NDP Leadership #91

What time is the French debate tomorrow and who will be carrying it live?

Merci mark_alfred

Le NPD court deux lièvres à la fois, soit conserver ses sièges au Québec, ce que seul M. Mulcair peut espérer, et en arracher 70 autres dans le reste du pays.

Question: s'il en perd une trentaine au Québec, si la tendance se maintient, quel autre chef pourra alors lui en garantir une centaine ailleurs?

http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.com/2012/02/leadership-2012-roun...

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120211/ndp-leadership-s...

Someone posted about how Mulcair's talk reflects a view of the party as it was decades ago.  This is especially relevant when there are candidates in this race using the old boilerplate, and using the old sloganeering and impractical targeted policy aimed at small subsections of the NDP base.  These candidates who are all staking out claims on territory that represents the "Hits of 1989" are all representing a massive step back for a party that made so much gains through Jack, by doing exactly what Mulcair is talking about.

He is the best candidate to continue to do what Jack was doing - only he's being transparent about it.  I like the fact that he says the same thing no matter where he goes and who he speaks to.  He never panders, he never tries to gain favour with particular groups.  His message is consistent, and talks about all of his policy points no matter where he is.  He is the real deal.

I think it is great to hear such a refreshing message.  

As for saying the party hasn't renewed itself is very true.  Jack did a lot to modernize the party, but he did it based on his own personal popularity and brought us along based on his own strengths and commitment.  The fact that there's a strong desire amongst the leadership contenders and a significant section of the membership who wants to go back to the old ways of before tells us that Jack simply didn't have enough time to sell the plan to the rank and file membership itself, before going out and campaigning on it.  

I strongly believe that Mulcair is running openly on a Jack Layton platform, continuing the work that he was doing, and following his vision to elect a social democratic government.

I too am looking for a candidate with strong progressive values and strong pragmatic means.  The only candidate for me that fits that bill is Thomas Mulcair :D

Telling people you are going to raise taxes on 1% of people even though it will have a negligible impact on the books in an ideological effort to win favour with people who want to punish the rich as a simple but ineffective way of addressing income inequality (which wont work) is in my opinion but one example of this.  Pragmatics is having the guts to say that you need to look at the books first, and have a comprehensive plan that addresses the problems in a way Canadians can understand, rather than knee-jerk reactions.

Paul Dewar irresponsibly telling people that he's going to advocate that Canada interfere with the domestic justice policies of the USA and its individual states in re advocating for the international eradication of the death penalty speaks to this attitude as well.  Talk about overstepping the boundaries of the job you're applying for!  In my opinion, though I am anti capital punishment, this completely oversteps the boundaries in an effort to win votes from specific interest groups.  Paul's contrived policy early in the campaign compromising democratic choice of grassroots members in an effort to force 50% of our candidates to be women, rather than encouraging more women to be involved, and then tying it to public financing (saying riding assns who dont select women won't get public funding).

These are just two candidates who have done this.  There are more, and I'm sure everyone knows who they are. 

I like that Mulcair has a comprehensive and consistent vision of where he wants to take the Party, how he wants to become Prime Minister, and he wants to act on the values and policies we've all worked on for decades and make them real in an NDP government.

I added more in the previous post.  

Main difference is just name recognition between the two? Really? A seasoned, experienced former cabinet minister from Quebec that is one of our best performers in the House, in debate, in the media... and the other a newbie to elected politics who has even given his early endorsers buyers remorse for the campaign he's run?

A lot more to keeping and attracting more votes in Quebec than just language ability of course. The same skills to attract and keep votes across the country apply to Quebec as well.

Excellent suggestion Howard

Bit of a misleading headline but.....

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/now-an-ndp-mp-former-nfld-c...

That's definitely a fair point and one that I think is true.  Most people are very comfortable with Mulcair's message because we want to take our dreams of a fairer Canada and make them real by forming government.  I too think a majority of the grassroots do want to hear this!

Topp's 3 point tax plan isn't "bold" in my view. Goes back to "tax the rich" which Topp and Layton dropped a few years back. Funny how things change when a bit of the wind changes direction there.

The big thrust of the Occupy movement wasn't about those who make $250,000+/year, but those corporations that employ them... and the massive imbalance we have today with the corporate world. Mulcair talks to that.

