Pierre Laliberte, senior economist with the CLC introduced the metaphor that was doggedly sustained throughout this session. Laliberte weighed in on the muzzle side. A political party on the left must keep a trainer's eye fixed on the market, feed it less meat and leave it off leash only when it is certain of its social skills. Lars Osberg, Professor of Economics at Dalhousie took a rather more Scandinavian view of the market. Markets are good for some things and bad for others.
Competition can be healthy and it can be insidious.
Competitors can be egged on by each other's successes or they can do their Sunday best to trip up anyone daring to break from the pack. Osberg's cheery optimism about the future of social democracy received a hearty applause mostly from the younger thinkers who treated his pragmatic analysis as empowering. The final word was Professor John Richards' who descended from the top of Burnaby Mountain in Vancouver to bring the forum lessons from the UK and from Blair's Third Way. From Richard's point of view, the New Labour party in England is an encouraging international example of the left reinvigroating itself. Richards is not big on unions.