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Two things, as others have said, it's not altogether clear that the next election would be the NDP's for the taking. Especially with the Liberals choosing a new leader.
As to the NDP's "process", the "process" (used in all Canadian party's) is ridiculous. Who are these people that are in provincial council? Why aren't their processes as codified as other electoral institutions like Elections Canada? If they make their own rules how can we believe in their legitimacy? If they're unwilling to hold reviews that are easy to attend and that consult the entire membership then yes I think the MLA's have more legitimacy than the provincial council and should be making decisions about party leadership. You have what, maybe .0001 percent of the population voting for those people, you have a lot more people voting for the MLA's. I honestly think the MLA's should have a significant say in who the leader is. It's like that in most other Westminster systems.
As to Australia, it looked like Rudd was going to loose to Abbott. If Labor hadn't replaced Rudd with Gillard they would've lost that election. The only reason Labor did as poorly as they did (because Gillard was doing well until the leaks started) is because of the sore losers with a score to settle. I'm not saying the same thing won't happen here if James is deposed, but as others have indicated, leadership elections are messy regardless of.
Not to mention the fact that Campbell had little business experience himself. I don't recall the exact details, but according to wikipedia, he had about 5 years of private sector experience. Though, my reading of that experience indicates that he would've had close cooperation with the public sector seeing as he worked in the development sector. As such most of his working life was spent in the public sector, so it's pretty hypocritical of him to bash her for not having enough "business experience." Yet, there she was with that John Kerry like smile on her face. It was absolutely ridiculous. Yet now that her position as opposition leader is on the line she fights like it matters. That is absolutely pathetic.
Interesting comment. Care to elaborate on what you mean?
It seems Carole still isn't going to back down, calling an emergency meeting with caucus and the executive this weekend. Unbelievable. We really are going to see a purge here.
To be fair, that's probably the appropriate thing to do. Wouldn't you want to get everyone together to get all cards out on the table and come to a decision?
James will be making a statement at 1pm PST
My thoughts as well. Imagine in six to eight months when the new Premier drops the writ and Carole faces of against them. I sure that the, "I am the consensus builder the Province needs" line is bound to impress people who have never voted NDP in the past. I feel sorry for Carole since she seems like a good woman but she has chosen to listen to the wrong advisors and it cost us the last election and it will cost us the next if she doesn't do the right thing and step down in an orderly fashion. Her resignation triggers a leadership convention and for the good of the party she should resign.
I often wonder whose team Schreck is on? He reminds me of another dinosaur Union Jack Munro, a bully boy with a pulpit that they use to shill for Howe Street. People like them are always telling progressives they can't have everything so they should take the incremental steps and rejoice. Then he personally leads the fight [powered by business dollars] to defeat proportional representation in the Province because it was not the ideal he thought we should have. Hypocrisy is the norm with the cabal.
A carbon tax was in the platform until just weeks before the election. In fact the policy was still on the website even after James announced the “Axe the Tax” campaign. 4 years of policy was reversed without any input from the membership.
For years a carbon tax had been called for by most environmental groups. When Campbell adopted a carbon tax of course it was supported by these same groups with the caveat that the rate was set too low. When the NDP opposed the tax of course the environmental groups criticised the NDP position. For them it was a question of standing on principle and maintaining a consistent position. For their pains the Environmental groups were attacked by the NDP for some supposed disloyalty. This spat between the NDP and environmental groups, who should have been natural allies, dominated the first 10 days or so of the election.
This is an example of a back room, unilateral reversal of policy that the James gang has been criticised for. It is also an example of very poor political instincts, another criticism of James.
Opposition to a Yes vote on the referendum on STV, which was held concurrently with the election, is an example of a variation between the supporters of the party and the current leadership. Support for pro-rep, specifically MMP, has been party policy for years, yet James announced that she voted against STV in the first referendum. Party insider and prominent James gang supporter David Schreck LED THE NO CAMPAIGN in the second referendum. Meanwhile NDP voters voted Yes (narrowly) to the referendum.
Sadly, for the NDP, a lot of the same people who support a carbon tax, also support pro rep. The same green swing voters that the NDP needs to win, and who will either vote Green or stay home if the NDP has nothing for them (or attacks them).
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One struggle, many fronts.
