babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
NDP Leadership 23
October 14, 2011 - 1:22pm
coming up
A trip down memory lane
I'm surprised by how terrified the media, Liberals, and Conservatives seem to be of Mulcair's candidacy. One Conservative strategist called Mulcair's communications skills "dangerous" as in dangerous to carry the NDP in to power. He said that if Mulcair wins the leadership the Tories will attack him as being "unhinged" and if Topp wins they will attack him as an "elitist." Screw the Tories, Liberals, media, etc. who do New Democrats want as leader?
Very interested to see, and not a little surprised, that James Laxer is backing Mulcair. Recent tweets:
"Tom Mulcair is the obvious choice for NDP leader. Let's get to know him."
"I"m leaning toward Mulcair. What's your take?"
"Mulcair is NDP's Wilfrid Laurier, who can lead party out of Quebec to victory in whole country, and change Canadian politics"
http://twitter.com/#!/jameslaxer
True that.
across quebec today, loads of articles on mulcair's candidacy, including interviews with regional ndp mps. the most interesting and tenor-setting will come on saturday (tomorrow) when vincent marissal publishes a long-form article on thomas mulcair. this will likely be big, and cover everything about the guy, good and bad, so we'll get a sense of what sticks thenceforth.
One line of attack that I find odd is the Topp camp's attack on Mulcair for only having been in the party for five years. Quelle horreur! But traditionally the NDP's base has been 15-20% of the voting population. You're not going to form a government with that sort of a base, so it stands to reason there will be crossover from other parties not only in voters, but in activists and elected officials/candidates. Especially in Quebec. It's a pretty lame canard and it isn't going to sway me. Besides, with all those young MP's I'd have to wonder how long some of them in the 20-22 year old range have been in the party? Does someone need to have been in the party for thirty years to be considered for a leadership position? Is this the old unionist 'seniority' argument shining through or something?
FFK, could you post a link to this when it appears? Yes, despite the language barrier. Thanks!
I laugh every time I hear Tories say they're gonna attack Tom Mulcair for having a temper the way they attacked Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff on other fronts. The Cons keep feeding that line to the media, but I think they know Mulcair is dangerous precisely because it'll be next to impossible to make that line stick in any meaningful way.
That may seem like an odd conclusion, but consider this: they could frame Dion as bumbling because he bumbled; they could frame Ignatieff as aloof because his mannerisms were aloof. Whether or not it's true, Mulcair comes off as a pretty affable guy the vast majority of the time. If he has a temper, it's not a predominant characteristic of his public persona. And, frankly, it's a lot easier to be a little more mindful of not snapping at people in debates than it is to totally change your personality as Ignatieff or Dion would have to have done.
Yes, there was the Howard Dean Scream, but that was a chance occurance that had a lot to do with his mic being set to cancel out all the ambient sound in the room (if you look at other footage of the same event it feels entirely different). And we don't operate in a presidential primary atmosphere where candidate come and go by the minute. Canadians are gonna see our next leader on a daily or weekly basis for four years.
The simple fact is it's gonna be a lot harder to define someone based on an occasional show anger like Mulcair, than a consistent part of their personality as was the case with Ignatieff and Dion.
Yeah, that's ridiculous - hasn't Mulcair already won three elections while in the NDP? Wasn't he Layton's Quebec Lieutenant and responsible to a degree for the NDP's success in Quebec? How many times has Topp been elected??? Sounds like sour grapes from the Topp folks. If Mulcair's credentials were good enough for Layton, they should be good enough for everyone else in the NDP! Quit the pettiness, already.
Not to mention the fact that Stephen Harper isn't the most affable guy around and yet it hasn't stopped him from winning. I've always thought the left's weakness is that it's too nice and that their leaders have a certain weakness about them as a result. I want someone who isn't afraid of getting their elbows in the air.
In thread 22 someone asked:
The most interesting answers were in the debate on the postal workers lockout bill:
http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/new-ndp-stars-cont
Excellent, Wilf.
Thats what I said, Unions are middle class and we should stand up for them by protecting collective bargaining
But Azana was arguing that Mulcair was anti-labour and the working class and I was simply saying that Unions are not the working class, they are the middle class just like Boulerice said there
Sounds petty for sure. But I've only heard something similar [and not that in particular] a bit on Babble, and not from the Topp camp at all.
Julius Grey was at Mulcair's launch endorsing him but what I didn't realise is that he also told the media he wants to run for the NDP next federal election!
Looks like it could be an interesting nomination in Westmount-Ville Marie next time if either Julius Grey or Anne Lagacé-Dowson (who has been commenting from an NDP perspective in the media) run there. I'd be happy to see the Liberal MP there re-retire from politics.
