NDP denies Andrea Horwath set to resign as leader

Did you known that real, live WOMEN actually live in Oshawa and Sudbury and Windsor (rumour has it that HALF of people in those communities are actually women!) and there might even be some real, live gays and lesbians in those places too! Who'd a thunk it?!

BTW: Immigrants were never an NDP core constituency in the past. There was a breakthrough of sorts when Jagmeet Singh won Bramalea-Gore Malton in 2011 on the strength of massive support from the Sikh community. In 2014 he won by a much increased majority and his coattails led to a huge increase in NDP support in the two other Brampton ridings as well. NDP support was also up sharply in heavily immigrant/visible minority York West and Etobicoke North and while the NDP missed again in Scarborough-Rouge River - the NDP carried the most heavily Tamil polls - if anything it looks like NDP roots in immigrant communities are consolidating. Sorry to rain on your victory lap.

terrytowel wrote:

Again these groups don't vote in a block.

NO KIDDING! so why do you persist in making sweeping generalizations about one party or another getting all of or losing all the "women's vote" or all of the "LGBT vote" etc...??

In this election, the NDP and Liberal and Green vote share all went up in tandem and the only place where there may have been a modest NDP to Liberal shift was in half a dozen inner city Toronto seats - elsewhere in the GTA the shift went the other way. The real key factor in the Liberals winning a majority was not about consolidating the so-called progressive vote (how could that be when the NDP and Greens gained more votes than the liberals did?) - what is the really untold story is the collapse of the PC vote across the suburban GTA and elsewhere. Hudak's plans scared away moderate PC voters many of whom voted for Harper in 2011 - some went NDP and even more went Liberal. 

The Liberal plan to suck up votes from the NDP was for the most part a failure. They lucked out on the Tory vote collapsing. In 2018 when Wynne will be radio-actively unpopular, they will not be so lucky. There are already rumours of teachers strikes across the province this fall...the honeymoon will be very very short.

terrytowel wrote:

Again at the end of the day it is about seat count, not the popular vote.

Yup, the compared with the 2011 election the NDP gained 4 seats, the Liberals gained 5 seats and the PCs lost 9 seats.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

The voting rate dropped so we don't know that NDP votes moved to the Liberals in any great degree. 

I thought the voting rate went UP not down in this election?

I think "terrytowel"'s "agenda" is quite obvious, he just wants to gloat and be as obnoxious and UNconstructive and demoralizing as possible.

I happen to know quite a few who did lend a vote to the Liberals to keep out Hudak. These votes were not in seats the NDP had a chance in this time but I am sure there were some who miscalculated and did this in Toronto.

I have not doubt that the NDP could attract a lot more votes with a good program and campaign. In fact the failure of this campaign is that this could have happened this time.

Rokossovsky wrote:

The traditional base of the NDP is the working class. Removing consumption taxes, and increasing corporate taxes in order to fund public service is to the NDP as apple pie is to America -- it is only some confused advocates of "charity" politics, like Judy Rebick who think that "expenditures" are more important than who is paying for what, and through what tax mechanism that is the key to redistribution of wealth through implementing progressive tax policy.

The right-wing is very focused on "value for dollars" in the public service, and this mentality needs to be challenged, because it puts the economic aspect ahead of making sure that people get the services they need. And public services in some cases need to be "inefficient" to be effective throughout the province, taking into account such things as providing quality services in small, isolated communities that can't rely on the same economies of scale you would find in a big city.

That does not mean that expenditures themselves are inherently progressive, as you point out. For example, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have higher incarceration rates of their citizens per capita than Ontario. Investments in affordable housing, for example, would have the impact of lowering the incarceration rate and generating cost savings, as incarceration is more expensive than affordable housing. But according to the "more expenditures is better" way of thinking, Manitoba and Saskatchewan are more progressive for spending more on their citizens than Ontario, and are on the right track. You need to look beyond dollars and cents and ask if people's needs are being met.

Rokossovsky wrote:

Horwath's campaign certainly had many faults, but on the key point of trying to regain the support of the traditional working class through addressing their economic needs was dead on the money.

And in many areas the Horwath approach was extremely successful. Indeed it has been a long time since the ONDP was the alternative vote to the Conservative in Western Ontario -- it is now.

Winning back the support of voters who have drifted to support the right out of disaffection with the status quo Liberal corruption, and an NDP that failed to address those concerns is in fact the only way the NDP can beat "strategic voting" grid lock.