Yes, but it sounds more like a purge is coming since she's basically admitted that the MLA's will be "held accountable for their behaviour" (her words, not mine). Considering her history of dealing with this matter she, and her supporters, probably feel they can't back down now. Other than the Alliance-DRC split, I honestly can't think of a saga like this within an opposition party. And as Pogo said, we all know how well that turned out for Stockwell Day. Is Carole James the NDP version of Stockwell Day?
If they kick out Jenny the only question is how many other MLA's will walk with her.
In my opinion the award for the dumbest political move in politics in Canada is Moe's stipend. I can just imagine when caucus heard that. The party has spent four elections implicitly saying that their ties with labour are exaggerated and the BC Fed does not control the party. That message has always been a hard sell and few voters believed it despite the fact there is some truth to it. I am sure the news of his stipend was greeted with great glee and laughter in the boardrooms of Howe Street.
Is it? This is at best an overgeneralization, or at worst “I don’t really know what is going on the ground in BC, so I will just make thing up”.
The carbon tax was most vigorously opposed in the north east, home of BC’s oil and gas industry, also heavy consumers of fuels.
By contrast, Kootenay-West, Katrine Conroy’s riding (dissident NDP), has a strong environmental component, and although not universal, there is support for a tax on carbon. Support or opposition to a specific policy is not black and white in any riding.
Most party supporters are prepared to maintain their support, even if there are some specific policies that you don’t agree with. But what do you do if long standing policies, voted on by the membership, are summarily reversed as soon as the writ is dropped? Its frakking nuts!
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One struggle, many fronts.
Hey folks, has anyone read this interview with Bob Simpson?
I guess that would explain the great "surge" in support for the Green Party in the '09 election. They managed to go from 8.6% in 2005 to 8.3% in 2009 - I guess they really capitalized on all that pro-carbon tax sentiment!
happier days
Once again overgeneralization and lack of on the ground knowledge has tripped you up.
Referring to Kootenay-West, one of the "remote ridings in the interior where opposition to the carbon tax was the main reason they even got elected." as you say, the NDP vote went down and the Green vote went up between 2005 and 2009. The numbers seem to indicate that many dippers simply stayed home. This is one of the trends that the dissident MLAs are tying to reverse.
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One struggle, many fronts.
The only question now is does James bring the party down with her? If she boots Kwan, it's obvious other MLAs will join the exodus fromt the party, my MLA Simons has been pretty clear. And honestly, I'd bet money they'll keep their seats. People are sick of the Liberals and James, a left of centre party that isn't the NDP has a rare window of opportunity here.
Does James now have ANY chance of surviving as leader?
Also, someone mentioned the possibility of a snap election once the new Liberal leader is chosen....wouldn't the fixed election dates law actually prevent that?
At the end of the day James is toast. But that "end of the day" could well be another year. It looks like James is drawing another line in the sand, she has the support of the majority of caucus, and she also has the recent 84% support from provincial council.
According to James, the dissidents are not only a threat to her leadership (unlike Bob Simpson) but "the party as a whole". And the dissidents will be faced down at an emergency meeting.
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Election-Central/2010/12/02/JamesEmergency/
A snap election is also possible. The Lib leadership date is February 26 and the next fixed election date is May 12, 2013. The new Lib leader may wish to seek an immediate new mandate and, if that's the case, the Libs need only reconvene the legislature and amend the relevent statute to move up the election date to, say, May 12, 2011.
OTOH, I have not read the legislation but, according to a BC political columnist, that fixed date of May 12, 2013 is the "last election date" possible. IOW, an earlier election date won't contravene the relevant statute.
I mistakenly omitted the word "not." The sentance should have read:
"Hopefully that claim will not stick to the person who will now likely replace James."
All this infighting has left the NDP in a vulnerable position. It is of vital importance that the NDP get beyond this infighting ASAP. If the NDP divides into two factions, a "right-wing-James" faction and a "left-wing-Kwan" faction, the party's chances at long-term success will be damaged.
After the events of the past week, James tenure as leader has now become untenable and she will have to resign. More importantly, both sides of this divide will have to let bygones be bygones and come together in order to replace the BC Liberals. Hopefully a consensus choice as leader will be made that satisfies both sides of the NDP's schism.
In the case of Australia's Labor Party, the party's schism resurfaced in their election and caused Labor to lose a lot of their support, especially in Kevin Rudd's state of Queensland.
