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The most negative outcome of Harper's term in office might end up being that his dictatorial patriarchal leader approach becomes the new status quo. Also because Layton's individual appeal was so great, the belief within the NDP of the importance of a singular strong party leader has grown. But, as a social democratic party, the NDP should be opposed to a one-man show. It should support the exact opposite, a consensus approach to politics.
This is how our country is being run under Harper:
Retirement review to look at 'everything,' Flaherty says
Will most Canadian viewpoints be a part of this "review" of retirement income? Of course not.
Who is Flaherty referring to when he says "we"? I think the "we" he's referring to is basically one person - Heir S.J. Harper.
The NDP should come up with more policies that support inclusiveness and consensus. The NDP should not just replace right-wing top-down politics with left-wing top-down politics.
There are many ways we could make Canada more inclusive and democratic and less top-down. Here are just a few:
- Government policy "reviews" that allow all Canadians to participate.
- Party policy reviews that allow all party members to participate.
- Citizens Assemblies on major issues like health care, taxation, old age security, etc....
- Citizens' initiated bills
- Peoples' question period
- Lower the voting age to 16
- Elections every 3 years
- Proportional representation [Maybe then we could have a political party called the Occupy Canada Party?]
- The House of Commons can be prorogued only by a vote of prorogation.
- The House of Commons can only dissolve itself through a vote of dissolution.
- No confidence measures.
- A legislative assembly chosen by lottery [where common folk could predominate. It could be called "the House of Commons" but that name is already taken]
I will say that I can empathisize with OTL's feeling that some of Mulcair's fans here, more than other candidates' fans, are usually whom I expect to receive ad hominem attacks from (which ironically has fuelled my desire to research him even more, which only adds to it.)
I met Mulcair in Duffy's after the Toronto debate (which I missed due to it being full), and had a beer with him (he had Guinness, while I had Moosehead --> Canadian owned union-made beer). Mulcair's a nice guy. Likewise I met Brian Topp at Bar Neon, and had a beer and chat with him. Also a very nice guy.
I had arranged to meet a few friends (who don't really care about politics) at Ciro's. They've been drinking there for years since they know the owner. The volunteers with Nash were a little over-zealous about wanting us all to sign up with the NDP before entering, so we left there and went to Duffy's. Too bad because I wanted to meet Peggy, but oh well, there will be another opportunity I'm sure. From there I went back and forth between Bar Neon and Duffy's. A very good night.
Nicky! Thanks for the post. Can you share a list of all of Mulcair's donors please? Much appreciated.
That's awful. When I was at Ciro's, I saw the sign up clipboard sitting on a table.
I actually think Mulcair's supporters are some of his worst advocates.
Let me try to do a better job.
Mulcair would make one of the best leaders out of the eight that we can choose because:
Pretty much the weakest argument you can make, though: we should pick our leader in March 2012 based on a poll from January 2012 for an election in 2015. Polls can change, especially for candidates that aren't well-known, in regions where those candidates aren't well-known. You're better off focusing on the skills and attributes that earn the numbers than the numbers themselves.
Just sayin.
I have a lot of nice things to say about most of the candidates though.
Bravo JKR - and I like almost all your brainstorm bullet points as to how to revamp Canadian politics. But whether I like them or not is not the point. The NDP, and the movement for progress and change in general, will never succeed by reproducing the dictatorial structure which alone, in the final analysis, permits the rich to maintain their rule.
I overdid it in the last thread guessing at Ottawaobserver's motivations for leaving. I think Catchfire struck a better tone. Anyways, just wanted to atone for my excess of negativity.
-
Lara34,
Sorry i don't have a list of contibuers but am also very interested in seeing one. perhaps someone can supply a link.
As it says in the Bible, "by their friends will ye know them.
socialdemocraticmiddle, I agree with what you said in post # 35 (and I feel many other candidates also have similar qualities.) I just feel that Mulcair's incremental approach -- soft-selling social-democracy to get power and try to slowly over time move the centre to the left -- is not the right formula to beat this current government. Such an approach could lead us to looking mushy, and people could opt for the Liberals as an alternative to the Conservatives instead of the NDP, or people could just feel that the Conservatives are a safer bet and that there are only minor differences but more risk -- the unknown is always more of a risk -- leading voters to Liberals or Conservatives.
I feel there needs to be a stark difference, that groups the NDP as the compelling alternative to either the Liberals or the Conservatives. Not a major difference, but certainly there needs to be something that differentiates us from both the Liberals and the Conservatives. In the last election, it was our openness to a coalition government option and our record of opposing the war, that led Quebec, and subsequently the rest of Canada, to choose us over the Liberals (and PQ) as the alternative. Both of these (favouring coalition government and opposing the war) were risky propositions to take, but this is what ultimitely brought people to us rather than the Liberals. These risky propositions became the winning propositions.
Campaigning on reducing people's debt via preserving and enhancing services through more progressive taxation while simultaneously balancing the books of the nation, as Topp suggests, will be that winning proposition. It will be a vision to campaign on. Plus, I feel there is a structural deficit, and healthcare costs and pensions etc are going to be huge. I don't believe that revenue from cap and trade and corporate tax increases alone will be sufficient (in fairness, Mulcair has not released his full tax platform yet, but this seems to be what he's suggesting he'll campaign on ... we'll see).
