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"Despite being in Vancouver, none of the candidates had by the later stages of the debate made a specific reference to the Pacific Rim or Asian economies."
YEAH NDP HOW CAN WE TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY IF YOU DON'T MENTION THOSE ASIAN ECONOMIES, YOU'RE IN VANCOUVER YOU KNOW!
I'm growing to really hate CTV.
Actually when Cullen said something along the lines of, "People are talking so much about our number one market (USA), when we really should be talking about another market..." I was actually wondering if he'd mention China (he didn't).
Well Mulcair did mention our immigrant communities but I suppose that doesn't count in the eyes of our msp.
How can one be in Vancouver without talking about Asia? After all, it's right next door. If you ignore the world's largest ocean.
Personally, I think a better question is why none of the leaders made a specific reference to the Nova Scotia economy. After all, it's closer to BC than Asia is.
It's as if CTV just thinks of the West in terms of it being the part of Canada that's closest to China.
Well, the Conservatives were quick to attack the campaign today, with the typical "more tax!" rhetoric: http://www.conservative.ca/press/news_releases/ndp_leadership_debates_sh...
Started throwing around the "elitist" label too
Conservatives love to call the pot black.
Cullen is so smart and funny - I just wish I could vote for him, but some of his positions turn me off.
Conservatives call the pot black pre-emptively, so that no one listens to the pot when it finally gets its turn to speak.
So funny to hear that going against multi-billion dollar oil companies is elitist. And by funny, I mean soul-crushingly depressing.
The pot is green, BTW.
Tim Harper: NDP leadership: Thomas Mulcair still standing, unbloodied and unbowed
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1144505--tim-harper-ndp-leadership-thomas-mulcair-still-standing-unbloodied-and-unbowed
VANCOUVER—For more than two decades, the federal leader of the NDP has been hoisted to the top by the party elders.
This divine right of the establishment to choose their leader is now at risk for the first time in the post-Ed Broadbent era, less than two weeks before New Democrats choose the country’s opposition leader.
Thomas Mulcair is as anti-establishment as any NDP leadership candidate could be.
And he is still standing, barely winded, after enduring the latest — and last — public bid to shake him from his front-running perch.
There can be no question the party elders are shaken but there is, so far, little to indicate the Outremont MP is rattled.
The question to be answered when the party gathers in downtown Toronto two weekends from now to choose their leader is whether enough damage can be done to Mulcair to stop his growth after an expected first-place finish on the first ballot
How could they not bring up the European economy? After all, Vancouver is closer to Dublin than Tokyo!
Tokyo-Vancouver
Vancouver-Dublin
I got the same call by the sounds of it, and I did the same thing you did as well. = P
Lysiane Gagnon is already writing Brian Topp's political obituary - ouch!
It seems the press (at least in Québec) was less than impressed with Topp's debate performance yesterday.
Would that be the same Lysiane Gagnon who wrote an unintentionally hilarious column about how we shouldn't expect any surprises from Quebec in the 2011 federal election? Oh, whoops, it is.
Brian Topp is almost certainly not going to be the next NDP leader, but his career as a retail politician is only just beginning.
Oh, I certainly agree with you there! It's not outside the realm of possibility that her current column is as rich in its hilarity with hindsight.
Chantal Hebert writes in Le Devoir on the efforts of the party establishment to block Mulcair:
http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/344834/le-dernier-mille
The moderator's view :
Mulcair and Cullen have the momentum;
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Centre+leaning+candidates+moving/6286867/story.html
James Laxer confirms on Twitter that he is voting for Tom:
"Friends of mine are contacting me to say they've already voted for you. I'm about to do the same."
An endorsement from a left-wing icon like Jim Laxer kind of blows up the whole Mulcair-is-a-centrist narrative, doesn't it?
My friends in Vancouver can see Asia from their house.
I didn't know you associated with Republicans!
I remember back in the early 70s my mom was an avid follower of one of the afternoon soaps...'As the Stomach Churns,' in particular, or something like that. Being a young lad in those days, a few times I'd sit and watch with her. Then a couple of years ago I believe it was, I called in sick and spent the day channel surfing from underneath a quilt and happened across the show, which amounted to a nearly 40 year gap since I had last encountered the program. The central characters were the same, as were a couple of the living room sets, with updated furnishings and make-overs of course.
