have found this pretty strange when they first gathered in 1961."
Harris then highlighted the rising tide of hilarity in the Twitterverse and how Harper's anachronism had become the model for "tens of thousands" of messages linking the NDP to various historical and fictional events.
"Comedian Dan Speering led things off last night by tweeting, 'Damn you NDP for not standing up to Genghis Khan.' Another wrote, 'It was really the NDP that helped organized the stampede that killed Mufasa in The Lion King,' " said Harris. "I hope the Conservatives take this humour in stride and do not respond with more of their humourless anger."
The Conservatives responded, however, with further references to Woodsworth.
Nova Scotia MP Scott Armstrong, echoing Harper's comments, said in his own member's statement: "The NDP leader stated this week it does not support this mission. This is not surprising from the left. In 1939, the leader of the CCF even said: 'I would ask whether we are to risk the lives of our Canadian sons to prevent the action of Hitler.' "
Shortly after, in response to further questions from the NDP about Canada's withdrawal plans in Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird again equated the CCF and NDP and repeated the Woodsworth statement from 1939.
"The NDP do not support sending troops abroad for anything," said Baird, referencing "the former leader of the NDP-CCF."
At the time of the debate prior to Canada's entry into the Second World War, Liberal prime minister Mackenzie King praised the CCF leader for his principled stance on Canada's military involvement in the conflict — despite the considerable political costs he knew Woodsworth would suffer.
"There are few men in this Parliament for whom I have greater respect than the leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation," King said at the time. "I admire him in my heart, because time and again he has had the courage to say what lays on his conscience, regardless of what the world might think of him. A man of that calibre is an ornament to any Parliament."
Woodsworth died in 1942.
The CCF and the newly formed Canadian Labour Congress combined forces to launch the NDP in 1961. Tommy Douglas, who had served as CCF premier of Saskatchewan since 1944, became the NDP's new leader.
Here's a list of some of the choicest tweets in response to the prime minister's Hitler crack:
- The leader of the NDP couldn't even be bothered to stop the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
- The NDP was the second shooter on the grassy knoll.
- The NDP traded Wayne Gretzky.
- It is well known that the #ndp supported the assassination of Julius Caesar.
- The NDP kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
- The NDP stole Christmas, not the Grinch.
- The NDP refused to come to the aid of men when Mordor invaded Gondor.
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