The worst thing the BC NDP could do now is elect Kwan or anyone else who has led the movement to depose James. That would just divide the party even more and leave the new leader vulnerable to being framed as a "back stabber" as Julia Gillard was in Australia. In order to heal, a consensus candidate will have to be chosen as new leader. Hopefully James will resign as gracefully as Rudd did as Prime Minister and Labor leader in Australia. As things have turned out, Rudd is currently Australia's Minister of Foreign Affairs in Julia Gillard's Labor government. Hopefully such a "happily ever after" ending will happen to the NDP too.
It would probably be a good idea for parties to switch to the system used in places like the UK and Australia where the caucus can get rid of leaders who they do not support. That could be coupled with leadership reviews after every election.
And Centrist, that is the crux of the issue. What the James gang's strategy will be is to avoid a leadership review at all costs, until it is too late to have one. And they are BSing people that the recent Provincial Council meeting had some kind of a mandate to vote on Carole's leadership which is an outright lie. Let's be very clear: the James gang caused this problem with their stupid, stupid yellow scarves. How freakin' dumb can you be.
There is only only way now that the BC NDP are going to win the next election, which, if they are wise, they should be able to do. And the only wise course of action is for Carole to submit herself to a Leadership review right away, and if she gets 75%-90% support she keeps the Leader's role, and if not, she can still decide whether to contest the leadership race or not. But Carole and her supporters have run away from, and played a lot of games with, this Leadership review issue, and it is now going to be stopped, once and for all. Anyway my hunch is that the party grassroots, and the voting public of BC will not support her. It's too bad in many ways, as she is a nice person but that is the reality of today's politics in BC.
I think Harper proved that a new Liberal Premier could contravene a fixed-date election law by going to the Lieutenant Governor and having him call an election. That would leave the NDP fighting an election represented by James, a damaged lame-duck leader.
Christy Clark must be salivating at the prospect of this happening in the Spring.
From the looks of how things are shaping up, Carole will be staying and I suspect that several MLAs will leave caucus and form an independent NDP caucus:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/james-call...
I think that in BC NDP rules there has to be a provincial council election within 90 days of a leadership race so probably 7 years without a contest helped some council members grow some pretty long teeth.
So perhaps the leader endorsement was more about the current council survival and not James at all?
Kwans press release was just excellent.
I think James should resign or be fired immediately. The last thing they need is her doing her Kaptain Bligh routine if the bc libs call a snap election. (Bligh got stuck on a tiny boat with his loyalists but unlike James, he had a good sense of direction)
The NDP needs to call a leadership contest right now. What happens in a contest?
Well, people get fired up, and people discuss politics, and people renew memberships. And sleeper activists get awakened.
It would do wonders for party morale. (Not necessarly party members, but people who might come back to the polling booths if they actually knew what the NDP represented nowadays (provincially).
Wouldn't it be super if the NDP embraced technology?
Every NDP member has a vote. Why not figure out a way of making the vote by bank card or something like that? A 5 or 10 buck transaction (that can be traced), goes into NDP coffers as the votes get counted?
And that is just my suggestion. Probably other ways too.
You may jump back in horror but really it is a lot cheaper and a lot more all embracing than sending a bunch of people to some place in Vancouver to cast their votes.
Speaking of democracy, when is Carole James going to face a leadership review? Don't most leader's actually, you know, face those?
@ Brian, that voting online via donations and your membership card thing is a great idea. Most people outside of the Lower Mainland don't have time to go to some convention in Vancouver. Hell, even many people living in the city don't have time for that. If there was a way of ensuring that the process couldn't be unfairly manipulated, it ought to be embraced.
That is just wrong in so many ways. Provincial council is not elected at one event or one time. Instead it membership is delegated from a number of bodies:
Provincial Constituency reps (chosen at constituency AGMs)
Provincial Executive (chosen at Provincial Convention as well as a few dedicated positions)
Caucus Representatives (chosen by Caucus)
YND, Labour, and Women's representatives
All of these groups operate on their own timelines which are not altered by leadership changes.
And all of this information is available in the Party Constitution, which is available on the Party website.
Next fall, unless it gets moved up.
Why would they contravene the law when they have a majority and can just change it? Of course they will look like total opportunists either way.
It's a good thing the President or a caucus loyalist isn't called Younger.