I don't know how influential Laxer remains in the party, but his early support for Mulcair was a big deal for me.
The membership is very strong and is not going to be led anywhere it doesn't want to go. Topp, certainly with Jack's blessing, wanted to give it an Obama makeover, stripping "New" from the party's name and socialism from the preamble, and couldn't get away with it. And that was with far more goodwill from the grassroots than Mulcair will enjoy.
What a load of crap Jeff. Personally, I don't give a rat's butt if socialism is in the preamble and to blame Topp is cheap. I actually really liked the suggested change with environment thrown in there - we are a changing party and not stuck in the Tommy Douglas past. geez,
Wilf @58:
With respect, what you are saying is implausible. Topp was asked the question twice, he couldn't answer, and it gave the viewer the clear impression that he didn't know how many Canadians made over $250 000. If that was some knid of communications strategy, it failed miserably.
Along with his openly admitting that he did not know how much was QC's provincial debt on Benoit Dutrizac, I am having more and more concerns about his capacity to be Leader of the Opposition.
http://www.985fm.ca/audioplayer.php?mp3=126166
Good for Nathan !!!
Another of Mulcair’s chief challengers, northern B.C. MP Nathan Cullen, during a post-debate media interview, rebuked Topp, Dewar and Nash for questioning Mulcair’s affinity with NDP values.
Cullen said that the notion that “some New Democrats are good New Democrats and others need to pass some kind of test is offensive to me. I think it’s wedge politics, only done within the family . . . I reject any offensive notion that there be some loyalty test.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/11/thomas-mulcair-ndp-debate/
Ha!
What a bunch of silliness the right-wing press will go to in their attempt to create divisions within the NDP.
Mulcair strength opens rift within ‘true’ NDPhttp://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/03/12/keith-beardsley-mulcair-s...
As the perceived front-runner Thomas Mulcair was the target of a number of barbs implying he isn’t a true believer in the NDP. The question now becomes, where do these critics go if Mulcair wins?
Brian Topp charged that Mulcair would take the NDP “backwards into a divisive and distracting debate about ourselves.” If Mulcair wins, will Topp fight him every step of the way, in effect creating the divisions he is forecasting?
Paul Dewar questioned Mulcair’s ability to win an election and questioned how he could “inspire people to vote for our party when you don’t seem to be inspired by our party.”
Will Dewar stay in caucus with an uninspiring leader who he feels can’t win? Will he join Topp in fighting a rear-guard action against the new leader in an attempt to preserve the values of the NDP as they see them? Or does Dewar resign?
At the very least it means there are now two senior NDP members and leadership contenders who disagree strongly with Mulcair’s view that the party has to change and modernize. How they react to a Mulcair victory will impact on the future direction of the party and on Mulcair’s chance for electoral success.
In addition, if Mulcair doesn’t control the party apparatus he could well find himself in the divisive situation Topp is predicting. If he moves to put his supporters into key party positions he will also risk creating a backlash.
Except that having watched the debate I honestly don't think that Topp or Dewar or Nash (or Ashton for that matter) were demanding a "loyalty test". I think they were asking Mulcair some prefectly legitimate questions about what he meant by some comments he had made and about where he wanted to take the party. I also thought Mulcair gave perfectly good answers. This is why we have leadership debates in the first place - so people see the leadership candidates get challenged and see how they respond.
Just as i predicted...at some point the media would drop the "NDP race is boring" meme and replace it with "NDP race is divisive". This was soooooo predictable.
MSM makes shit up just so they can have a story to report.
And then Topp and Dewar and Nash and Ashton (for that matter) replied: "Ok, thanks for clearing that up, Tom - it confirms that we're all on the same team, all with the same aims - and if you should win this race, know that I will happily serve in any capacity you and the party deem appropriate."
Well, ok, I didn't actually hear that. Because as all the debate moderators have said, the debates aren't for trying to unite and agree - they are to identify and magnify differences and distinctions.