But Topp knows that "tax the rich" plays well with a large segment of the NDP base. I wonder why he didn't counsel Layton to keep it when Layton dropped it from the NDP platform?

That all said... I could put out a similar tax plan to Topp's. Doesn't make me suitable to be leader of the federal NDP. Boogles the mind that people so focus on the proposals (of which a lot won't be in the NDP platform in 4 years) instead of what type of candidate is selling those proposals.

Do you not agee that the the policy proposals that each leadership candidate chooses to emphasize tells us something about what direction they want to take the party in?

I agree that what Topp or Mulcair or Nash etc...put out as policy positions now may have little to do with the NDP official platform in 2015 - who knows what the economic and geopolitical context will be by then. But we are getting hints of what each person's leadership style and values are from the policies they choose to highlight in the leadership campaign.

Bashing on Québec is a good way to draw attention to yourself and I think that is what Cleary was trying to do as a columnist. He wanted to say, "hey looky here at little Newfoundland" and then make his point about the Lower Churchill. Should he apologise? Of course. 

The Globe And Mail article is ridiculous. Could Mulcair stand up for NFLD? Well, Mulcair has made a point at the debates of mentioning how he endorsed the Lower Churchill project during the last campaign, because it would create a large GREEN energy source for NFLD, at the same time as the Québec national assembly had voted to condemn it and the federal government loan guarantees. Mulcair supported it because he thought the green angle outweighed the argument about "unfair subsidies", and he did take a hit for this in the Québec press, but claims it was worth it. So this Globe and Mail article is pretty thin gruel and they were smart to dump it in the weekend edition.

Alot of Quebeckers and Atlantic Canadians would like to see the goverment deal with inequality, and I do remember looking a poll where a majority of Canadians want more taxes on the rich. So, this won't be a problem I believe.

Speaking about the whole one side issue on foreign policy, it seems that Topp is being supported by the Canadian Arab Federation

I saw that... but was that the actual question asked? Another semi-headline was "On the NDP future" or something like that. Do you think they asked him "On the NDP future?"

It's not a full and actual transcript.

They do. My point is people often ignore the abilities and talents of the one putting forward the proposals and make a decision on just the policy papers. "I love Singh's pharmacare program! I'm voting Singh!" Really? Ok...

That was actually said on here, KenS. So that train of thought is out there. You should read these threads a little more carefully... seems you keep missing things :)

Sometimes the NDP has sold out in government, like when the BC NDP cut welfare rates and the Ontario NDP took a pass on public auto insurance and equal rights for GLBTT people.

Pragmatism, maybe, we can look at who is pragmatic.

But 'guts'? Please explain how using the classic cop out of why nothing can be done is 'guts'. You can argue that it could possibly be necessary to take the dodge... but guts?

And as to Mulcair's pragmatism, how about this:

"Using the words 'cap and trade' is not going to hide Mulcair's EXPLICIT proposal of using cap and trade as an altrenative form of general revenue raising. The Liberals got skewered for it, and they at least were not stupid enough to make the dotted lines explicit, as Mulcair has now done."

and further from here:

Ken, you're trying way way too hard.  I can't counter you when I don't get your point.

I'm just going to have to fundamentally disagree with you on that one.

Ken S,

Cap and trade has been in the NDP platform since 2006, I believe. There have not been any new direct taxes on individuals since 2004, when the inheritance tax was proposed. If it was such a good idea, why did Layton never bring it up again?

Even though Mulcair says he will use cap and trade to raise general revenue, I think he will be able to defend his position. Mulcair is no Stephane Dion. Hopefully,  the +/- of his strategy will be discussed in tomorrow's debate.

Nothing I have seen from Mulcair has changed my opinion. I just don't like him as a politician or potential leader. He has and continues to strike me as an opportunist first and foremost. This is mostly a gut reaction, intuitive if you like, but his published policy positions leave me cold, especially on the foreign policy front.

Perhaps he will attract more "professional" voters to the party but he also risks alienating many <gasp> working class people as well as activists.

It doesn't seem too very opportunist at all to leave a good job as a Quebec cabinet minister and then run federally for a party that had only ever elected one MP in the province and then only temporarily. Either he's beat Jojo Savard for must successful psychic in Canadian history or that's not opportunism.

He is succesful winning elections as an MP. The demands on what we need from the Leader are in another league, and with many more dimensions and demands.

And how will Mulcair make us winners when he puts our heads on the chopping block?

