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What should be the BARE MINIMUM expectations of a Mulcair government?
May 1, 2012 - 5:32am
I'd say they should be...and these should be ABSOLUTES...
1)NO austerity budgets;
2)NO war;
3)NO attacks on civil liberties or the right to protest.
If THOSE things can't be counted on, it simply couldn't be worth ELECTING an NDP government. Nothing could possibly make up for any of those three points being compromised-if they were, nothing different from a Harper governent could actually happen anyway.
What would anyone else say on this point?
Reversal of the Harper cuts to essential programs. Want a list?
That's a good one...and you should post that list so that everyone KNOWS what's been cut.
No more thievery of public assets for evil banksters
Banks Got $114 B from Governments During Recession
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/04/30/bank-bailout-ccpa.html
"Support for banks more substantial than Canadians were led to believe.."
I would think that if the NDP could restore in four years what was undone by corporate stooges in government in the same amount of time, that would be worthwhile voting for. And the same goes for each successive term in government for the NDP. And there is about 30 year's worth of undoing of social democracy in Ottawa for the NDP to hash through.
And it would probably take the same amount of time to undo what was undone by legislative maneuvering and passing of anti-progressive bills and laws and regulations. What the conservatives and Liberals did took so many man and woman hours in Parliament and so on. The NDP can't be expected to snap their fingers and make it so. We should expect the NDP to reverse the fascism within a reasonable amount of time. It took Tommy and the CCF five terms in government to create a province from scratch. Federally the NDP is looking at creating an entire country from the ashes of three decades worth of failed neoliberal ideology.
From the thread I linked to:
It's time to expect more from our government
excerpt:
"No opposition party has so far said that they are committed to reversing all the reactionary and destructive actions of this government. Yet this is what we should be demanding of them."
I'm simply saying that if it takes Steve half an hour to row the boat to the other side of the lake, we might expect Tom to take half an hour to row it back.
Great thread.
While I agree, Tom and Tom's party have to at least say that they will do this.
Waiting....
And I think we will be hearing more from the NDP on what they pledge to do. Patience is a virtue of royalty they say.
Exile harper.
Certainly a change in direction.
Not everything that is being undone can be put back but we should be able to expect replacements for some things that are not repairable and new directions we have not gone before.
I'll add solid steps to make the country more democratic reversing a decades trend to secrecy.
Concrete steps to reverse the re-direction of public wealth towards the wealthy. So defenetly no new tax cuts for high income earners and large corporations. In fact there should be substantial increases in tax rates and clamping down on tax havens on these groups with the money raised from that action directed towards additional funding for programs and tax cuts to lower and middle income earners.
Patience is a luxury that royalty can afford.
Bare minimum?
Nationalize the PMO.
immediate action on all aspects of enviromental concern
Thanks Fidel. I would be happy to see the NDP follow in Tommy's legislative path. His first term included sweeping changes to the rights of workers. As a minimum I expect them to restore the rights of working people by overhauling the federal labour laws and the federal employment standards. We need modern protections against global predatory capital that bullies and blackmails workers and communities. Those reforms don't even cost anything except political capital.
Do you think anyone is going to the polls to elect a government that vows to act so slowly that in 2013 we vow to get back to 2009 and if elected in 2017 we will revert to 2005. Hell to get back to the 1991 banking changes they need to be in government till 2030 something?
huh!
The mere hint of an aspiration toward the bare minimum is what people should be looking for. That way, if some bare minimum were set loose, it'll come as a pleasant surprise.
Sorry forgot the link.
http://www.dcf.ca/en/tommy_douglas.htm
___________________________________________
Soothsayers had a better record of prediction than economists
Nice retort, kropotkin. But face facts. Canada isn't ready for a Tommy Douglas. Let's start simple, with maybe Bob Rae or Ujjal Dosanjh or other similar progressive types. Let's balance budgets and suckhole to foreign investors. Let's show we know how to grow the dough.
The bad guys have rowed to the wrong side of the lake. We have to row our boat gently down the stream. Verily, verily, a better world is but a dream.
Three more years of Harper unless something that changes the game happens. Even a General Strike might not have the desired effect - but at least it'd show the bastards that we're pissed off.
Gee Unionist, Tommy rowed that side of the boat too, AND frequently explained the importance of it.
Cool. Paul Martin delivered big surpluses and no recessions. I think we can do a little better. And I know you think so too. This mythology that we'll be thrown out of office forever if we don't behave like neoliberals in our first term is getting a wee bit tiresome. That's why I thought some sarcasm and mockery was in order.
ETA: Oh, did I mention that Harper and Flaherty have delivered nothing but deficits and recession and unemployment and bankruptcies and plant closures... and no one even dreams of saying they're bad economic managers? Someone has to take the mythology by the horns, wrestle it to the ground, and euthanize it. Proving that we're fine responsible bankers is crap. Proving that we will take huge risks to act on the side of the working people and the marginalized sections of the population will win us respect and admiration and supports and votes forever.
Bullshit! I should flag this as offensive.
Just wondering, Fidel...what is your reaction to the three requirements I laid out(I agree, much more SHOULD be expected, but I was looking at a worst-come-to-worst situation)?
1)NO austerity budgets;
2)NO war;
3)NO attacks on civil liberties or the right to protest.
You would agree with all three of those...right?
That's fine with me, Ken. I was objecting to Unionist's rosy picture of Canada under the Liberals in the 1990s. Industry Canada and economist Pierre Fortin said this about Canada during the lost decade of the 1990s: "During the 1990s Canada's aggregate economic performance has been the worst since the Great Depression, and very nearly the worst among all industrialised countries."
Yes we remember the Liberals and their terrible austerity budget of 1995. Canada basically came to a standstill under the Liberals.
My post wasn't a response to the exchange between Unionist and yourself, for the record.
I'm not sure the lake analogy is the best one. Harper has thrown away most of the paddles and we are in rapids heading for a waterfall. It may not be possible to go back upstream, but we at least need to avoid going over the waterfall, maybe by finding an eddy. I think the idea is to find an alternative course that works better than what we had in 2005. If we try to go back to where we were we will not be addressing the real problems.
Yes I think we've lost hundreds of thousands of jobs that won't be coming back. They've replaced a lot of prosperous full-time jobs with lower paid non-unionized jobs, part-time and seasonal work. Somewhere more than $6 billion in wages have been sucked out of Ontario's economy alone. And the banks and foreign creditors have latched on for the ride. They would like very much to do to Ontario what they are trying to pull on Greece, Ireland, Iceland and so on.