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So...what WILL it take to swing Ontario to the NDP in 2015
April 8, 2012 - 7:38am
Well, if the post-Mulcair polls are at all accurate, it's still Ontario that stands between the NDP and a clear victory in the next federal election.
This thread is about figuring out how to break the stubborn grip of the old Liberal-Tory divide on its last major stronghold.
Let's have at it.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. Start recruiting candidates right now. Begin with the many great candidates who came in 2nd or strong 3rds last May. Give them training. Get caucus members to mentor them. Invite them to Ottawa regularly, make a big deal out of them so they can be reported on at home. Help them raise the maximum allowable funds for their 2015 campaign. Find ways for them to create local media buzz and attention. Get the campaign team volunteers in place and do a lot of this stuff with them as well.
If the NDP remains where it is in the polls there will be lots of competition for nominations, but it will be important for the NDP to also dance with the one who brung ya, and "invest" in these types of people first. Last minite, names on ballots won't do it this time. We are in a new era.
Eliminate corporate taxes for ISO certified manufacturers.
Exactly. Hard work beats the search for quick fixes every time.
An intangible for the party's prospects in Ontario is the outcome of next year's Quebec election.
I think the Conservatives are intending "national unity" to be a major theme of their campaign. (Really, could they run on their record?) Mulcair will be portrayed as a "closet separatist" and the Sherbrooke Declaration will be waved as evidence of the NDP's "pandering." But should the PQ win next year, "national unity" becomes Harper's dilemma much more so than Mulcair's. If separatism is again seen to threaten, much of the cause will be laid at the door of Harper's confrontational, reactionary regionalism. The NDP will be remembered as the vanquishers of the BQ, and Mulcair won't easily be portrayed as a separatist when there are real ones again in power in Quebec.
So what about Ontario? To Ontario will fall the choice of "saving Canada" by electing a truly national government.
Not to dismiss Ontario's imortance, but it also needs to be said that Western Canada is very important in this equation as well. The key reason the NDP is currently tied with the Conservatives is a surge in Western Canada, and Western Canada is where the Conservatives got their start. The Conservative lock on Western Canada is what allowed the Conservatives to form government in 2006 even without Ontario on board in a big way. Last time around, Ontario took a huge swing to the Conservatives, and that's what gave them their majority, but had Western Canada swung to the NDP in larger numbers, Harper would not have a majority no matter what happened in Ontario.
Ontarians won't vote NDP unless they are convinced the party will stand up for the workers, the disabled, the unemployed, the immigrants, the elderly, and all the other disadvantaged categories of people. Ontario, with its stagnating economy, declining manufacturing base, and Liberal government, is at the sharp end of the battle against the wave of neoliberal austerity that seeks to make us pay for the greed of the plutocracy.
Recruit all the candidates you like. Ontario voters are not going to warm to the NDP as long as they are saddled with a provincial NDP that caves in to the austerity agenda of the One Percent.
...so does that mean they'll vote for the "Workjers Communist Party" instead? The votes the NDP needs to gain at the federal level in Ontario are mainly from people who stuck with the Liberals in 2011 and for whom the penny still has not dropped that the Liberals are DEAD and that only the NDP can defeat Harper in 2015 - once people come to terms with that - the liberals vote in Ontario will fall into the teens and the NDP will be in contention with the Tories.
No...at least in small part because the CP and CP-ML probably still won't be able to afford to nominate more than a handful of candidates(and some of the current followers of the CP might revert to that party's 1940's tactic of voting Liberal just to stop the NDP).
They also won't vote for those parties because even most leftists think they're quaint-to-eccentric at best and delusional-to-unhinged at worst.
Those voters might just stay home, though-and that would do just as much damage.
A lot of those people, though, are CAW "strategic voting" types...and some of them STILL vote Liberal because they're mad at Bob Rae's old provincial government(it hasn't sunk into them yet that, at this moment, they are now expressing their grudge agaisnt Bob Rae by voting for a party led by...Bob Rae-but let's leave that aside for the moment).
I don't think that many of the potential Liberal-to-NDP switchers are uptight "anti-socialist" types...THAT sort of voters will either just vote Liberal no matter what(while dreaming dreams of the reincarnation of C.D. Howe)or end up crossing over to the Harpercrites on "free enterpriser party" grounds.
The NDP is going to be seen as more "radical" than the Liberals no matter how much "mainstreaming" Mulcair does. The only way to REALLY take the sting out of attacks on the party's image as radical is for its leader and candidates to actually stand up and say
"Hell yeah, we're radical...and here's why that's a good thing!"
Treating the core values as an asset rather than a liability is always going to be a better approach than the politics of repentance.
The party should be proud to challenge the Harperite approach to foreign policy...
It should be proud to speak for the 99% against the 1%...yes, this might annoy some of the "winners" in the economy, but the "winners" don't vote for parties with progressive policies anyway.
