Kelowna Accord - what was the NDP's role in defeating it 2005 if any
Hi everyone. I am really trying to learn more about the role the NDP played regarding the Kelowna Accord not coming to a vote in the House before the fall of the Martin government.
Everyone knows it is a favorite talking point of our political opposities to say the NDP went along with the Bloc and toppled the government before Martin could implement the accord. I have also been going through the threads and see that many posters assert this is not the case but can't provide links to specific info. I don't doubt the NDP's support of the Accord or Martin's deliberate role in preventing it to come to a vote before an election. But, I really would like to have something solid on which to argue this. Can anyone please help me with this?
If you don't want to post, I would be glad for any messages anyone might want to send. I hope I can get some help with this. I have been looking for a week and can't find anything.
Thanks very much. Cheers!
Layton and Paul Martin came to a deal in the spring of 2005 - actually done in a hotel room with Buzz Hargrove playing as mediator. Layton would introduce a budget which contained some NDP requirements (going by memory here) - included workers' protection during employer bankruptcy, national child care, I think Kelowna - and the NDP would keep the minority govt alive. Then, in November, in a confidence vote, the NDP joined the Cons in voting against. They said the Liberal govt had welched on something to do with medicare - I never really understood what. The government fell before Kelowna (and child care etc.) could be adopted, and the rest is history.
Ok folks, tell me where I got it wrong.
I really wrote that wrong. I am trying to find out what the NDP's role was regarding the whys and wherefores pertaining to the fact Martin didn't want to fast-trac the Accord. I have been told Jack (blessed be his memory) and the Bloc offered to assist this to happen but Martin turned it down for political reasons. I am looking for references regarding this so that I can argue about what really happened to the Accord with our political opposites.
I apologize if this sounds silly, but this matters to me and I'd like to have the knowledge to stand my ground and make the case.
Imagine if Kelowna had been implemented.
Boom Boom, I am always glad to read anything you post. But what I am asking is where are "the referencs"? I want to be able to read about what stand the New Dems took on the public record. I can't find anything. Can you point me in one direction or another?
Really, part of the problem is I don't know enough about the Accord either. I have a lot of learning to do.
Thanks.
I wish I could do better than Wikipedia :(
On November 1, John Gomery released his interim report, and the scandal returned to prominence. Liberal support again fell, with some polls registering an immediate ten percent drop. The Conservatives and Bloc thus resumed their push for an election before Martin's April date. The NDP stated that their support was contingent on the Liberals agreeing to move against the private provision of healthcare. The Liberals and NDP failed to come to an agreement, however, and the NDP joined the two other opposition parties in demanding an election.
Don't forget also that the Liberal government was reeling from the interim Gomery report on the sponsorship scandal. Layton had a tough decision - he could have used his leverage to push as many NDP demands through Parliament as possible, but every additional day he spent doing so would have make him look more and more like he was desperate to prop up a government that was facing an ethics scandal. The details of the negotiations are not well known but one must imagine that Martin had non-negotiable limits that Layton could not in good conscience support.
In any case, even if Martin and Layton had managed to pass Kelowna through Parliament, who's to say Harper wouldn't have just shredded it like he did with Kyoto?
I never understood that issue at the time. Does anyone know what specifically the NDP wanted the Liberals to do? And has that demand figured in the NDP platform since then?
Wow that's cynical. No point doing getting any laws passed ever, then, right?
No more cynical than you implying blame on the NDP for the fall of government then, unless you have some facts?
Ok folks, tell me where I got it wrong.
Tell me where you got it right? Then, I'll go. This is how we played the game in kindergarten.
I never said that, RP. Please don't deal with what I am "implying" until at least you've dealt with what I am saying.
The NDP had a deal with the Liberals (you remember that, right? Layton and Martin? the "NDP budget" of 2005?), and the NDP stopped voting with the Liberals because of some disagreement over health care. I was wondering whether anyone knew what that disagreement was.
Here were some elements of the NDP-Liberal deal of April 2005, as reported by the CBC at the time:
Promised tax cuts for small and medium-sized businesses will remain but cuts for large corporations will be deferred.
Wow that's cynical. No point doing getting any laws passed ever, then, right?
Harper inspires plenty of cynicism. Is it any more cynical than the line of reasoning that the defeat of Martin's government represented an NDP attack on everything-that-Martin-might-have-been-persuaded-by-the-NDP-to-do-that-Conservatives-would-never-do?
FWIW, Paul Martin remained an MP after losing the election, and put forward a private member's bill to implement the Kelowna accord. It passed in 2007 with NDP, Bloc and Liberal support. However, since it is unconstitutional for a private member's bill to commit to the expenditure of funds, it had no teeth.
I'm trying to deal with what you said Unionist, but I can't make an inference into a truth. I'm just trying to do the same as you. Where are the links to how that government fell? And how trustworthy are they?
You know I don't write well and am impulsive. I'm trying to figure out what the issue is here? There's been a lot of back and forth but nothing of substance. Where was the NDP lacking back then?
