The future of politics in B.C.

NorthReport wrote:

.... and perhaps some NDP voters stayed home because they thought as the polls were telling them it was in the bag.

In 2009 the NDP received 40,000 less votes than it did in 2005 and now in 2013 the NDP received almost 50,000 less votes than it did in 2009 and this all occured while BC Liberal governments were gradually losing popularity. Where have all these former NDP voters gone? If the NDP could get back the support it had in 2005 it would have won this election. BC's population is growing so these numbers should be rising. Are NDP supporters disproportionately moving away from the province? Voter apathy and vote splitting are killing the NDP. The rights en masse move away from the BC Conservatives toward the BC Liberals changed the total complexion of the election. The NDP needed the same kind of movement from the Greens. An NDP-Green merger might be a good idea as long as it comes with an agreement to support fair voting / proportional representation.

It's hard to believe but the NDP under Bob Skelly got 825,000 votes way back in 1986. That's almost 200,000 more votes way back when the population was much smaller than today. The NDP's main opponent isn't the SocreLiberals. Its left of centre voter apathy.

The question is why don't left leaning voters see enough in the NDP platform to think it is worth supporting.  Nothing for people on disability, an almost insulting pittance for people on welfare not much of anything for students loans and no reduction in tuition. They also promised tiny increases in other service areas that have been devastated by Liberal cuts.  They promised to balance the books within four years. Of course to have any chance of success the party cannot talk about the systemic problems in our system and try to educate the next generation of voters and get them dreaming of a better world.

I can't for the life of me figure out why the party's voters are apathetic and why it can't attract a new generation of voters to the NDP fold.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

The question is why don't left leaning voters see enough in the NDP platform to think it is worth supporting.  Nothing for people on disability, an almost insulting pittance for people on welfare not much of anything for students loans and no reduction in tuition. They also promised tiny increases in other service areas that have been devastated by Liberal cuts.  They promised to balance the books within four years. Of course to have any chance of success the party cannot talk about the systemic problems in our system and try to educate the next generation of voters and get them dreaming of a better world.

I can't for the life of me figure out why the party's voters are apathetic and why it can't attract a new generation of voters to the NDP fold.

The voters worry about deficit, debt, and its resulting higher taxes. The NDP has to show how it will create the economic activity and prosperity that will support social inclusion and cohesion.

JKR wrote:

The voters worry about deficit, debt, and its resulting higher taxes. The NDP has to show how it will create the economic activity and prosperity that will support social inclusion and cohesion.

Middle class voters worry about the deficit and resulting higher taxes. What is the point of a left wing party if it is only focused on providing another electoral option to the them?  The NDP in this election said nothing about creating jobs or protecting jobs but they did talk about slaying the deficit dragon.  It sure didn't look like it worked to me.

If the party stands for an environmentally sound economy it can't be half pregnant about things like LNG. It needed to explain why the whole thing is a money pit just like the North East coal debacle.  We've seen the movie in BC before and it doesn't have a happy ending but the party decided that they had to go along with a phoney scam that its base doesn't support.  The facts were readily available to run a reasoned campaign about LNG and the other oil and gas plays.  The rural areas are going to lose in the long run if those projects go ahead.

I think they should change it too the ATAP party (All Things to ALL People) or maybe the MCM party (Middle Class Centrist).

I agree totally with this statement of yours. I only wish they would try doing that. However when you fear being labelled a socialist it is hard to talk about the benefits of socialism in other countries.

JKR wrote:

The NDP can maintain their left-wing support of social equality and still include support for economic prosperity. The northern european social democratic countries have proven that way works. A left-wing party can establish a balanced integrated approach that can gain support across class lines.

NorthReport wrote:

Well don't you think that might be a bit difficult for construction sector unions, seeing as, at least the way the media portrayed it,  the Liberals ran on more jobs and the NDP ran against construction jobs?

I'm not sure I follow. Organizing workers (or any constituency) is rarely - if ever - easy, but that's what a labour movement is supposed to do.

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

NorthReport wrote:

Well don't you think that might be a bit difficult for construction sector unions, seeing as, at least the way the media portrayed it,  the Liberals ran on more jobs and the NDP ran against construction jobs?

 

I'm not sure I follow. Organizing workers (or any constituency) is rarely - if ever - easy, but that's what a labour movement is supposed to do.

