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well, at any rate, my point wasn't at all that, it was that there's no reasonable argument against the necessity that the new leader speak french.
this is a good attitude:One MP who won't be in the running is St. John's South-Mount Pearl Ryan Cleary, but only because he doesn't speak French.
"If I was bilingual, I would have my name in the hat," Cleary said. "Because I'd have every opportunity to put all of Newfoundland and Labrador's issues front and centre on the national agenda."
With more than half of the NDP caucus hailing from Quebec, fluent French is seen as an absolute necessity for any aspiring candidate.
Out of the gate, the immediate frontrunners seem to be party president Brian Topp and deputy leader and Quebec lieutenant Thomas Mulcair, both of whom have said they're thinking about it.
Neither Cleary nor St. John's East MP Jack Harris wanted to speak about specific candidates, but both said Layton will be a tough act to follow.
"It's a tricky time, right, because obviously anybody who puts their name out there as a leadership contender is going to be compared to Jack Layton, and there will be no living up to that legacy," Cleary said.
Harris said aside from French, the major qualification for the new leader will be to simultaneously mentor the many junior members of the NDP caucus and still command the respect of long-serving members.
I agree that fluent French is a must. In that case, what does the list or potential candidates look like? It seems like there are really only a handful of possibilities. There seems to be some debate as to whether Paul Dewar and Megan Leslie's French is good enough?
I know that wasn't your intention flight from kamakura, I just wanted to jump on what I thought was a straw man of an argument. I don't think fluent French is a must, but the French must be good enough to scrum or stay afloat in a debate with- two things bound to happen in the leadership race. Beyond that there is *some* time for on the job training, but what there isn't really time for is someone who has zero French saying...well, I'll study it. Also, in my mind, anyone really wanting to work for this country would have thought/wanted to learn French long ago, not as some sort of an afterthought now that a shot at the job of Prime Minister has opened up.
ETA: I've heard both Paul Dewar and Megan Leslie speak French, and while their French is not strong, it is likely sufficient to get involved in the race. Of course, if they do join the race, they will be receive some feedback that their French requires improvement, as may other candidates.
I have to disagree with you here. First of all Nathan Cullen actually speaks pretty good French. Second of all, I actually WANT as many good MPs as possible to throw their hates in the ring - for the good of the party. Its a great way to showcase to Canadians the depth of talent in the NDP caucus and also I think its important to have candidates from different parts of the country running to at least represent points of view from their regions. If Chisholm is in the race - it will raise interest in Nova Scotia. If Cullen is in the race then it will be good to have someone running from a remote and heavily Aboriginal western riding - the more the merrier. The more people run the more members get signd up, the more interest in the race and the more Canadians get to see what an NDP cabinet might look like.
Another benefit of Cullen is that his riding is one of those with a lot of Conservative-NDP swing voters, so he knows what it's like to take votes from the Conservatives.
An excellent point, Howard.
Here's a message during the month of Christmas that some of Cullen's opponents in the riding sent him one year.
Obviously the party disagrees with you, given the ridiculously high financial barriers it has raised to anyone who really has no expectation of winning. They clearly want to limit the range of debate as much as possible.
anyone who really has no expectation of winning = vanity candidate
good riddance
like dennis kucinich?
I loved Olivia's line on TV recently, something like "Even the Jack Layton who won the leadership in 2003 couldn't replace Jack Layton today, because he grew so much in those eight years. The next leader will grow too."
anyone who really has no expectation of winning = anybody other than Mulcair
I guess you strongly disagree with Stockholm's desire to see many candidates enter the race ("for the good of the party") even if they don't expect to win. You would just dismiss them as "vanity candidates", and good riddance to them.
That half a million bucks in order to be competitive might present some difficulty, however, even for someone who has something "real" (whatever that means) to contribute.
The only Kucinich-type candidate I can think of is Weisleder, and he doesn't have anywhere near that kind of financial backing.
Its an insult to Dennis Kucinich to compare him to a tedious drudge like Weisleder.
Half a million is the LIMIT on what anyone is allowed to spend. People can spend less if they want. When the Liberals last had a contest in 2006 several of the top candidates spent over 3 million dollars!
I'm pretty sure Barry Weisleder could come up with $15,000 if he wanted to run. I doubt $15,000 will be too onerous for the Socialist Caucus to put a candidate forth.
I think anyone wanting to run who has a compelling message (ie. an alternative to the candidates who are out there) should be able to raise that much. For those that can't, I would question either their organizational capacity (they are running for leader after all) or the appeal of their issues/messages.
As an example, I think if someone like Dana Larsen was interested in running, he wouldn't let $15,000 get in the way--he would find a way to raise the money. I would put Weisleder in that category as well.
The leadership candidates will also have to pass the same vetting process as riding candidates. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that anyone who has been "de-vetted" once, is not going to pass a second time.
The signature requirements are also pretty strict - 500 signatures, but with certain minimums from each region, etc., as I understand it. The full rules are coming out on Thursday.
For those who want to know about Mulciar's motivations for joining the NDP here is an interview he gave before winning the Outremont by-election in 2007. He was also quite prescient about the future of politics in Quebec.