I feel that we need to stage the fight as one between those (Libs and Cons) who wish to recklessly have a structural deficit and make us all suffer massive service cuts and huge debt, and us, who wish to have responsible taxation and good fiscal policy to preserve our services, reduce personal debt, and restore Canada to a better more humane and egalitarian place. I feel Mulcair is not up to this fight with his misplaced ideology of incrementalism (aka slowly move the centre to the left). It's wimpy, and it leaves us too near the Libs. Topp (or Nash) seems ready to take that fight on.
mark_alfred, I don't disagree with you. Layton was blatantly incrementalist. But he had a way of getting ahead on key issues: Afghanistan being a perfect example. Not only does it set up a contrast with the Liberals, but it also understands where populations move over time. (Over time, people get tired of a war with no plan, and peace plays well with our base.)
In 2015, taxation and revenue will be key. (It's a whole other discussion, but this is something I accept as 100% certain fact.) I like that Topp is ready to take on that fight, and it's a factor that's definitely in his favor when it comes to who I would personally support. I'm positive that the population will be receptive to higher taxes on the wealthy, in a way that they haven't been receptive for 30 years. I don't see this as a choice between incrementalism or immediatism. I see it as good principles, good fiscal management, AND good politics.
And to be fair, Mulcair hasn't put out his plan yet. I don't really buy the idea that we can achieve all the reforms we want with carbon taxes. I also think it's a hard sell with the populace, and people aren't going to like the idea that money set aside for the environment is going to fund health care and child care. But I'm giving all the candidates time to get their ducks in a row, and show me their vision for this country.
I have trouble seeing any of them becoming the next prime minister in 2015.
Anyways , Jack Layton was all about the politics of incrementalism, it worked for him, would it work for anyone else? Nobody knows. I think the personality of the leader matters much more than his or her politics in this NDP race and none of them seem to have a personality that is appealing in any way.
The thing I remember most about Jack Layton was that he was always smiling and always excited about what he was believing, politics was his life, and no matter how many or little seats his party won, Jack always believed, and everyone else can feel it and can't stop but listen to him, I think that was the key to the NDP success, I just don't get a feeling any of those leader can attract the same feelings people get when they listend and watched Layton.
I hate the liberals, but i think Justin Trudeau has a better chance becoming the prime minister than any of the current NDP leadership contender.
Never have I been so bored of the NDP as i am right now. I dont believe i am the only one. I'd still vote for the NDP though. Even though I dont want to be an ageist, I believe Jack Layton was very youthful, PHYSICALLY FIT, and attracted alot of youth attention in 2003, but none of the top contenders seem all that youthful or even gave me a sense that they can bring fresh thinking into the NDP, they seem like people from the past (who might have great ideas, but if you are going to choose a leader, you have to project a visual image) Think Obama, someone in the 40s and physically fit, someone who doesnt look like an old guard nor do they look like they just graduated from university
What i am interested in is the OCCUPY movement, i am not interested in the leadership race or even about the NDP, and I dont re ally thnk the leadership is the most important part of NDP's future success. The only way I believe the NDP is going to be successful is if they will continue to take on the message of the OCCUPY movement and other social movements and stay relevant to people who want real change, which is obviously not inside the House of Common or the political establishment or inside a political convention.
The NDP needs to quickly get over itself and realize people dont care about leadership race, we want to have a leaderless, bottom up society where politicans are relevant and genuine. Policy details and policy differences among candidates are irrelevant when it comes to capturing the hearts and minds of Canadians. Only outside of the box thinking will give NDP a fighting chance to gain governing power in Ottawa.
Jack Layton wasn't instantly popular, and we do have to look at the personalities of people like Selinger, Dexter, and Dix(who is leading in the polls last I checked, but then again the only poll that counts is the one on election day).
I'd rather elect a Clement Attlee than a Gordon Brown or a Michael Foot.
That's all the more reason for NDP'ers to put pressure on him now when he needs their votes. Everyday party members have a lot of leverage during leadership races and should use this time to advance their priorities.
Back in December it was to be January.
One person does seem to have a very optimistic Jack-like sunnyside personality - Nathan Cullen.
Yeah, I wish people spent less time cheering the candidates or speculating about how badly the candidates they don't like will perform... and focus on how to get the candidates on record on key issues of importance.
I'm extremely surprised that there hasn't been a detailed follow-up by Mulcair on proportional representation, just as an example.
For those who want to check the donations filed with Elections Canada.
The EC database is clunky, so the closest I can get you with a link is this, then follow the directions:
http://www.elections.ca/scripts/webpep/fin2/select_parties.aspx?entity=6...
** Select NDP on right drop-down.
** Press ADD button.
** Click on 4th Quarter [December]. [You can click on 3rd as well, but not much there, and you'll get lost]
** Click on SEARCH SELECTED button. [over far right]
Page changes
** Click by return details.
Page changes.