Nobody could have sold the Liberal program with the political foolishness built into it. I said so when it came out- before Dion's ways had any effect. "The Liberals will be the ones to get the punishment. Opportunity for us."

They started sinking as soon as the predictable attack ads came out. Predictable, because the Liberals practically wrote the script for the Harper Cons. All before Dion opened his mouth.

And guess what attracted the Liberals to the "revenue neutrality" concept cribbed from the Greens. They had been with us on cap and trade and critical of the carbon tax. Dion affirmed that in and right after the leadership race [and no "communication problems" then].

But the attraction of the carbon tax with revenue neutrality- give the money back through the income taxes and credits system- was that the Libs could say it was not going to cost anyone.

There were two huge problems with that.

1.] Political expediency, not that this fazed the Liberals: carbon pricing revenues are needed for green initiatives to proactively foster energy use reduction, as has been the case with successes in Europe. Carbon pricing alone has negligible effect- whether carbon tax or cap and trade. But for political expediency the Libs wrote off all the carbon tax revenues to the revenue neutrality for individuals.

2.] It did no good. Expedient intent or not, they painted a target on themselves. Because it ended up looking like- and to a large degree was- taking new taxes for new social programs. TAX GRAB!

And Mulcair has set up a repeat.

He said in Halifax, and has now affirmed with a lot more words and illustrating examples, that cap and trade revenues is the way to go in getting new revenues instead of what Brian Topp has proposed.

In the first place, if you are going to use cap and trade monies to fund the new revenues to maintain existing social programs that we need, what is paying for the green spending initiatives that Mulcair has affirmed we will do and the NDP has always EXPLICITLY  promised will be what ALL the cap and trade revenues will be spent on.

But focusing on the political foolishness: this is a repeat of what the Liberals did in 2007. The Libs wanted to bypass the political risks of promoting carbon pricing, Mulcair wants to avoid the political risks in straight up saying you are going to tax anyone more, even the rich.

We know how well that worked for the Liberals. Now Mulcair suggests trading the risks of saying you will tax even the rich more, and his alternative sounds good on the surface. Topp says that he is confident Canadians are with us in taxing the wealthy. If you think that is risky, you think it is better that Mulcair promises things that don't add up and which are not just risky but guaranteed to get us skewered for surrendering the political benefits crafted into the NDP policy we have had for 5 years???

Fine. But the number of 'tribalists' in the NDP has been diminishing for a long time.

And it is offensive to repeatedly lump together the substantive arguments of everyone, using examples of what some 'tribalist' said.

For example, because a small group of people either say or make it clear that 'he's not one of us', they represent all of us who have a variety of strong reservations about Mulcair.... including whether he is the practical choice he is held out to be, as if unassailbale and without serious competition on that front.

Not to mention that he is by no means the only candidate who understands the damage that knee jerk sticking to old shibboleths can do. He's just the one who finds the 'reminders' convenient.

For what it's worth, I certainly dont find Topp's use of that 'tribalism' commendable or better [the 'we dont need to be Liberals' "reminders"]. But by the same token, the elevation attributed to Mulcair's 'reminders' is no more innocent. They are both politics at its crassist.

I still think that the biggest problem with Dion's "green shift" was that it was all about a carbon tax which was going to be a direct tax on individuals. Cap and trade is all about polluters paying for the damage they do to the environment as was done with the acid rain treaty. 

Sorry Ken S, I disagree:

Ignatieff had horrible communication skills. He was inauthentic. The CONS were so effective at attacking him b/c there was always a sense that he was trying to hide something, that he wasn't being himself.

I think I once heard Liberal "strategist/lobbyist" John Duffy speculate that Ignatieff should have taken the attack ads head-on. He ought to have said something along the lines of "Look, I've taught  Harvard, I'm an intellectual, I will engage Harper on his policies, and if you (the voters) don't like me, too bad, I'll take my ideas elsewhere". That would have been extremely arrogant, but it would have been true to his nature. Instead, he tried to pretend he was the "common man", which everyone knew he obviously wasn't. The Tory narrative of "Ignatieff as nothing more than an opportunisitc carpet bagger" began to have some resonance.

Apparently, authenticity is the key to making a successful political leader. Even Mulcair's cirtics admit that he has it. Even you, a Topp supporter, admitted that Topp lacks it. (see our discussion about Topp's "feel-good" videos) You say Topp will develop it w/ time. They said the same about Ignatieff.

