Next Federal NDP Leader

Unionist wrote:

Niki Ashton should learn French.

in French https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgciPU2s_hI

in English and French https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcpPodH7z2o

in Greek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZvGAjl1fyA

in spanish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ApIrpsmjU

She has a B.A in Global Political Economy from the University of Manitoba, an M.A in International Affairs from Carleton University and is currently in the process of completing her PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies at the Art Mauro Centre at the University of Manitoba.

she was also studying Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish, and Cree

Jesus. 55 posts already.

Mulcair will leave. Yes. Only a question of timelines.

But there are much bigger questions for th NDP than who next-  even if it is inivetable that the big questions get framed around who.

But feeding that monster when you have a choice at least where you are ?????

Brachina wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Brachina wrote:

 Why?

Listen to her speeches -- works hard, young, comes across as real, positive and not right wing.

She won respect on lists as most hard working constituency MP.

I am open to hearing from others but we need a generational change -- and to someone who has enough faith in NDP principles and ideas to fight for them. I think she might be it.

 

 Good arguement, but that doesn't address the Quebec issue. I'd concider supporting her, but only if she can show she can connect with Quebec.

 Btw I'm not kidding when I say I want REB to run, after everything she's been through she managed to survive this disaster, she's a survivor, she's charismatic, she's down to earth without trying too hard, she's smart, she speaks French, is well liked in Quebec, has roots in Ontario.

Interesting. Let them run and let's see.

Cody87 wrote:

...the NDP can gain some advantage by choosing a leader once they have a better idea of Trudeau's governing style. If Trudeau breaks a lot of promises (or just a few key ones), they may want to go with someone more suited to holding him to his record. If Trudeau delivers on most of his promises then the NDP needs to go more left, and pick a leader for the long game...

Or maybe the NDP could estabish a clear set of principles, and choose a leader that believes in those principles, and wants to run a campaign based on those principles.

That might work, too.

With a majority, the NDP really is not in a hurry. There may be some benefits to announcing that he won't run in the next election but will preside over a leadership race.

The torch must be pased to the next generation.

Over the last hour the NDP has won some close races -- including a few hanging on in Quebec.

What Mulcair should do now is find a way to showcase a front bench and sit back a little. A year from now perhaps that may be the time to kick off a campaign. Many of the young MPs of 2011 will have matured and be ready for the leadership now. Some of them survived this election.

Alexandre Boulerice is the only NDPer who could take on Justin Trudeau in 2019 as leader of the NDP.

I am not sure that Romeo would want to make a run again.

As well we all should pay attention to the new people that we may not know that well who are elected for the first time.

Most important may be the direction of the party. Without PR the party has to seek power ad must appeal somewhat to the centre (although not like this time). If we were to get PR, there is less concern about needing to be a plurality party. Instead, a role as a third party -- but with more seats and participation in partnership government the party might be more activist and more left of centre.

Once we know what the next election and following one may be like, we may be in a better position to choose the right leader.

Brachina wrote:

A defeat I can handle, something like what happened to Andrea Horwath, but this is looking like it could be Adrian Dix territory.

 The question is can Mulcair survive such a defeat. I'm not against him staying, he's been a good leader, until about Septermember where he listened to bad advise. At the very least Brad, McGrath, and co. are done, they're advise helped collaspe the house that Jack built.

Not just what Jack built, but we also lost what Alexa had built for the NDP in Atlantic Canada.

When I said that the liberals were going to win a majority a few days ago on here, people ridiculed me. But I think the NDP is in the same situation as Horwarth, not Adrian Dix. We don't need a new leader. I'm saying this as a socialist who would love to see a Corbyn styled leader or a young feminist like Niki Ashton, but going to the left will not help the party. Going to the left just ensures that the NDP stays in third for good because the narrative will be that Trudeau is responsible and the NDP is looney. Instead, they should consider maybe running a more straight forward and immediate platform. None of this "15 dollar minimum wage" nonsense that was about as misleading as something Harper would do. Stop misleading people with big numbers when those figures represent your plan over a decade. "12 billion in infrastructure" when that figure represents a total over 12 years? So what, the NDP expects 3 mandates? It's that kind of "misleading" campaign promises that got people to think Mulcair = Harper. Canadians also wanted someone passionate in the debates.. Trudeau debated with urgency and passion, while Mulcair tried to put on the fake statesman persona. It's even worse when you immediately claim that you won the debate after it ends. Also, try not to leak a poll showing your opponent is trailing. Poll abuse by the NDP was unacceptable. I hold the NDP to a higher standard, so I know very well that the Liberals abused polls to mislead voters (like in Ottawa Centre), but don't copy their tactics. Only Liberals can get away with dirty tricks.

But let's not forget some victories tonight.. For instance, Erin Weir won a seat (yay!), we won back Elmwood-Transcoma... Mulcair held onto his riding. Having Mulcair lose his riding would have been a big blow.

As for the loss in St John's East, it looks more like the Tories went over the Liberals.

It also appears like it was more of a rejection of Harper than the NDP. NDP supporters just flocked to help prevent a vote split.

Why do people even like Cullen? He's like the Bob Rae in our party. Too open and eager to working with the Liberals.

I wonder if Mulcair's talking abou this experience hurt him with younger voters. Many younger people are frustrated at not being able to find jobs because they themselves lack experience, so in that sense, I'm thinking that Trudeau's inexperience may have been a plus for them.

Kim Campbell was correct: "elections are no time to discuss policies". It's primarily about style.

Contrast a much older, seriously overweight, bearded guy against a young good-looking fella with the Trudeau last name and there was no contest. 

Kinda reminds me somewhat of PET vs Robert Stanfield. 