** Click Part 2b - Statement of Directed Contributions Received for Transfer to a Leadership Contestant
Which takes you to the alphabetical list by donor for all the candidates.
You scroll up the list with the Next 200 over on the right. Moves pretty fast if you are on high speed, you cant skip ahead.
So, for example, you will find Thomas Mulcair donating to Thomas Mulcair on November 10, seven weeks before his first ever donation of significance to the NDP.
By the way, although it is public information...
Dollars to doughnuts if you browse through you'll find people who are known, and it is not known are supporting a candidate. I think the kosher thing is to keep it to yourself.
And, the KenS cheap shot of the night.
mtm, you might as well get used to it.
http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.com/2012/02/on-close-competition...
On close competition Alice has taken a thorough look at the 2011 Q4 fund-raising totals in the NDP's leadership race and mused that fund-raising may serve as a proxy for first-ballot support. But I'll follow up on a couple of points.
Let's start with a couple of reasons to take yesterday's numbers with a grain of salt. After all, they don't particularly match the one source of information we already had on exactly the same point, as Nathan Cullen's reported fund-raising to the end of December involved an extra 100 donations totalling $24,000. And I'm curious to hear how that divergence in reporting came about.
But even if yesterday's data is in fact the better source as of the end of 2011 than reports from campaigns themselves, it's still a month out of date at a point where the campaign is just emerging into the public eye.
That said, we can certainly glean some useful information from the 2011 numbers, as there's far more parity in candidate fund-raising this time out than there was in 2003. Five candidates look like they'll have absolutely no trouble raising something close to the limit, and Martin Singh is also doing remarkably well to boot - with only Romeo Saganash and Niki Ashton lagging behind what they might plausibly have planned for.
Of course, it could be that nobody is running up the score on fund-raising simply because there's little advantage to be gained in going beyond the spending limit. And if that's the case, then the theory about using fund-raising as an indicator of support will fall by the wayside. But if it's true that fund-raising can be considered a proxy for first-ballot support, then the 2011 numbers suggest there's little enough separation between over half the field to ensure that the winner will need plenty of later-ballot support as well.
This reeks of Liberal style politics. I'm not a Topp supporter, but "Bay Street"? I don't see that evidence from the blog--which, incidentally, has another Topp=bad, Mulcair=awesome post the day before sporting a line graph that actually has Mulcair's line in NDP orange and Topp's in conservative blue! I'm sure that's just coincidence, though.
What a mess this is turning out to be.
CF:
That headline about Topp's contributions doesnt match the facts, as was the headline on the original Mulcair donations to the NDP greatly exagerated.
Especially as far as headlines go- I think you really have to ignore them. There's no real political intent- just crass sensationalism.
http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/02/01/trends-in-ndp-leadership-donat...
Make of it what you will. My take is that Thomas Mulcair, Peggy Nash, Paul Dewarand Nathan Cullen are all eating into Brian Topp’s lead in the money sweeps. Nash’s surge in December is particularly impressive. Note, the large spike at the far end of the chart is caused by the huge influx of contributions reported on Dec. 31, the last reporting day of the quarter.
Interesting to see that while Topp leads in total amount raised, Mulcair has taken more donations (621-304 by my count).
On average, Topp’s donors gave $556 per contribution, versus Mulcair’s $234. So, easy for Mulcair to claim more grassroots support and contrast with Topp’s monied donors.
I think fellow data geek Alice Funke was just looking at the numbers and tossing something out there, for the tossing.
Interesting point Greg makes about the divergence with the numbers Cullen had already offered [except he missed the actual difference]. Those kind of divergences are not unusual. Part of the reason you have to take all of this with a grain of salt.
And I agree with Greg that the most notable thing is that most of the candidates are not at all far apart in the fundraising. I think MacGregor in his blog is trying to find some dynamic to write about that is not apparent.
If you crunch the numbers you will find that all campaigns have a heavy emphasis on larger donors in their earlier going. As they conatct more people, the average donation goes down. In a long campaign like this, campaigns will emphasise their contact work at different times, according to very different priorities at any given time.
The only campaign I would THINK is likely to be relatively even about that is the Dewar campaign, and that's just an educated guess... not based on specific knowledge of any of the campaigns.
Posts #50 and #51 (mtm and NorthReport) are personal attacks against KenS. These attacks need to stop in this thread and its descendants. I can't keep up with all the mudslinging, but it is making this place very unpleasant for everyone involved.
There's no way a moderator can keep people "polite" and "civil" and other bourgeois affectations, but fercrissakes remember you're on the same side.
Thank goodness the leadership race isn't anything near as obscene as it south of the border with Super Pacs and others donating hundreds of millions to the GOP candidates - and to Obama. Thank goodness for spending limits here. That's not to say this race couldn't be improved.
Then you need to get the critics to tone it down. Pointing out that they're being particularly biting/petty/misleading with their criticisms is just trying to get THEM to stop the mudslinging.
Nomination battles are extremely divisive. I'm not talking about anyone in particular right now: I fully expect that people are going to be completely incivil and ruthless in advocating for/against their candidates. But they shouldn't get upset if someone calls them on being incivil and ruthless in so many words.