Thomas Mulcair--positives and negatives:

Positive: He will change the style of language used in campaigning.  He won't refer to "ordinary" Canadians.

Both positive and negative: He won't have a place for "Che" socialist NDPers.  He will likely lead as a middle of the road leader with a few progressive points proposed in a platform.  How's that for alliteration?

Positive: He will be ready to take on Harper right away.  He won't need to find a seat in the House of Commons or improve his French.

Negative to Positive: He needs to establish himself as a pan-Canadian leader rather than as a parochial pro-Quebec leader.  The Conservatives will likely wage a cultural battle against "foreign" influenced radicals.  Foreigners could include Quebeckers such as Mr. Mulcair.

Positive: Mr. Mulcair does know that the NDP needs to reach out to Canadians who have not traditionally supported the NDP.

Negative:  Mr. Mulcair's campaign needs to reply to at least one of my emails that I sent under my real name.  If Mr. Mulcair's camapgin cannot communicate with me, then how can I support Thomas Mulcair as a first or second choice in the NDP leadership race?

I am not sure what Mulcair's point is about not referring to "ordinary Canadians" as I'd that was some sort of new epiphany. I associate the language around "ordinary Canadians" with the Broadbent years in the 80s, the NDP dropped that lingo some time ago.

This is one thing I find annoying about Mulcair is that he seems to keep inventing these straw dogs to knock over that don't exist. Like his "anecdote" about this "long time party member in nanaimo" who supposedly doesn't want to ever win an election sine we will ipso-facto have to betray our principles...does this person actually exist??? Can we put an all points bulletin in NDP circles in nanaimo to find this party member who is against winning elections and have her corroborate that she did indeed say that?

I really don't understand the strategy of trying to get elected leader of a party where the grassroots are the voters...and then insulting and bad-mouthing the grassroots in the national media by implying that they are all a bunch of eccentric ideologues who don't want to win.

Globe blog:

Edgy and brash is good.

My problem is that Mulcair will say anything that looks good. Too often it doesnt matter whether its true or adds up.

Reminds me of Elizabeth May and her appeal. Everybody sees the bluntness and takes that as an expression of honesty. What the public and media will overlook with a relatively background figure as far as the broad public is concerned like Elizabeth May, and like Tom Mulcair to date, is that along with the bluntness goes a casualness to what is said.

But the Leader of the NDP gets a lot more scrutiny. And we will not see how Mulcair's MO would fare with that until there is no turning back.

With Mulcair we are going to be bringing more and more visible minorities from the back pages to the front pages so that we will become more representative of the society in which we now live. This alone is a compelling enough reason to vote for this man. 

The NDP seems to excel at producing inane terms to refer to their "target demographics". Yes, I think that the term "ordinary Canadians" (which seemed to implicitly denigrate anyone who was not average), peaked during the Broadbent years. But I think it was replaced with "working Canadians" (which seemed to exclude the unemployed, retirees and children), and "working families" (which additionally excludes singles and divorced).

That said, I guess that the "working families" must be widely perceeived as a godsend, since I'm sure it has been adopted by other political parties, like the BC Liberals (I may be mistaken on that). 

writer, i was refering to nicky's post above where he commented on what Mulcair said in Toronto. 

We have to try harder to ensure that our visible minorities are much better representated in the corridors of power. I was very disappointed that Saganash had to drop out as I was quite excited about his presence in the leadership campaign. If we have to set aside some funds in order to assist our visible minorities in getting to the forefront of our decision-making process let's do it.  

Thanks, NorthReport, that's very helpful.

A note of caution in this discussion. "Tribalism" is an incredibly fraught / problematic term. So too is referring to groups of people as "our" anything. I'm still recovering from my operation, so don't have the capacity to expand on this too much (my brain is sleepy and drugged), but I believe there are resources in easy reach for those who might not know what the issues are, and might want to learn more.

If the message is about the need to be respectful and inclusive, the language used to present that position is very important.

Sorry if that was a "wise guy" comment. But I do find that the NDP tends to overuse certain phrases, to extreme levels of repitition and annoyance. All I am asking is that they broaden their language when crafting their electoral messages. I never did say that they shouldn't use the term "working" or "families". And I did say that the language can't be entirely ineffective if it is getting adopted by other parties as well.

