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Interesting tweet:
"Brian Topp will not run in Toronto-Danforth byelection. Would prefer to run in Quebec. Endorsing Craig Scott in T-D."
I also read that Janet Solberg is chairing Scott's nomination campaign and that he's also being backed by Alex Neve of AI and James Orbinski of Medecins sans Frontieres...CBC reports that as many as five other people are interested in running for the nomination which will be on Jan. 9.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1099904--brian-topp-...
Seeing the party has affirmative action goals how much can this play into the nomination? Craig Scott seems like a very strong candidate, probably stronger then Claire Prashaw, but he's basically your typical "middle-aged white man politician".
The nomination meeting will be January 9th, and members can only vote on the candidate if they've been a member of the party within the riding for a minimum of 30 days, right?
So the deadline to join is . . . today???
Hey, Craig Scott is a professor at my school! I hope he wins.
Does he ever! And you can download 18 of his academic papers by following the links. Here is a good example, I think. You have to click on the link at the top of the page (one-click download) to get the full text rather than just the abstract. Most importantly, he seems to have been a very engaged activist for many years on many fronts.
Who knew the NDP has candidates like this?
No kidding. I hope you do a teeny bit more research than that before casting your own ballot in elections. Otherwise you'll end up with Bev Oda and Leona Aglukkaq and Rahim Jaffer and... well I think you get my point.
What are you talking about? The NDPs constitution mentions affirmative actions goals for the nomination of candidates and I'm wondering how much of a role this can play in selecting the candidate? The party never met their commitment of having 50% female candidates in May and now they have what is considered a safe riding with a female interested in the nomination.
The NDP policy is about outreach and ensuring that riding candidate search committees make sure that efforts are made to ensure that equity groups members seek nominations. There is at least one woman who is seeking the nomination in TD. Now its up to the card-carrying members in that riding who they want as their candidate. There no rule in the NDP that says that every single time there's a byelection, the candidate has to be a woman. In fact in the last parliament - two NDP women Dawn Black and Judy W-L resigned - and in both cases men were nominated to replace them Fin Donnelly and Kevin Chief. Whether rightly or wrongly - no one seemed to make an issue about the NDP nominating two men to replace two women...so I don't see why it would be much of an issue to anyone if a white male is replaced by another white male in Toronto-Danforth. But again it is a choiced to be made by the members in Danforth.
To answer your question- when it comes to nomination for candidate, affirmative action comes in practically/formaly at the 'point' of candidate search.
The riding association is obliged to, and is accounatble to demonstrate that it has solicited and encouraged affirmative action candidates for the nomination. Who the members vote for is who the members vote for.
The commitment to meet targets is by the federal party and section. It is not the direct ultimate responsibility of any riding association to ensure meeting those targets, though the party can lean very heavily on riding associations to include affirmative action candidates in the nomination proces. There is no mandate to favour them.
Sorry for any misunderstanding, NL. My objection was to your referring to Scott as "typical". He's not. And I fully support affirmative action goals.
Accurate, but is it the end of the story?
Paul Dewar:
http://www.pauldewar.ca/content/dewar-announces-plan-ensure-womens-equal...
This is lifted directly from Quebec's 2005 draft bill that never got enacted: an increase in financing for parties that nominated or elected at least 30% women candidates, both in the per-vote financing and in the amount of expenses re-imbursed. A higher scale still if over 35%, and higher yet if over 40%. This was described as a temporary measure, to sunset when the percent of women elected to the Assembly hit 50%. (The draft bill also had an incentive plan for ethnocultural minorities.) The Quebec Citizens' Committee applauded this plan but suggested a different scale: one increase at 35% - 40%, a higher level if the party elected 40% - 45%, and a higher yet level if the party elected more than 45% women.
He may have a good background but to look at him he's your average politician, not that that's a bad thing.
You could say the same about Brian Topp, you know. Whiteness, maleness, and all.
Looks like there's another contender in the nomination race. Justin Duncan announced today that he's running. https://justinduncan.wordpress.com
He's a public interest environmental lawyer who lives and workes in the riding. Seems like he'd be a great MP - young and really experienced. We need more strong environmentalists in caucus to stop Harper from gutting environmental laws.
...and he's been endorsed by Linda Duncan of Edmonton-Strathcona (any relation?)
It doesn't say it on any of his launch materials but Justin Duncan works for Ecojustice.
Its nice to see all thes great people seeking the NDP nomination in TD. Its a sign of strength for the party.
Formerly the Sierra Legal Defence Fund
Wow, really? No bump until 40 minutes before the meeting? :)
Does anyone know if the speeches will be on line?
Definite agreement with the first sentence, but not really the second. It would be weird if there WEREN'T a lively nomination contest between heavy-hitter candidates for a vacant seat in such a safe riding. It's a sign that people see an opportunity to actually win.
It would be a sign of strength for the party if you had a bunch of accomplished people tripping all over themselves to be nominated as the candidate in some other party's stronghold riding.
I agree with Newfoundlander that equity considerations should be more important to the party than they are. And I would also like to see the NDP take seriously its commitment to gender equality when it comes to nominations. That said, I see from Craig Scott's materials that his partner is a guy, so equity-wise, he's not just another "white middle-aged male" candidate.
From what I can tell, it looks like Craig Scott has most of the Dipper Royalty and NGO bigwig endorsements in the riding sewn up, whereas Claire Prashaw, while she has a couple herself, has a lot more "ordinary residents" in her endorsements - young people, community activists, and people she has worked with and helped through the course of her constituency work for Jack.
I think those are the only two that we've received literature from, or at least that I've noticed. Justin Duncan has some info on his website but no list of endorsers that I could find (and you know, part of me kind of likes that). Hanif Shaikh, the other candidate, doesn't appear to have a campaign website, at least not one I'm finding with a quick google search.
Should be interesting to hear what happens tonight! I'm not at the meeting since I'm not a member, but RR is there, so I guess I'll hear soon what happened. :)
No. From the same link:
Hanif Shaikh is on facebook - the one that lists Jack as people who inspire him and used to work for Bell. I did not send a Friend request and you need one to actually read posts.
Got the "about" profiles up for Justin, Claire and Craig waiting for the winner so I can paste the link to my mother in messenger.
A Facebook page isn't a website...social media is fine and dandy, but it doesn't replace an actual website where you can get info on someone, especially if you're also trying to reach people who don't use Facebook.
Anyhow, yeah, I'm looking forward to the results too!
True,
Chomping at the bit for results. Glad that they did it this way - someone local who was active in the community.
I'm not much of a Twitter fan, but if you follow the #TorDan hashtag, you'll get updates on how things are going.
Oh wow - from what I'm reading on Twitter, they're just collecting the first round of ballots now! I think I'm not going to see rr until after midnight at this rate - the meeting started two hours ago, didn't it? :)
Thanks!
Will check during commercials. First episode of LMOTP starts in half an hour.
dup
Tonight will be win-lose for the NDP. The party will get an excellent candidate, and lose two other excellent candidates. If only there were three seats to nominate for tonight
First ballot win for Craig Scott.
ETA: Sounds like an excellent choice. What's next for Prashaw, Duncan?
GREAT CHOICE! CONGRATS CRAIG! now the work begins to get this excellent candidate into parliament and onto the front benches.