This is a really important point, I think. I imagine the working class populist traditional support block of the NDP felt betrayed and left behind by their party when the NDP and trade unions shifted more towards support for causes like gay rights. They might even have felt much like the "progressive left" (as I guess we are supposed to call it - though  [url=http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael-laxer/2014/07/limiting-possible-... Laxer's latest on rabble[/url] gives a more critical perspective on the English-Canadian left in general as useless). Maybe the NDP can do provincially in Ontario what it did federally in Quebec, and win rural voters who could jsut as easily vote to the right as the left (CAQ, in Quebec). 

Things like transit "revenue tools," in retrospect, were a poor idea, for sure. I imagine that people like David Miller were trying to manoeuvre within what they saw as the limits of the possible. It's better, I think, to demand the 'impossible.' Laxwer's piece speaks of free transit in Tallin - no reason such demands can't be advanced here, theya re no less absurd than the demand for free university tuition. I'd have loved to see Toronto municpal progressives take a card from Porto Alegre or San Francisco or Montreal counterparts rather than compromise in the way Miller did. 

I'm not in Ontario. I have no particular stake here. It just seems to me, as someone observing from outside, that Horwath's attempt to return to the traditional NDP base left many who are campaigning for social justice for the poorest and most marginalized feeling that the NDP was leaving them. I support a party, Quebec Soldaire, that has limited support at the voting booth but has built the support it has up from grassroots social movements against racism, against poverty, for better health care, etc. It demands the 'impossible' at campaign time and betrween all campaigns. It's far from perfect, of course, but it's an experiment that has made some difference. The NDP is something different. It does not look, from my (I'm sure less informed) perspective, like a party attempting to speak for a 'co-operative commonwealth' or any other form of social transformation. It appears to have opted in Ontario for the opposite track to QS, treating some social movements (I"m aware you problematize this concept, Ross, but that's another thread) as outsiders rather than as allies. Fine. It may be the best tactic electorally, but it should hardly surpise or anger anyone in the NDP that the result is to leave many who are vaguely NDP-identified feeling that the NDP does not speak to their issues. 

A bit of an aside... does anyone know where the ONDP fall convention will take place?

I do not for a second believe that people with low incomes are more homophobic. Poor choice of example on my part, clearly. I do tinmk there's a sense among some people that switched from voting (eg) NDP to Reform felt the party had moved from their issues to others that were of less concern to their lives, that's the only point I wanted to make there. 

I think the point that Swallow may be trying to get at is captured by Slavoj Zizek in this piece: How capital captured politics

Zizek wrote:

This, then, is where we stand with regard to democracy, and the Tisa agreement is a perfect example. The key decisions concerning our economy are negotiated and enforced in secret, and set the coordinates for the unencumbered rule of capital. In this way, the space for decision-making by the democratically elected politicians is severely limited, and the political process deals predominantly with issues towards which capital is indifferent (like culture wars).

Precisely why corporate tax increases, no matter how small, are a fundamental challenge to the premise of neo-liberal corporate domination of the economy, because it asserts the economic sovereignty of local governments over international capital in the local domain under the control of civil government.

terrytowel wrote:

Andrea welcomed Tim Hudak back to the legisature

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath had blamed Hudak’s controversial promise to cut 100,000 public-service positions for sparking a wave of strategic voting that helped the Liberals and hurt her party.

But on Thursday, Horwath was magnanimous.

“There’s really nothing to do about it at this point. The people have spoken, we have a new legislature,” she said.

“He’s back to take his seat, which as an elected member he should be doing. I welcomed him back.”

So what? At the end of the day, regardless of what you think of their political ideology, each MPP is there because (s)he won the support of members in his or her constituency and has a mandate to sit in the chamber on that basis. There's a great deal more respect that MPPs have for people of other parties than you would think by listening to the media.

terrytowel wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

terrytowel wrote:

Andrea welcomed Tim Hudak back to the legisature

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath had blamed Hudak’s controversial promise to cut 100,000 public-service positions for sparking a wave of strategic voting that helped the Liberals and hurt her party.

But on Thursday, Horwath was magnanimous.

“There’s really nothing to do about it at this point. The people have spoken, we have a new legislature,” she said.

“He’s back to take his seat, which as an elected member he should be doing. I welcomed him back.”

So what? At the end of the day, regardless of what you think of their political ideology, each MPP is there because (s)he won the support of members in his or her constituency and has a mandate to sit in the chamber on that basis. There's a great deal more respect that MPPs have for people of other parties than you would think by listening to the media.

Did I say there was something wrong with that?