Can someone youtube the English version of this debate?  This might be the one the Americans will be most interested in.

The terms debate - at least we do have terms for these things - you listen to Americans try to describe the same phenomenon and wow there is a term for it "sandwich generation"! There is a reason why the Tories have more rhetoric - but Tories use the same rhetoric everywhere all over the world - that is what their expensive think tanks do for all of them. Even this "radical" stuff that we are all laughing about - it works in the States which is why they are trying it here.

I should hope that anyone not willing to use a many pronged approach to raise revenues from - especially - big oil - should see themselves as not ready to do. That does play into the Mulcair "sword" metaphor but anyone who can win Saganash's endorcement would also qualify for that. Saganash was suggesting that.

That is what exposure to chemicals reminds me of (the ones I am sensitive to) is a cross between general and local - it feels like bits and pieces of your brain are off line.

After 22 minutes of debate in French, Paul Dewar is doing better than expected, outperforming low expectations, I would say.

Dewar has been practising his French. Cullen has been practising his one-liners. Mulcair is smooth. Singh thinks the best way to improve Canada's reputation on the world stage is to improve job training and have a good plan for enterprises. Nash should work on her pronunciation. Topp tried for an oratorical flourish in his opening remarks - not. Ashton is doing well I think.

Ashton takes on Mulcair on free trade, Mulcair claims we have the tools we need to provide energy security, upgrade bitumen, refine petroleum now.

Switch the cpac to french at cpac.ca

Each of the candidates gets to ask another candidate a question. Nathan goes after Peggy for opposing his plan on co-operation.

wage zombie: Or choose the "floor" on cpac.ca.

http://live.npd.ca/leadership2012 has it in french.

mulcair is head and shoulders above the rest, hard to listen to singh's accent.

Singh takes on Topp on his ideas about increasing taxes, reducing capital gains exemption. Topp replies the rich have been given too many breaks.

Mulcair asks Niki about her postion on youth, which is a lob ball, not supposed to be allowed. He does not take issue with her. Wants to know how she would bring the young into politics. Niki handles herself with ease.

HOOOHHHHOOOO !!!!!!!

topp and dewar BLASTING EACH OTHER!

Mulcair on fiscal reform: not now, must show we're good public administrators before. ("Le fruit n'est pas mûr", perhaps...? Or maybe: "Les conditions gagnantes ne sont pas réunies"...?)

I find it a bit painful to listen to this debate, so I think I'll call it quits.

Debate switches to English. 

What the hell??? Topp and Cullen speaking in English???

ETA: oops, my mistake - there's a translator apparently doing oral English on CPAC.

 ETA: It's confusing to me. Martin Singh is speaking French, and all I hear on CPAC is a women doing English translation; meanwhile, the closed captioning is in French. I'm very hard of hearing, so this is really difficult for me to follow.

have you tried radio canada?

Thanks writer, this worked without have to install Silverlight.

dewar in french sounds like a bit of a fool.

Financial transactions tax. (I guess.)

Why did Quebec vote NDP? How can you get Quebec to vote NDP?

Peggy mentions the Sherbrooke Declaration, and cites support from its author Pierre Ducasse for her candidacy.

Nash to Topp: Is it a good idea to elect leader of opposition who never was elected? Topp: Is it a good idea to elect someone with only 3 years experience? And on and on. Why are they doing this?

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Canada/1239665812/ID=2129388531

I like a financial transaction tax.  If Mulcair is planning to hold this up as a way of increasing revenue I think that's fair.  I hope we will hear a lot more about this.

Mulcair defends Kairos against Harper's defunding. Good to hear. The NDP has an unfortunate tendency to protest Harper's attacks, then forget about them and move on.

Cullen says, "my proposal for working together with others before an election is popular in Québec, just as the coalition was - why are you against it?"

Mulcair uses the opportunity to say that Quebecers want absolutely nothing to do with the Liberal Party, the party of the sponsorship scandal, etc.

Weak answer, but tactical move on his part to distance himself from the "Liberal" label, even if it's federal rather than provincial.

Mulcair looks like he's having a great day, as do Ashton and Cullen. Dewar looks like a dork. Mulcair and Cullen are the most animated, while Singh and Nash seem to me to be quite subdued. From what I can follow, I think this debate belongs to Mulcair, Ashton, and Cullen.