Btw, I found that news about Julius Grey on the punditsguide website. It has been by far the best way to follow news and movement on the NDP leadership race thus far (barring babble of course
)
In the meantime here is today's article by Vincent Marissal, who did a great job of chronicling the NDP's surprising rise in Québec last federal election.
Marston's certainly on friendly terms with the Steelworkers and has received support from them throughout his union and political career. But his labour background was as a longtime Bell Canada telephone technician and member of the CEP, not USW. So you can't really say Marston speaks for the Steelworkers or vice-versa. CEP certainly has a profile in the NDP as well, we'll see where they come down in the leadership race.
Nobody said Topp has the Steelworkers' votes tied up. And that is available to no one.
Top has the considerable weight of the Steel leadership. That's tied up, with a bow.
Why are trade unions not representatives of the working class? Please don't say union members make too much money and are therefore "middle class."
Ah cmon thats not what I am saying. I support unions. And collective bargaining. I am just saying there are plenty of working folks worse off than Unionized workers and we need to stand for them too
Of course. And strengthening trade unions would be one of the ways of doing that
on the soleil de quebec's website, pierre-paul noreau has a brief analysis piece on mulcair's entry into the race, de-accentuating the clash of values and framing the choice as one between jack's legacy team and mulcair's record of electoral success - finishing with the point that jack layton never became prime minister, and that maybe mulcair has what it takes to get there, but that any rate, ndpers who want a candidate who will fight fire with fire in the battle with harper now have a candidate. which sounds about right for what the quebec political pundits would sort it into - topp is old ndp, mulcair is new ndp. nationalist echoes on the 'return to canada' track, but also a lot of truth. and obviously we'll have to wait a few days still to get a sense of how much the quebec media gets behind mulcair's candidacy. remember that regardless of whether the race in quebec turns into one in which mulcair's support becomes monolithic, the more coverage this guy gets, the more interest the race generates, the more members we sign up, mulcair partisan or not, the more this campaign serves to consolidate the quebec gains. even if a topp, who is not intuitively appealing to quebecers, takes the leadership, people will have that much more invested in the party, and will be more likely to stay with it than had mulcair not got them motivated to sign up. it's great.
and will definitely post the marissal link tomorrow with non-mechanical translations of choice extracts. also, there was a somewhat interesting video segment i caught this morning featuring jean lapierre and don macpherson, during which macpherson described topp's early campaign of demonstrating overwhelming strength as one intended deliberately to scare other candidates out of the race, particularly mulcair. it seems more right than not, but also to reflect a dyad that makes much more sense to the quebec mind than to the that of the average ndper. people in quebec really are looking at these leadership candidates as future prime ministers, not as opposition leaders or parties of conscience, and topp's strength just seems incredible (in the literal, latin sense of the word) to many french canadians just now informing themselves of the contours of the race.
Maybe there will be conflict between the 'old' and 'new' - however defined, maybe not. Someone on P&P made a comparsion between Mulcair/Topp and Chretien/Martin, but that's a stretch. Probably trying to stir up sh*t.
How can you define old and new? What are the differences? Are they economical? social? Any specifics?
If Topp purposly diluted his campaign strength, wouldn't that show that he is uncapable of doing what it takes to win? Would it show that he is reluctant to lead?
I have yet to see any hatred between Topp and Mulcair like Chretien vs Martin. One must be careful of assumptions. The leadership candidates must also be careful of not turning media spin into a self-fullfilling prophecy.
A potential Minister of Justice?
If Mulcair can gain the support of a slate of impressive new candidates for the 2015 election like Julius Grey, no wonder the Conservatives are so scared of him becoming Opposition Leader.
Does he live in Westmount-Ville Marie?
Then again, with boundary changes due to come into effect in 2015, where he runs would have to wait untill then, wouldn't you think?
And the first mass e-mail to NDP members comes from... Brian Topp.
Dear friend,
A few weeks ago I put my name forward as a candidate for Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada.
I'm pleased to see that an excellent and growing list of colleagues, including (so far) Romeo Saganash, Paul Dewar, Nathan Cullen, Martin Singh and Tom Mulcair, have also stepped forward. You're going to have a difficult choice!
So, as a small contribution to helping you with that choice, I hope you don't mind if I write you from time to time. I thought I'd start, in this letter, with a summary of my background and basic priorities.
To begin, I have been a committed member of our party for almost three decades.
I'm a leader in the labour movement, in the credit union movement, and in the business community. I'm executive director and CEO of ACTRA Toronto, a film and television industry union. I chair the board of Creative Arts Savings and Credit Union. And I'm a director on the board of ROI Fund, a labour-sponsored venture capital fund, part of a highly successful fund family that has grown over the past decade from a start-up to a $1.3 billion business.