More ominous, I should say was the very fond welcome the Liberal Party gave to Dalton McGuinty when he appeared in the legislature to celebrate the Liberal majority. McGuinty, according to the Toronto Star bureau chief responsible for a great deal of Horwath bashing was "malinged", which means basically unjustifiably "smeared", as if critics of McGuinty had no basis for their criticism. Amazingly the Star managed to find no one on hand to offer counter-comment, and according to the article McGuinty "redeemed" -- I guess by benefit of the fact that the Liberal were able to bury him for long enough to hang on to governance.

But, like a jack in the box, there he is, writing a biography with the help of none-other than Ian Urquart, former Toronto Star Queens Park bureau chief, Benzie's predecessor.

Quote:

And when Wynne embraced him on the floor of the legislature, a crescendo of news photographers’ cameras clicking in unison heralded the revivification of Dalton James Patrick McGuinty, Jr.

Geoff wrote:

Four years of Hudak-lite.  Well done, Ontario voters.

Those dumb dumb voters. They thought there's a difference between Wynne and Hudak. God are they dumb. God are we smart. Wish we didn't need to deal with those dumb people.

Rokossovsky wrote:

Indeed McGuinty reduced the provincial election campaign to six weeks, just to reinforce this effect. The electorate simply don't know what hit them when elections roll around. 

Interestingly, the narrative of the sell off of Ontario assets was getting media attention prior to the election, but this disappeared during the election and then reappeared after the polls, and now the "austerity" aspects of the Liberal plan are being brought out again. Its convenient to have the media softening up the public with dire warnings about the debt, and the message that this is what they really voted for anyway.

Useful idiots like Sid Ryan running around calling the budget progressive set the tone, and the fact that Hudak and Wynne's budget came from Don Drummond's infamous report should have been enough to convince voters of the similarity between the two, but they can be forgiven not knowing, since no one really bothered to tell them.

Actually, Ontario election campaigns have been 28 days long for as far back as i can remember - this one was actually significantly longer because Wynne announced she would dissolve on a Friday and the writ officially dropped on the following Wednesday and the election was postponed an additional week due to a Jewish holiday - so the 2014 Ontario election campaign was about 41 days long - possibly the longest ever!

If you want to blame people who for peddling the fiction that the Liberal budget was so progressive - what about the blame Andrea Horwath should shoulder - she never actually criticized a single solitary thing about the budget during the entire election campaign. in fact she went to great lengths to reassure everyone that she would follow through with almost everything in it. in fact when she announced she would vote against the budget - her rationale was not that she opposed the budget because it was a "Trojan Horse" or contained some rightwing hidden poison pills - no no no - she said that she agreed with 100% of it but could not "trust the Liberals' to actually implement it! Why is anyone surprised that the voters thought the budget was progressive when the leader of the NDP essentially agreed that it was?

terrytowel wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

Ignoring the fact that many of the so called Rob Ford/Toronto Sun/Tim Horton's voters are the actual real working class voters who the NDP has drifted away from over the years in favour of the liberal left intelligentsia. Underlying this characterization of the so called "Conservative" voters is a great deal of class stigmatization, precisely the kind that has made the NDP unelectable and Rob Ford electable, as when he advocates against the "downtown liberal elite".

Horwath got the Rob Ford message, and tuned her message to dealing with the everyday problems that confront ordinary people in Ontario when they are faced with being made to pay for services through increased fees and regressive consumption taxes, when the same services had previously been picked up by the business sector and the rich, through corporate taxes and income taxes.

Since when did addressing the real bread and butter issues of the working class become "right-wing" -- only in the minds of some who are so disconnected from realities of lower class and lower middle class people.

Where the "progressive left" has gone off the rails is allowing the right to maniuplate the genuine anger and opposition of the less well-to-do against fees and regressive taxation. Sure this is just part of the their "small government" mantra, but that does not make opposition to consumption taxes essentially right wing. It is the right that has stolen the position of the left, not Horwath who has taken up a right wing position. She simply reclaimed the terrain.

The progressive left made a grevious strategic error when it abandoned principled opposition to consumption taxes and fees and bought into the neo-Liberal economic plan of downloading of costs by supporting increased fees and taxes in order to compensate for revenue lost to McGuinty's tax cuts.

When it did so, the left in Toronto lost the working class to the right and Rob Ford was elected -- the "rate supported budget" of the Gross City of Toronto operating budget went up astronomically under Miller.

The "traditional" base that you speak of, is actually not so. The traditional base of the NDP is the working class. Removing consumption taxes, and increasing corporate taxes in order to fund public service is to the NDP as apple pie is to America -- it is only some confused advocates of "charity" politics, like Judy Rebick who think that "expenditures" are more important than who is paying for what, and through what tax mechanism that is the key to redistribution of wealth through implementing progressive tax policy.