Like I said, you've implied the NDP somehow welched but have failed to back up that theory. Or you've taken the safe wishy washy road where you could say you weren't sure. But I'm left with the impression that you're blaming the NDP for no Kelowna and no child care. All from post #1.
Am I wrong?
It was over health care. I think the Liberals were pushing for privatization, or at least not abiding by the medicare principles, and Layton said no fucking way pal.
Ya, or propping the Cons up, something like that, far as I can remember? Why shouldn't we have privatized health care?
Are you serious??
Still a terrible thing that Kelowna was killed because of politics. Want some optics, correct or not? Look at this:
excerpt:
Jack Layton released an Aboriginal platform for the NDP, and many assume that the left leaning party's new role in opposition will help balance out a Conservative agenda, but the reality may be that the NDP, despite its great success on May 2, will actually have less power than it did in the previous minority government. And many believe that it was the NDP that threw the Kelowna Accord under the bus when a Paul Martin Liberal government was defeated in 2005, so there are questions of credibility to be concerned with.
Well, I have been looking into this in great detail and found many pieces of background info.
The discussions with the NDP prior to the Martin government falling were ongoing from that summer, 2005. It finally came down to Martin's refusal to agree that the government would penalize provinces that allowed the growth in private medicine. I had a whole bunch of references on this but left them at work. I'll post them tomorrow. I am also still trying to get a little more background on this. I am waiting for a call back from someone who was in Ottawa at the time.
I really hate how this issue gets dragged into what was actually happening at the time. It seems to me that if the NDP hadn't been so adamant regarding health care, and gone along with Martin, it would have done to bolster his false "left" bonafides, ultimately at the expense of the New Dems. I realize that political considerations shouldn't play into important things, but they do.
I'll post as I get more info, but that is kind of where things stand and this is the background. I do know that the NDP's concerns were tied into Martin's budget but I don't have everything I need to know of that yet.
Don't forget also that the Liberal government was reeling from the interim Gomery report on the sponsorship scandal. Layton had a tough decision - he could have used his leverage to push as many NDP demands through Parliament as possible, but every additional day he spent doing so would have make him look more and more like he was desperate to prop up a government that was facing an ethics scandal. The details of the negotiations are not well known but one must imagine that Martin had non-negotiable limits that Layton could not in good conscience support.
On top of that, the NDP did not have the numbers needed to keep the Liberal government from falling anyways, and would have been tarred as "supporting corruption" had they tried.
Hey, right now Paul Martin is arguing for an Aboriginal Prime Minister! And right now the NDP has a highly qualified leadership candidate who is Aboriginal, who knows First Nations / Innu / Métis / reserve / urban / landclaims / self-determination / health / resource issues frontwards and backwards!
< ... Back to your regular programming ...>
Paul Martin should have conceded on whatever health care demand Layton made. I have no recollection what it was but I do know our lives for the past many years would have been better.
Anyway, why not get it right this time and take writer's suggestion seriously. Let's see an Aboriginal PM at the helm. And I cannot think of a better candidate right here and right now than Romeo Saganash. If we really mean to change things up and acknowledge our commitment to righting historic wrongs, no time like the present.
Let us also take note that, for all we say about how they could have hung on to their coalition for a few more months, the new Conservative voters were the ones who ultimately threw policies like the Kelowna Accord under the bus. The primary reason we today look back sadly at what else Layton and Martin could have accomplished - is that voters were ready to run the Liberals out of office.
And if Liberals want to win any of those voters back, they will have to stop throwing this particular stone at the NDP, because all they're doing is telling their former voters that Canada would be such a better place today if they'd had to wait longer to cast their ballots.
fyi this on the Kelowna Accord:
Indian Affairs are Your Affairs...
http://charlenedesrochers.blogspot.com/2012/01/harper-first-nations-summ...
"...A summit between the Chiefs and Prime Minister Harper's bureaucrats on January 24, 2012 is not going to produce any initiatives that willl reduce the poverty of First Nations and neither will the Liberal Party's Kelowna Accord.
STOP referring to the Kelowna Accord like it's the Holy Grail! The Summit is a political ploy to soothe our Chiefs into submission and it is working. Referring to or calling on the implementation of the Kelowna Accord is proof that some of our people have internalized the Indian Act regime despite their outward calls for self-government on behalf of our people..."
If it was anything like other Liberal promises they might not even have gotten anything of it implemented by now, had they continued in office and been re-elected.
Well what I know pretty much for sure now is Martin got pushed by the New Dems, and decided to let the government fall, rather then do the righ thing. On the Free Press news thread pages I am banging heads with a Lib who demanded I apolgoize for saying he was "making things up", even after I deleted my post.
WHen I replied to him, he said, well Martin only had three days, you couldn't expect him to reply to Jack's demand (blessed be his memory) to sign the pledge to protect Medicate. Why not I asked back? After all, its a no brainer. I guess all it shows is the Libs spend all their time trying to blame everyone else, and trying to revise history to fit their narrative.
What a waste of time. I'll say it again, I'd poke both my eyes out with a sharp sticke before I'd ever vote Liberal. Those guys are good for nothing, period!