I've also been one of our party's leaders. Delegates elected me to be President of our party at our most recent convention. I worked at the heart of all of Jack Layton's national campaigns (twice as national campaign director), and handled some tricky files for him. For example, I co-chaired the NDP's negotiating team during the 2008 coalition negotiations that came so close to ridding Canada of the Harper government.
And before that: I was a senior vice president in the national office of Canada's credit union system. I served as deputy chief of staff to Premier Roy Romanow in the Government of Saskatchewan during the 1990s. I worked on Parliament Hill as a researcher and legislative assistant.
I'm married to Rebecca Elbourne. We have two teenaged sons, Simon, 16, who is studying acting, and Alex, 14, who is studying filmmaking -- an example of two children rebelling against their father by insisting on joining his union. I asserted at the start of this campaign, and do so again, that our family's orange cat, Tigger, is more charismatic than Stephen Harper. And so one of my duties if elected will be to be at least as charismatic as our cat by 2015.
Speaking of which:
We must and we will defeat Stephen Harper in 2015.
Our party made excellent progress in the past nine years under Jack Layton, growing from 13 to 103 MPs and from 6% of the vote to 30%. And our breakthrough in Quebec was historic. I was born in Quebec and have deep roots there. And I know first hand how hard so many people worked for our success.
That’s why I don't want to start another building cycle, from square one. I want us to build from our current base, and to win a governing mandate next election. I worked at the heart of our past four national campaigns and (as I've been trying to demonstrate in my leadership campaign) I know how to campaign nationally.
The style of our next campaign may emerge as a point of debate in this leadership race. In my view, we won't defeat Mr. Harper by "taking him on", by "hammering" him, or by "facing him down". Angry, negative campaigning works better for Conservatives than for social democrats, because it motivates conservative voters while persuading progressives not to vote. Jack Layton demonstrated a better approach: "propositional" campaigning, that twins every problem statement with a positive, practical, progressive solution. As Jack said, by being hopeful and optimistic, we can change the world. I think that's also how we are going to change the government of Canada.
And then we must govern well.
Winning a first mandate will be a poisoned chalice if we aren't competent in office. The next leader of our party will, I am confident, be our party's first Prime Minister. We therefore need to draw deep from our best governing traditions. Managing a government isn't a skill easily learned on-the-job -- trying to do so is like learning to pilot an airplane in mid-flight. We elected our first CCF-NDP government in Saskatchewan. Our governments there have done some of our party's best work. I served under Premier Romanow at the heart of that government for the better part of a decade. I know how to lead a competent NDP government. There is much in the prudent, practical, determined and principled records of our successful governments that we should apply to our federal work.
And then, finally, we need to govern for a purpose.
We don't need to become Liberals to win -- or to succeed in office. We can win, and do well, while pursuing our party's own principles, values and goals (keeping an open mind to cooperating with others in Parliament when circumstances justify it).
Our specific policies are well-detailed in our election platforms and party resolutions. We're for more jobs in a value-added economy; for tax fairness; for an end to child poverty; for gender and racial equality; for access to public transit and affordable housing; for creating jobs by building a green economy. We're for better public health care, and better public pensions. We're for a better future for rural, resource and remote communities. We're for restoring Canada's good name in the world, and for taking up the cause of peace instead of war. And much more.
What is the common element, the fundamental purpose of all of these policies? It's time we debated that, and I know my answer: it is to work, in everything we do in office, to build a much more equal society. Economically and socially more equal societies are fairer, healthier, and more stable. Increasingly unequal societies look like ... well, like North America in 2011, brought to you (along with gross income inequality and many other growing problems) by a long string of conservative-minded governments. A string it is time for us to break.
To win the next election. To govern well. To govern for a purpose. Those are my basic priorities as leader.
Like to know more?
You can learn more about me and my campaign at www.briantopp.ca.
I've been writing a regular column published at www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/brian-topp/ and at www.rabble.ca which I invite you to take a look at (the Globe has a two-year archive of these articles on its website). I published a short memoir about the 2008 coalition crisis you might also like to check out (it's entitled How We Almost Gave the Tories the Boot, James Lorimer 2010, available in print and as an ebook on kobo.com).
I'll be writing you with some additional thoughts as this campaign unfolds.
Please forward this letter to any friends or family members you think might be interested.
And please consider supporting my campaign as a volunteer or financial contributor (you can sign up or donate at my website).
All the best,
Brian Topp
P.S. In addition to my website at briantopp.ca, you can reach me at
brian.topp@briantopp.ca; on Twitter at @briantopp, and on Facebook.
Combine this with Rosemary Barton's comment yesterday that Mulcair needs to get on Twitter... If Team Mulcair wants to build the right kind of momentum they need to get on board with technology too.