Building the Orange Wave: The Story Behind the Historic Rise of Jack Layton and the Ndp

Brad Lavigne was not just the campaign manager of the New Democratic Party’s 2011 breakthrough campaign that took Jack Layton from last place to Official Opposition. He was also a key architect of Layton’s overnight success that was ten years in the making. In Building the Orange Wave, Lavigne recounts the dramatic story of how Layton and his inner circle developed and executed a plan that turned a struggling political party into a major contender for government, defying the odds and the critics every step of the way. The ultimate insider’s account of one of the greatest political accomplishments in modern Canadian history, Building the Orange Wave takes readers behind the scenes, letting them eavesdrop on strategy sessions, crisis-management meetings, private chats with political opponents, and internal battles, revealing new details of some of the most important political events of the last decade.

The 2011 New Democratic Party of Canada’s campaign director and Principal Secretary and Director of Strategic Communications for the Hon. Jack Layton, Brad Lavigne also served as National Director of Communications for the NDP. A regular media commentator and a panelist on CBC News Network’s Power and Politics with Evan Solomon, he lives in Ottawa.