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.
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001-2013 the authors
Syndicate
Absolutely correct JD
And yes Quebec was the main story for the NDP in the last election, or hadn't some people noticed!
There is one other thing for some unexplicable reason, which has not received much coverage - must be an NDP thingy - charisma. Yes, of course it's not the only thing, but it can be huge in election campaigns, or hasn't anyone heard of Rene Levesque or Pierre Ellott Trudeau.
quebec is the main story, in that, mulcair is the only candidate who has no work to do in quebec AND still holds everything. he's a household name in quebec and the most popular politician in the procinve, quebec is in his dna (literally, he comes from a very long line of quebec politicians) so that all he has to do is focus on the rest of the country, something all the other candidates have to do to. the quebec media's line is certainly valid, and if the ndp establishment - after such a remarkable showing - is determined to prevent him from ascending to the purple, and they manage to convince the membership, quebecois can't but reflect on that. but i still don't like the sort of line that we're seeing here, it's as ignorant of the ndp's history and internal dynamics as many ndp members seem to be of quebec's history and internal dynamics.
There's also the reasonable question: Why not have a leader from Quebec? The NDP has already had leaders from the West, Ontario and the Atlantic. Isn't it about time?
And if Mulcair loses, what does that prove?
It proves he miscalculated in his positioning vis a vis the party members. Topp did not define Mulcair as a candidate in this contest, Mulcair is wholly responsible for his campaign. The NDP leadership has long been Mulcair's to lose. If he fails to win on Saturday he can blame himself, not Topp, Broadbent, the NDP establishment, members from Ontario and BC, the unions, Babble, or anyone else.
Exactly.
I'm really uneasy about the fact that Mulcair is going to have ~80-90% of the support in Quebec.
That means that if he loses, Quebec in essence had no part in selecting the leader.
The Quebec media will do their homework. If the next leader is not Tom, they will cover the leader of the official opposition. The NDP did alright in Quebec led by a Toronto MP, and another one could do as well. No one can predict how the public will react to the next leader based on a one member one vote contest withon the party.
A Toronto MP from Québec, who understood Québec. It is certainly possible for a non-Québecois(e) to understand the nuanced relationship between Québec and Canada, but so far in this race I have seen nothing from most of the contenders to indicate anything other than tone-deafness on the province.
It seems that the members and supporters in Québec agree - according to CROP, Mulcair has 90% among them, and Topp the remainder.
If Tom loses, I certainly hope I'm wrong, but I can't help but see how it would be perceived as anything other than a rejection. That's not a Québec thing: when Dave Barrett lost after BC delivered half of the caucus to the Party, BC felt rejected. And Barrett was nowhere near to winning 90% of BC members' support in that race.
Simply put, Tom is the ONLY candidate with significant support in EVERY region of the country.
this is true, but realistically, it would take a household name like mulcair to reproduce the insane - and demographically inconsistent - levels of ndp support. a good ndp leader would be very happy just to turn in the natural dozen ndp seats in the province of quebec. think about the difference between alexa's huge breakthrough in the maritimes and what we have there with subsequent leaders. basically, mulcair would be like alexa - able to maintain the support - and unlike her - having a strong national appeal. all the other (including topp) would be happy just to get the demographically consistent seats, or the seats with unusually popular mps (brosseau, for example).
this is a major consideration when we think about our next leader. as turmel mentioned - all policy has to be approved by the federal council, so it's not like mulcair could radically change things. we're electing a figurehead. fair enough to disagree on the direction of the party, but if you're winning-oriented, everyone but mulcair is a huge risk.
Duncan,
I am afraid "vous vous bercez d'illusions".
The people who were arguing that there would be severe consequences if Meech failed were right; the 1995 referendum was "the severe consequence". Had Meech passed, sovereignty would have been in the deep freeze and the real backbone of the YES campaign--Lucien Bouchard--would probably have been in federal politics and possibly become Prime Minister of Canada.
It is very foolish to dismiss the voices warning of "dire consequences" if Mulcair is defeated. They were proven right in 1990 and I believe they will be right again.
You can argue that Mulcair is "too big a risk" (although most people seem to agree that the real ideological differences b/w the candidates are way overblown) and it is better to take a chance on Topp or Nash. Perahps they will overcome the enromous deficit with which they will start. But you cannot deny the very real dangers that exist.
BTW, the QC media will, at least at first, tune out the NDP if Mulcair isn't elected. Have you not seen the warning signs? Your own candidate, Peggy Nash, isn't even invited on "The telejournal". None of the candidates have been invited on TLMEP, while both Bob Rae and Justin Trudeau have made appearances.
That Toronto M.P. was born a Quebecker (if not quite a québécois), his father was a Québec politician,AND he reached out to Quebec in an extraordinary way when there was only one MP from that province. Any elected leader who is from outside Quebec will have a hell of lot to prove to the voters who left the Bloc largely because of Jack the Pied Piper and Tom his deputy.
Thanks for being the voice of sanity, KenS.
And it took 8 years for Québec to warm up to him. Is the Party (or Canada, for that matter) willing to wait until 2020 for Peggy Nash or Brian Topp to kick Stephen Harper out?
Also a very sane comment.
There are far more voters in Canada than there are in the NDP. The NDP membership rolls are at less than 150k. About 15 MILLION people voted in the last election. At best, the members are 1% of the voting population. Probably more like a half a percent, considering our turnout won't be anywhere close to all members voting.
If Mulcair signed up 10000 Quebec voters, and lost the nomination... what does that mean about how the new leader feels about Quebec?
Nothing.
But if you keep repeating it long enough, that "the NDP hates its Quebec members", that "Quebec members have no say", that "Tom is the only one who cared about Quebec, and none of the other candidates do"... then yes, we can expect Quebeckers to eventually get mad.