And for all the hand-wringing by union bureaucrats about how hard organizing is or how cumbersome it is to get certified, at least you won't get beaten or thrown in jail for trying to organize, something that was the case in this country a century ago.

Left Turn, that's a good quote from Charlie and a lot to agree with--mainly that BC, like Canada, is largely a conservative province/nation. But I think he misses the point with his PPS: yes, there is a certain sense of retreat away from the hard work of changing people's minds and the superficially rewarding sideeffect of regaining moral superiority and sharing it with other like-minded people, but the real hard truths have to be learned by centre-left people who believe a lot of the same things as movement/activist types, at least broadly: that elections will never save you. Even if the NDP had won, what was on the docket that makes life better -- I mean really better -- for working people.

For me, I picked out the 20% reduction in child care costs and commitment to collective bargaining, but there was plenty missing. And even so, student groups, unions, etc. were doing very little to hold the NDP to their interests pre-election. That lesson has to be taught to people who need to learn it. Then we can start expanding our ideologies and outlooks.

ghoris, with all due respect, there are enough asian voters in greater now that the NDP could not have won in some of the ridings where it did win without winning significant votes from chinese and other asian voters. I personally delivered voting reminders to several asian households that had been identified as NDP supporters in Burnaby-Edmonds.

I categorically reject any hint of the racist notion that the ndp lost the election because of asian voters. I'm more concerned about all the rednecks, cowboys and social conservatives that voted Liberal. Look at any results map, and you'll see that the middle and northeast of the province are solid red. Not many asians there.

The demographics at the NDP event at Canada Place were not indicative of how it looked on a lot of the ndp campaigns in the lower mainland. I have Mable Elmore as a friend on Facebook from the days when we were both involved in the Stopwar coalition, and throughout the campaign she posted pictures of groups of volunteers, most of whom were east asian or sout-east asian. Raj's volunteers on his campaign in Burnaby-Edmonds seemed to be an ethnically diverse group from what I saw when I was at his campaign office, not as diverse as Mabel's, but certainly more than the crowd at the convention centre.

Watching the election coverage and looking at photos of the two campaign headquarters taken on election night, I was struck by the fact that the NDP supporters at the Convention Centre seemed to be overwhelmingly caucasian and aging. By contrast, the Liberals seemed to have a more diverse, somewhat more youthful crowd at the Wall Centre. I have long believed that the NDP needs to make a concerted effort to reach out and engage with new Canadians. Harper has been extremely successful at doing this federally and it arguably won him his majority.

I find it very telling that a number of visible minority NDP candidates went down to defeat in ridings with significant new Canadian, Asian or South Asian populations (eg Gabriel Yiu losing to Suzanne Anton in Vancouver-Fraserview, Jagrup Brar losing to Peter Fassbender in Surrey-Fleetwood, George Chow losing to Moira Stilwell in Vancouver-Langara). Even Mable Elmore had a surprisingly close call, again in a riding with a significant Chinese population. The NDP lost incumbents in seats with significant new Canadian/Asian/South Asian populations, such as Delta North, Coquitlam-Maillardville and Port Moody-Coquitlam. 

The reality in BC is that the demographics are changing, and if the NDP cannot reach out to new Canadian voters, it may very well be doomed for the foreseeable future. The same thing has been said of the Republicans in the US and their inability to expand their base beyond 'old white people', and in particular, their failure to appeal to Latino voters.

I am not suggesting that the NDP take a page out of the Liberal 'ethnic quick wins' playbook - far from it. But in my view, the NDP has got to do a better job of engaging with new Canadians and some of the ethno-cultural communities that currently support the Liberals to a greater degree than the NDP.

The NDP can go to hell as far as I am concerned now.  They are done in BC for probably 16-20 years.

The NDP did not do anything really. They should of been hammering the Lieberals on their record. Yet they just sat back thinking they had it in the bag.   Maybe in another 12-20 they may get another chance to govern but i know it won't be in my lifetime. With the other conservative party done and Greens rising the Liberals are in for next two to three elections for sure, if not longer.

I know NDP'ers can be pretty optimistic but enough is enough.  Two piss poor campaigns in a row and with the Lieberals  record this should of been a romp so I will also no longer be donating to the NDP anymore. How can one donate to a party that is not serious about wanting to win and act like amatuers?

NorthReport wrote:

First of all we have the by-election coming up to get Clark back into the Legislature.