And it should also support the ideas of alter-globalization...the idea that, yes, it's an integrated economy and we're probably stuck with that, but that doesn't have to mean letting that economy be defined on multinational corporation terms-not because those terms hurt somebody in some far off country, but because most Canadians lose on those terms.
That's how you win voters over-showing leadership by proposing bold ideas.
Amen to that.
True and everything I said about what needs to happen in Ontario could apply to every other region, well except Quebec, where the NDP now has to build the infrastructure around elected members, rather than use the infrastructure to build up unelected candidates.
My read on the stats in many ridings last election was WAY more folks voted against the Conservatives...but votes were split...
To begin: Stop appealing to Ontarians as 'ordinary' or 'average' voters; acknowledge that Ontario politics is every bit as 'nuanced' as Quebec's (perhaps even more so, as many enjoy it's multicultural richness); that it's 'Golden Horseshoe' contains almost as many individuals as the population of Quebec; that Ontarians are equally passionate about Canada; that Confederation is not centered around one provincial entity; that the Charter enshrined the rights of all Canadians, notwithstanding the inconvenient truth that, currently, it is not totally in effect; and, not least: the NDP needs to address the fact that so many Ontarians actually support Harper-- it begs the question: Pourquoi? Ditch the notion of asymmetrical federalism. It's a non-starter in Ontario.
The biggest challenge to overcome in my view is Media Bias...
Most major media are pro Conservative....so that is going to shape voters views
* The exeption is the Star...and parts of of the CBC which are Liberal..No major media are pro NDP
Not only is that advice completely wrong-headed, but it will return the NDP to fourth-party status in 2015.
It will be Meech Lake redux in the ROC.
Yup. I've been very impressed hearing Mulcair speak about going to Quebec voters and winning big, and he wants to specifically take that approach here in Western Canada as well.
Harper already decided to recognize Quebec as a nation - so asymmetry is already the law of the land thanks to Stephen Harper.
Whatever Harper said about 'nation' is not the law of the land. Paying lip service to soft nationalism is not an endorsement of the Sherbrooke Declaration. Besides, there are other 'nations' in Canada-- including within Quebec that are also distinct. Let the NDP stand for First Nations' self-government, and control of their natural resources, if it it truly believes in self-determination.
Blather all you want hyperventilating about Quebec. It won't do any good. Your Liberal friends still delude themselves into thinking they can win back Quebec so i think that over the next few years - whatever the NDP says about Quebec and francophone rights - the Liberals will say "ME TOO!"
It would be a good idea to recognize First Nations self-government-but only right-wing types are insisting on the Clarity Act and the federalist status quo. Nobody who shares NDP values wants the old,discredited Trudeau federalism back. And you know that backing the Clarity Act means that the NDP would lose every seat in Quebec forever...since thers' no such thing as a left francophone federalist there.
Why are you against asymettrical federalism? You know perfectly well that it's that or Quebec leaves...and that nothing short of Sherbrooke can keep Quebec from leaving. Most Canadians accept that-other than hard-line Harper types. You can't find anybody backing the labour movement or peace or defending First Nations rights that take your position on the issue.
Oh, and Quebec is just as multicultural as Ontario, so don't act like multiculturalism is ONLY something Ontarians prize.
This thread is about a prospective NDP strategy to win votes in Ontario. If their party's brain trust thinks that it can accomplish that by advocating more autonomy and Constitutional exemptions for Quebec, in the present economy, it's lost touch with reality. As for the Liberals, they're more likely to merge with a Red Tory rump, as a result of the likely fracking of the present CPC configuration, than join with a party that has clearly divided itself into distinct polarizations. Much can happen in the next three years, but the way to power is via Ontario, which appears to be moving further to the right, as it's manufacturing sector bleeds jobs to American right-to-work states, while both oil prices and the Canadian dollar increase.
The way to win is to focus on jobs, jobs, jobs...
Pre Harper economics,....Ontario was a wealthy province...
...Now for the first time in our history we are getting a welfare cheques from the Feds! ( Think about that!!!)
...Harper claims he is managing the economy well...
But the emperor has no clothes..but he has not been challenged on it...
There are more unemployed people is Ontario right now than ever in our history...
He is managing the economy well, for Alberta...but Harper economics have gutted our province
To do that a deep war chest and serious fundraising is neeeded...Harper is rolling in oil patch money...and he just cut the party subsidy...
The NDP could do a broadbased intersectoral consultation to come up with a strategic Jobs Strategy...
Meech Lake was NOT asymmetrical federalism! It would have given the same powers to all provinces. That's why it was a failure.
I don't see constitutional issues as being very important in the political debate for the immediate future. Possibly if the NDP remains in the lead for some time and has to start answering more detailed questions about how it's going to govern. Even then, probably not until the PQ wins the next Quebec election should those polls hold as they are and shows some sort of willingness to move toward a referendum.
The Distinct Society Clause, together with the opposition of First Nations, scuppered Meech, despite the political elite's best efforts to coerce its success. Trudeau was right about 'weaklings' in power.