The truth is there's far more to democracy than what happens in a leadership race. It's supposed to be about representation. If our candidate represents the concerns of Quebeckers, they'll win. If they don't, they'll lose.
So please, please, please, stop feeding the narrative our opponents are using to provoke an NDP collapse.
my mom was carrying on about this today earlier and I didn't know what she was really talking about.
Somethin' about 'centre of the universe' after getting an email from Brian Topps campaign saying he was first amongst Ontario voters and that they screwed BC over before and not again. And "their" not going to do it to Quebec again either. I have learned so much this leadership campaign about the NDP members it hurts my miind.
Topp's recent strategy is making it quite difficult to get excited about the prospect of "uniting" behind him if he wins leadership. He is, for all intents and purposes, orchestrating a smear campaign against Mulcair that started early in the campaign, climaxed with Broadbent last week, and is tailing off into the convention. It's one thing to highlight philosphical differences between yourself and another candidate, its another to entirely invent a philosophical position for your opponent and then argue that position is incongruent with New Democratic values.
It's not just a meme that our opponents are using; it's a reality we have to contend with.
In any normal leadership race, no party would even consider selecting a candidate that had almost no support in one of the major regions of the country. The only thing muddying this in our race is that 6 of the 7 candidates have negligible support in one region (5 if you consider Topp's support to be "significant").
That is a fact. And it is also problem.
Putting our heads in the sand and denying it will not make it go away. Repeating the excuse that it is just name recognition or hoping that the Québec media will "do their homework" and the province will suddenly warm to your favourite candidate at some point before 2015 will not make it so.
I understand that there are elements within the Party that are not yet used to the new Québec influence, but the fact remains that 6 of the 7 leadership candidates failed to connect with Québec.
If we were considering selecting a leader with nearly no support in the West or in Ontario, people would be up in arms! But for some reason, potentially having a leader with no support in Quebec is okay.
That, my friends, is pure folly!
Good article in the Star today about a group called Doctors for Fair Taxation who advocate higher taxes for the wealthy in Canada (which would include the doctors themselves). Good to see people echoing Topp's and Cullen's call for fair taxation. Too bad though that the other leadership candidates have shied away from this.
I think this boils down to what I see as one of the tragic flaws of current NDP discourse. We always put the means ahead of the end in the way we communicate. We talk about the process, not about the outcome we're striving toward. Of course progressives know that taxes on the rich probably need to be increased, but instead of starting with the "why" part of that equation, we always jump right to the "how" part, leaving us open for "tax and spend" accusations from the centre and the right.
In my view, the reason the "other leadership candidates have shied away" isn't because they don't think the rich need to pay more taxes, it's because they'd like the debate to start with what we're trying to accomplish. Instead of starting every discussion with "we need the rich to pay more taxes" and "we need to nationalize a bunch of industries", we need to start with outcome language: fair and just society, equality of opportunity, appropriate distribution of resources, efficient provision of public services.
And I have heard all of those things from the other candidates.
I don't think it will be interesting at all. More of the establishment protecting their own instead of keeping their eyes on the prize: Beating Harper and the Tories in 2015.
Duncan, I wd be interested in your view of today's CROP poll that shows Mulcair preferred by 46% of Quebecers and Nash by precisely 1%. Do you really think Nash would be as competitive as Mulcair in Quebec?
Exactly right, Duncan. Mulcair has the most name recognition in Quebec, but by 2015, whoever is leader will have received plenty of coverage and have plenty of name recognition.
I think it's also worth pointing out that having a Quebecer as leader doesn't always help one in Quebec. Look at Stephane Dion. Or even Jean Chretien, for that matter, who never won all that many seats in Quebec.
(Not to mention the fact that, in spite of the insinuations of some ardent Mulcair supporters, Mulcair is NOT the only Quebecer in the race.)
Peggy Nash has the endorsements of SIX Quebec MPs. Negligible support? I wouldn't say so.
Brian Topp has the endorsements of SIX Quebec MPs. Negligible support? I wouldn't say so.
Niki Ashton has the endorsements of THREE Quebec MPs. Negligible support? I wouldn't say so.
Paul Dewar has the endorsements of THREE Quebec MPs. Negligible support? I wouldn't say so.
If you want to characterize Nathan Cullen and Martin Singh as having negligible support in Quebec, I'm okay with that. But to say that the four candidates above have negligible support in Quebec is to be absurdly dismissive of the EIGHTEEN Quebec MPs who have endorsed AGAINST Mulcair. Certainly there's no excuse for calling the support for either Nash or Topp negligible.
mulcair may not be the only quebecer in the race, but he's the only one of the two who actually made his career there, works and lives in french, and he's been a high profile figure in quebec for 20 years. brian topp hadn't done more than visit the province for christmas during that time, and has zero quebec support outside of the concordia university set, and a few of the suddenly important quebec section types. household name and most popular politician in the province (mulcair) or a complete unknown who can make claims being from quebec, but has no credibility earned in the province (topp). if holding quebec is the top priority, better to go with the guy that everyone already knows and likes, and who also just happens to be the province's most popular active political figure.
oh, and dion/chretien is a false cognate - there's no sense in which we can compare today's political situation with that in the aughts or nineties.
again, if you think it's a good trade-off, that's fine. but don't kid yourself that topp could keep more than the dozen natural ndp seats in quebec and maybe some in which the mp is personally popular. or that a nash leadership wouldn't see us fighting to hold onto our montreal core seats. this is the universal consensus among virtually all observers familiar with quebec politics.
and i think winston was referring to the poll that angus reid just dropped, finding topp with 6% support, nash with 1% support (which is lower than simple error) and mulcair with monolithic support. 1 or 6% support is negligible in my books.