Sometimes opposition parties don't run as the results are a foregone conclusion.

The Greens however might consider running, and if you think Weaver's election made some noise, imagine if the Greens came second in the by-election which may be in Richmond East, West Vancouver, or Coleman's riding.

There's still hope yet. Maybe the opposition can run a strong campaign, defeat Clark again, and repeat until the Liberals lose government!

It's worth a try, what else is there to lose at this point?

ghoris wrote:

Watching the election coverage and looking at photos of the two campaign headquarters taken on election night, I was struck by the fact that the NDP supporters at the Convention Centre seemed to be overwhelmingly caucasian and aging.

My wife and I commented on that as well after she got home from scrutineering and the vote count.  The crowd was also heavily trade unionist and we know that because of all the faces we recognized.

However we also live in Burnaby Lougheed where Jane Shin won and the population is almost 50% immigrants with Chinese immigrants being the largest immigrant community. I suspect that the desire to have the first MLA of Korean descent elected meant that many voters from that community voted for the NDP for the first time. The people working on her campaign on election day were a diverse bunch but that is what the Burnaby NDP is like at all three levels of government. The NDP won three out of four seats in the city.  If it was all old white people we would not elect MP's and MLA's and the Mayor and ever seat on city council and school board for the last two elections.

The NDP is as inclusive for minorities as it is for anyone. The problem is the tight central control that is wielded by the insider cadre that has run the party for over 15 years. They don't care what race someone is but only if they are willing to accept the status quo leadership of the party.  If not then they will do what ever it takes to ensure that the "dissidents" are marginalized.

What a great response to the election. He's a fighter, that Eby.

Maybe this is the way to an NDP government? Ten failed by-elections.

Im curious but does the premier have to be a sitting MPP? Or Prime Minister for that matter. Is there a law covering this?

It doesn't matter that most British Columbians who showed up at ballot boxes voted against Clark's Liberals. This paternalistic phony-majority dictatorship will do whatever they will because the electoral fraud machine handed them 110% of political power. The party that won 21.3% of eligible vote will now proceed to return favours to their corporate backers in B.C. and apparently Alberta, too.

One of Clark's general election campaign planks is support for electoral reform. I wonder if she will conveniently forget this when re-peddling herself in a by election now that her party has a phoney-baloney majoriity?

Alberta Observer wrote:

Thank you JKR for some really interesting and informative analysis. Really helps put some things into perspecitve instead of some of the knee-jerk comments to what just happened. (albeit, in this case, totally understandable shock reactions).  Everyone needs clear headed, factual analysis in order to figure out what happened and what should be the next course of action.

Thanks again for your input.  

I think it's important that people look at the underlying factors that underlie politics. The NDP's ideology is mostly post-modernist and the NDP's leadership are decidedly post-modernist but the general population is mostly modernist and somewhat traditionalist. The centre-right parties are also mostly modernist with the Conservatives leaning more toward traditionalism. Spiral dynamics and integral theory explain a lot of this stuff. 

The NDP's post-modern viewpoint blinds it to where most of the population is at. Being post-modernist the NDP wants to establish a more egalitarian society that stresses equality of opportunity even to the point of imposing egalitarianism on a population that does not share its post-modern outlook. The prevailing consciousness of our time is still modernist which stresses prosperity and achievement and is blind to the problem of inequality caused by its approach. Post-modernists are right in seeing that modernism has inherent flaws that are causing global destruction but it's important for post-modernists to remember that post-modernist society exists because of the prosperity of the modernist society. This is where the post-post modernist approach, also known as the integral approach, comes in. The integral approach stresses that higher levels of consciousness like post-modernism have been established through an evolutionary process that went through other levels of consciousness like modernism, traditionalism, ethnocentricism etc....

The take away from this all seems to be that post-modern consciousness is moving one notch up toward integral consciousness. What makes integral awareness so revolutionary is that it is the first level of consciousness that respects other levels of consciousness, post-modern, modern, traditional, and ethnocentric and sees these other levels as being integral to the existance of itself. This election loss by post-modernists in BC can be viewed as the univerese's way of pushing post-modernists toward an integral consciousness that respects all other viewpoints as these viewpoints are all part of the overall evolution of consciousness.

Looking at the globe it would seem that places like social democratic Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands are getting the closest toward being integral post-post modernist societies.