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070627_140515_6120
Link for taking out membership in the NDP online:
https://secure.ndp.ca/membership_e.php
Back on August 31 neither Alexandre Boulerice nor Guy Caron had ruled out running. I have not heard of any change on that point.
http://www.journalmetro.com/linfo/article/957193--leadership-les-quebecois-du-npd-preoccupes--page0
I never heard this before: while Guy Caron was getting elected in his home town of Rimouski (while still living in Gatineau), he was also communications officer for Nycole Turmel's local campaign in Hull-Aylmer.
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-droit/actualites/gatineau-outaouais/201105/26/01-4403222-nycole-turmel-la-numero-3-du-npd.php
I have heard through the grapevine that Caron is not running. Boulerice I have heard is still in the consideration stage.
To put it in perspective, $15,000 is about what it costs to buy a car. There are 20 million cars in Canada. There are between 1.5-2 million new cars purchased by Canadians every year. Should we expect a couple million NDP leadership candidates? Lol.
This is great stuff. He is very likeable.
It's going to take charisma to win this race and potentially also some very strong policy ideas, if not basic ideas about where the party moves philosophically as it hopes to make its way to 24 Sussex. Given Layton's strategic drive, the next leader will probably be someone that can test drive a "plan" to win. How? What would that mean? How would that change the NDP? What would it mean for the country? People will care about these issues. Candidates will care about these issues. If you look at the last race, I think Ducasse and Blaikie, despite not winning, really shook it up. Some of their ideas became Jack's ideas and Jack also incorporated them into his plan for developing the party afterward. Blaikie was named House Leader, given organisational responsibilities, put forward as a successful NDP candidate for the Deputy Speaker's chair, employed/and fêted on policy issues as the dean of the House. Ducasse was named Québec deputy, given policy writing responsibilities [in addition to his communications lease], given employment, and supported in his election campaigns, among other things. Joe Comartin has been an outstanding Justice critic and would be a shoe-in for cabinet, perhaps Layton had him in mind as part of the coalition deal? Lorne Nystrom was not re-elected. Bev Meslo received the nomination to run twice for the NDP in Vancouver South, almost finishing 2nd in 2004 to MP elect Ujjal Dosanjh.
see the thing is that cullen's french sounds awful in that christmas message. really, i think that what some folks are missing is a familiarity with quebec. it's an underreported feature of the quebec success that jack's background as a quebecois was widely reported in the french press. like everyone knew that about him during this last election, and it definitely contributed to the sense that he could be trusted by quebecers. it's impossible to understate the importance of this, and it's impossible to understate the extent to which an ndp leader without that relationship to the quebec people would cede an affective space to the bq. it's just fundamental to electoral competition here. he might be a great leader, but picking a cullen would be very very dangerous to consolidation of ndp gains in quebec, and - given that we have others who don't present that risk - foolhardy.
that said, i'm happy to have a bunch of these guys run, it'll be great for interest, like you say. i'm definitely not looking forward to the wince-inducing french debate to come, but it should be a good conversation. i just hope that, in the end, the membership comes to understand that the quebec ridings are nothing like what the ndp has dealt with before, and that there's a big disconnect between this province and the rest of canada, such that a roberst chisholm leadership would almost certainly engender electoral ruin for the good guys. it's just the way it is.
He's going out of his way to be insulting, but that's par for the course.
Maybe you'd like to tell us who in the NDP you were thinking of when you talked about a Dennis Kucinich-type candidate for leadership? What is a Dennis Kucinich-type candidate anyway? Somebody old? Somebody rich? Somebody left-wing? Somebody with no chance of winning?
I pretend nothing of the sort. You, however, pretend that a serious campaign for leadership costs no more than the entry fee, when in fact that's just a drop in the bucket. The real cost of a serious leadership campaign is well into six figures (else why would the party set the spending limit so high?) and you can be sure that the eventual winner will have spent close to the half-a-mil limit.
This is a high-stakes game. The ante is $15,000 but that's just money thrown away unless you have at least 10 times that much to back it up.
Yeah, it's not as if the NDP is a party of the working class. Only the petit-bourgeois need apply.
If he runs, Boulerice has no chance of winning. He supported the Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign.
And everybody knows the next NDP leader has to be vetted by the Zionist lobby, the right-wing mass media, and the blogosphere. After all, it just wouldn't do to rub some right-wingnuts the wrong way!
I agree that Quebec is critical, but I am troubled by this idea that Quebeckers are so parochial and inward-looking that they will judge people based on whether or not they live in Quebec and the merits of the candidate are not important. The fact is, Cullen is a great spokesperson for the party and could make a great leader if elected. And if his (or anyone else's) French isn't 100% perfect, so what? Remember that the current NDP leader is not perfectly fluent in the majority first language, but she is still a good leader, and as I am confident that she can improve her communication skills in English, why couldn't Cullen or anyone else improve their French? If a leader demonstrates an ability to improve his or her second language, couldn't that be useful in winning people over?
Besides, remember that for all the focus Jack had on Quebec and his roots there, he was effectively a Toronto politician by the time he became leader.