Singh: "[...] un programme national de gestion d'enfants [...]"

Is he going to talk about how he's gonna manage children in a fiscally conservative manner...?

Definitely a different dynamic in French. I'm not sure whether they're being more aggressive, or whether they're more easily rattled because of the pressure of thinking fast in a second language.

My god, Dewar's French is painful. Poor guy.

Hahaha, Topp is trying to trap Dewar by asking him what he thought of the recent situation with TOU.TV. Very childish IMHO.

Topp sounds snarky, kind of arrogant, trying to expose weaknesses in others. Leaders don't need to do that. Mulcair tried the same with Nash, asking her whether she favoured Québec seat at UNESCO. Why do they do these things??

Closing statements, 90 seconds each. Singh goes first, gives stump speech in summary. LIght on foreign affairs, jobs and the economy. Mulcair, May 2, first vote for a federalist party in a generation, foreign policy should unite Canadians. Seven candidates elected in the Quebec City region.

Topp gives stump speech, lowest poverty rate, continue Laytons legacy, win the next election.

Yeah, but Cullen replied that we all know what the Liberal Party is - but his plan isn't looking for the approval of the party leadership - it's the local voters, local militants. Singh then simply repeated that the Liberal Party is bad.

They think they are supposed to.

I don't see Niki Aston acting this way...maybe she would if she were more of a contender, I don't know.

Ashton manages to link foreign policy and national priorities.

Nash wants to see Foreign Policy inspire Canadians to participate in politics, link progressives in Quebec with progressive outside Quebec.

Dewar reads his remarks. Quite effective.

Cullen talks about drinking caribou with friends, and not being sold on his feet today. Does his stump speech, the bearer of new ideas, the Cons represent a real threat, needs a new approach.

Applause all around.

very interesting dynamics:

mulcair lobs a softball to ashton, she replies in kind.  then cullen tees one up for mulcair and they have a friendly exchange to mutual benefit.  and mulcair slides a gentle knife into nash.  topp has been skillfully highlighting dewar's awful french, and then asking him questions that force dewar to drown himself in his french (which makes him sound/look utterly foolish and unqualified).  dewar and nash both highlight topp's lack of electoral experience; topp replied that nash had only three years in parliament, so it's not like she's in much of a position to speak.

The participants seem relieved it is over. Mulcair show his strength, Dewar lives to fight another day, Topp was put on the spot about not having a seat when the party is looking to fill the role of leader of the official oppostion. Ashton and Cullen show the new face of Canada. They are Francophiles, not Francophones, speaking French, strengthening French as an official language in Canada nonetheless.

It was very confusing for me, as I'm very hard of hearing and am not very fluent in French. First, they were speaking in French - then CPAC had oral English translation - meanwhile the closed captioning was all in French. So I just listened to the oral translation with the captioning off. It was painful - the translation continued for a few seconds after each speaker finished.

I think CPAC should have used English sub-titles instead of oral translation - otherwise deaf and hard of hearing folks who don't speak French were deprived of any understanding of the debate.

The lack of discussion of substantial issues was indeed disappointing. The party runs the debates, and the questions were sort of silly. Why should you be the leader sort of thing.

No questions about China, or Syria, emminent invasion of Iran, the role of the Euro, financial crisis of European banking, or even Canada-U.S. relations, let alone how to move towards justice for Palestine.

The ongoing civil war in Libya could have been raised, and would have embarassed the party. So what? The overall lack of substantial discussion hurts the NDP more than exposing its policy weaknesses to public discussion.

Overall the discussion was Mansbridge like in its lack of substance.

RDI and Newsworld are covering Whitney Houstons career. The RDI report played after the debate in BC talked about the debate being held in the future. The NDP story was on Romeo leaving the race, yesterdays news.

i can't believe there are still three debates to come.  seems really excessive, particularly given how the race is shaping up.  and if money was the main impetus for saganash's departure (which many are suggesting it was), i'd guess that ashton is the next one to drop out.  and if she does, judging by tonight's exchanges, i think there's little doubt she'd endorse mulcair.

i'd very much like to see saganash as our new foreign affairs critic. 

Me too.  I guess it's never too early to start a member-based push for that.

Saganash can serve two critic's roles: Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, in addition to Foreign Affairs. (oops - is Charlie Angus already serving as Aboriginal and Northern Affairs critic??)