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NDP's Quebec strategy getting noticed in the media
April 7, 2011 - 1:43pm
Here's the latest example, from the Globe and Mail's Québec bureau:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ndp-is-quebecs-second-choic...
By the way, Boom Boom, it looks like the NDP candidate in your area is in for some special attention from the central campaign. Mulcair seems very enthused about him.
I don't think it's a coincidence that once the NDP's team of candidates began to take shape, then the NDP's numbers in Quebec started to increase.
This is looking like the best slate of Quebec candidates they've had since 1988. But this time, they already have the break-through in Outremont which gives the NDP a level of credibility even Ed Broadbent couldn't achieve.
So far, they have 30 candidates nominated, 10 of whom were candidates at least once before (some 2 or 3 times). And of the newcomers, such high-profile candidates as Nicole Turmel, Tyrone Benskin, Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, and Jeff Itcush give the NDP a much higher profile.
I can't wait to see who else puts their names forward!
You'll have to wait until tomorrow night, I guess, because they've got 3 more announcements lined up, I hear.
With the Conservatives and Liberals competing with each other over who can bribe Quebec City with the most money, can the NDP gain some ground by juxtapsing themselves against this?
Article in La Presse about the NDP campaign in the outaouais region. The first step is bus shelter ads with Francois Boivin, Nycole Turmel, and Jack Layton featured, which are up now.
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-droit/actualites/gatineau-outaouais/201103/...
It's not from La Presse - it's from Le Droit, which is an Outaouais regional paper.
It takes awhile to get used to the fact that the Cyberpresse.ca website looks the same, regardless of which paper you're reading, I found at first.
Who is he? I've sent several emails to the NDP and not one reply. Still get their mail asking for donations, though.
It's in the opening article. The Innu lawyer from Sept-Iles, Jonathan Genest-Jourdain. He was the band legal counsel for the Uashat Mani-Utenam, and the Chief attended the news conference announcing his candidacy, alongside Mulcair. Then he ran for city council in Sept-Iles.
Have you heard of this guy?
ETA: Here's the link to his candidate's announcement.
No, but I don't get around much, so I'm not the one to ask. The last NDP guy (Pierre Ducasse) had great credentials too, but he didn't make a dent in the BQ, Con, or Liberal votes here as far as I can tell. I think I'm the only person on the Lower North Shore that cast a vote for him (two elections ago, I think).
Manicouagan is one riding that was a bit countercyclical for the NDP. In 2006 Pierre Ducasse got 13% of the vote there - one of the best NDP showings in Quebec in that election. In 2008 when the NDP vote across Quebec almost doubled - in Manicouagan in dropped to 5% because they just ran an NOB and had no campaign. With a high profile candidate who gets some attention from the central campaign - I wouldn't be surprised if the NDP gets about 20% and a solid second place to the BQ in that seat. Manicouagan is actually very similar to seats in northern Ontario and northern BC and Manitoba that tend to go solidly NDP.
If Randy Jones is the Liberal candidate again, then, yeah, the new NDP candidate might get second.... but far behind the BQ guy, is my guess. Randy Jones is really popular here on the Lower North Shore, but not elsewhere (Baie Comeau and Sept-Iles) as far as I can tell. I very much doubt our BQ guy is going to run much longer, so there may be an opening for that NDP guy.
Refresh my memory, please - who was the last NDP MP for Manicouagan?
No, he means like Skeena, BC, the northern Saskatchewan seat, which we've won several times federally, and hold both sides of provincially, Churchill in Manitoba, the many northern Ontario seats, and even Labrador West provincially (though the MHA was an expense-wheeling fuckup). Not to mention Yukon, Western Arctic and Nunatsiaq/Nunavut each of which we've won at one time or another.
Manicouagan and Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou would have some similar characteristics to those other seats (although clearly some substantial differences as well).
Well, if Manicoauagan was anything like those examples, it would have elected NDP MP,s right?
I think this is an extremely conservative (small 'c') riding with a smattering of labour and enviromental (college) folks. If the Cons can find the right candidate, they likely could take this riding back. The BQ guy is quite conservative.
I see very little evidence of "social democrat-minded" voters in this riding. Where are you getting these ideas from?
Exactly. But much more middle-class, ethnically mixed ridings like Outremont have led the way ... for crying out loud, Westmount looked to be in play for the NDP at one point
You *do* know this is Mulroney's old riding, right?
Boom Boom, when Stockholm was talking about social democratic voices who like the NDP but vote for the Bloc as the likely winner, I think he was looking straight at you, kiddo!
By a long shot the Bloc has more strategic reasons to have an interest in both a Harper majority, and in continuing a Harper minority needing support after the election.
Chew that one well.
Yup - a Harper majority will fuel separation - I've been saying that for a long time. Glad others are picking it up.
Heh. I voted BQ last time out of pure spite - I wanted the Con candidate completely humiliated - and it worked!
It was only a few years ago that EVERYONE was saying that any kind of Harper government - majority, minority or what have you would be so toxic in Quebec that it would GUARANTEE that Quebec would separate from Canada. Instead we are 5 years into Harper being PM and support for sovereignty in Quebec is about as low as it has ever been. In fact commentators have been having a field day with the fact that no one ever thought it was possible for there to be a federal government that was so unpopular in Quebec and for it NOT to be correlated with any upsurge whatsoever in Quebec nationalist sentiments.
Quebecers generally dislike the Conservatives, so it does make sense that a Conservative majority government with very little representaion from Quebec would play into the hands of the soverigntists because an alienated Quebec is more likely to support sovereignty.
But because Quebecers generally dislike the Conservatives, the BQ has to publicly oppose the Conservatives even if they secretly want the Conservatives to win a majority and create Quebec alienation. In the event their is another minority situation in Ottawa, the BQ will almost have to side against the Conservatives to maintain their popularity in Quebec. If the BQ becomes the Conservatives' unofficial partner in Ottawa, the BQ will suffer federally and the PQ will suffer provincially.
You could say the same thing about the Liberals as they are polling about the same as the Cons in Quebec, n'est pas?
The conservatives don't rule with the Bloc or the NDP, they rule with the support of the liberals. They oppose the conservatives only when they are assured that the government won't fall. The Bloc has absolutely nothing to gain to maintain in power a government that acts against the interests of Québec: you can't prove Canada is bad for Québec by voting with them. They won't vote for a measure and then moan about it.
That's the liberal way.
Yup!
Quite true. Harper is toxic here (except in Québec city and Beauce), and Liberal rhymes with corruption, both federally and nationally. It's amazing that more don't realize that, with a federal government that switches between those two parties, there's no future for Québec.
I never said the Liberals weren't unpopular in Quebec.
NR, why are you so concerned with protecting the Conservatives?