That left the NDP fighting competing with the rump of the progressive left in the city of Toronto.

Good riddance to them, I say.

Horwath's campaign certainly had many faults, but on the key point of trying to regain the support of the traditional working class through addressing their economic needs was dead on the money.

And in many areas the Horwath approach was extremely successful. Indeed it has been a long time since the ONDP was the alternative vote to the Conservative in Western Ontario -- it is now.

Winning back the support of voters who have drifted to support the right out of disaffection with the status quo Liberal corruption, and an NDP that failed to address those concerns is in fact the only way the NDP can beat "strategic voting" grid lock.

Rokossovsky is correct with that narrative.

The recent poll from Maple Stratgies has been broken down by party voting intentions.

Rob Ford’s coalition is comprised of a base of Conservatives supplemented with a small contingent of NDP’ers who are likely drawn by his populist approach.

In fact those polled who idenitfy as NDP supporters, almost a quarter of them (24%) are supporting Ford!

Maybe Andrea was on to something when she started going after the Rob Ford/Toronto Sun/Tim Horton's voter with her populist message.

http://mapleleafstrategies.com/below-the-topline-additional-observations...

Absolutely correct. This same effect first appeared in 2010, though people seem to find it hard to believe. Far too much is made of the "Right to Left" linear axis of voter preference.

I mean seriously: If the NDP can't tackle income inequality about making life affordable for people, then what is it about? Not everything needs to be framed in hard to decipher abstract meta-analysis. We can talk about bread and butter issues. Just because the right does as well is irrelevant -- their solutions, as are those of Kathleen Wynne are entirely different.

Are "Conservatives" voters for poverty? Mostly no. They just have been sold corrupt solutions.

Andrea Horwath at Elementary Teachers' Federation (ETFO) annual meeting:

Good morning sisters and brothers.

Please on a new round of collective bargaining.

New bargaining process and central and local bargaining.

Kindergarten teachers.

Path forward for public education in the province of Ontario.

You will be key in constructing and building.

Thousands of volunteers to make democracy work.

Although the election didn’t turn out the way I want.

The party that wants to cut thousands of jobs from education is sitting in the repair shop.

Ontarians elected 21 strong community activists.

Lisa Gretzky, school trustee, elected in Windsor West.

First Ontario party to have over 50% elected to caucus.

New Democrats have a job to do.

Advocate for fairness and for families.

We lost 3 great MPPs in Toronto.

We lost support in some areas.

I will work hard to work with new and old supporters.

I got into politics to stand up for progressive values—for example, in Hamilton.

Sent to Queen’s Park to stand up for same values.

We are determined to protect one of the best education systems in the world.

Lifting children up, still the best way to tackle the roots of inequality.

Building a fair and just society depends on building a strong public system.

NDP, strong schools and public services.

We will start by holding the government to gaps and inconsistencies.

Too many gaps and inconsistencies on labour relations and state of the classrooms.

The government says one thing but can’t be trusted to do other things.

Your collective bargaining rights were stripped in Bill 115.

Memorandum of understanding.

Respect should not be an option.

As you enter the next round of bargaining under Bill 122.

Peter Tabuns, big flaws were amended (in bill).

The gov’t should recognize the big contributions that you do.

You have had an effective pay cut over the past two years.

Another gap: between rhetoric and reality.

Full-day kindergarten.

Bridging the gaps.

Class sizes.

The gov’t has admitted that there are 640 full day kindergarten classes over 30 students.

Classes are big problems in grades 4-8.  So are standardized tests, which get in the way of effective learning.

New assessment model for Ontario: random sample test.

Gap between rhetoric and realities.

New Democrats will fight between the realities of local communities that have schools and those who don’t.

Too many kids are not able to walk to school.

School boards are forced into the corner because of funding freezes.

Provide every opportunity to keep schools open by offering different services like child care and health care.  Senior services.

We can’t keep every school open.  Cookie cutter approaches don’t work everywhere.

Teachers in those schools are the glue that keeps those communities together.

We will not sit by and allow the gaps and inconsistencies in the government policies to stand in the way of the good work that you do.

We will we be a strong progressive voice for fairness.

Thank you very much.

I’m going to take a couple of questions.

Video cut off.

If only the higher ranks would consult with the lower ranks before the battle was fought or the writ dropped.  I'm all for harmony and confidence, as long as it's based on democratic principles.  Unfortunately, hierarchy trumps both democratic principles and practice in most politcal parties, which is why they can never get rid of "domestic troubles".  The higher ranks are too often the source of those domestic troubles.  Luckily, I'm a member of the NDP, so I have no such worries.