NorthReport wrote:

Had the NDP behaved more like the Liberals  during the election they probably would have won. But don't let that little issue sidetrack you. Maybe it's too soon and what has happened has not realy sunk in yet.

youngsocialist wrote:

Why do people even like Cullen? He's like the Bob Rae in our party. Too open and eager to working with the Liberals.

Doubt it. You had a strong liberal war room that helped spin every move Trudeau made positively. Only the liberal party has the power to control the narrative. For the NDP, the narrative is given to them. And that's why the NDP war room is mostly on the defence. They don't have the influence, especially via social media, that the liberals do.

This election had all the right conditions for an NDP victory but the NDP made this very easy for the liberals by trying to be a bit too calculated, government in waiting.. when Canadians wanted "authentic" and emotional to stop Harper.

Those Toronto seats were lost at least a week ago, not today.

Not disagreeing but would you care to elaborate

wage zombie wrote:

Those Toronto seats were lost at least a week ago, not today.

Leaders don't always win elections, so there's no imperative to resign just because you lost the election. Resignation is understandable in Harper's case because being Leader of the Opposition after being Prime Minister has to be pretty tough to take. It's also true that the Conservatives lost big.

But they're not the only ones who lost big. The NDP entered the election with 95 seats and lost over half of them. Their percentage of the popular vote went down by a third. In anybody's books, that's a disaster. A disaster that can be laid directly at the feet of the leader and his campaign team. That leader and that team have to go. There's no doubt about that.

At the same time I doubt a new leader would make a huge difference. The NDP party has to sit down and define a set of principles that they will stick with through thick and thin. I believe if they had done that, their performance in this election would have been better.

Yes, they got sideswiped by the popular feeling that Harper had to go, and many felt the Liberals were the only party that could do it. At the same time, their great result in Quebec last election was probably going to be difficult to match this time around. I think the NDP leadership could have been forgiven for not becoming a majority, or minority, government, but they could have, should have, come through this election with say, 70-75 seats or so. If they had taken some from Harper, that would put them in the position of possibly remaining as opposition, with the Conservatives as a rump (personally, I would have been quite happy with that result).

I believe they could even have made some progress from that old video of Mulcair seeming to endorse Thatcher (which should turn any progressive heart into a lump of clay), if he had come out and admitted that at one time he thought that way, but after seeing what he has in his experience in government, he realized that it was wrong. He didn't, leaving people to wonder why he had changed agenda.

He was given the leadership of the party when it was the official opposition, when it had 103 sitting members, and four years later it has 44 sitting members, and the worst party, with the worst leader in the history of this country, now sits as official opposition.

With a parliamentary majority the Liberals will govern for a while, but the NDP has to start to work tomorrow to try and clamber up out of the hole they dug for themselves.

Erin Weir has the charisma of a vegetable.

It' s too early to talk about getting rid of Tom. No such decision should be made in this awful aftermath.

Some observations?

1. Can any one be a better leader in opposition? Tom has the skills to keep us afloat and exploit the inevitable Liberal drift to the right.

2. Tom' s approval ratings remained high. he is respected and listened to.

3. Without him Quebec may have entirely disappeared for us.

4. Maybe he had bad advice but once the niquab hit I don't know what we could have done. It depressed the Quebec vote enough to put us behind the Liberals nationally. After that the visceral dislike of Harper took over and the slide was inexorable.

5. With any other leader we would have been obliterated.

terrytowel wrote:

Alexandre Boulerice is the only NDPer who could take on Justin Trudeau in 2019 as leader of the NDP.

Peter Julian would be the best choice. But if not him. Boulerice would be at the top of the list.

wage zombie wrote:

Those Toronto seats were lost at least a week ago, not today.

Agreed with the statement and the additional analysis.

I am convinced Mulcair will go. He offered himself as a choice for prime minister and despite a slim lead for much of the campaign was soundly rejected for a younger and less tested rival. Canadians gave Mulcair about as good a look as he could get and opted for the third party. That being said, he is a very capable leader from parliament and I expect he will stay on to facilitate a transition. The party needs time to regroup. It's not entirely clear who is in the new caucus and who feel a few votes short. The party needs to see how Trudeau governs before it reacts to the loss through the choice of a new leader. Mulcair won the leadership because the party wanted someone that could defend Québec and stand up to Harper. I have no doubt that Mulcair's ferocity as an opposition helped to bring Harper down. Trudeau was almost as useless as Ignatieff in opposition.

Trudeau is a different beast. He has celebrity status like Kim Kardashian. He's a good actor that knows how to sell lines. He has swept Atlantic Canada. He is young and can and very likely will run for re-election, so he is the known opponent. These are all difficult (electoral) problems that the next NDP leader must address. Trudeau will begin to sow the seeds of his own defeat as he governs and the NDP will want to select the leader best prepared to collect that harvest. We cannot forget that the Conservatives hold 100+ seats (essentially the Liberals frog-leaped over the first and second place parties but the relatives standings did not change), think their base in the West is solid, and will be selecting a new leader without the substantial negative impressions of Stephen Harper. I mean, how does the Globe and Mail endorse the Conservatives and say that after they win they must dump their historically most electorally successful leader? It is madness born out of the unpopularity of one person. The new Conservative leader will immediately be associated with all the positives that the media and public projected on the party, with none of the negatives projected on the leader. The Conservatives may even (likely?) be smart enough to pick a leader who strikes a good contrast to Trudeau. So the NDP leader will find themselves in that Liberal-Conservative sandwich.

Mulcair holding on just long enough to allow the Conservatives to pick a new leader, which appears like it will happen almost immediately (because Harper has quit), is smart politics because it will give the NDP a chance to react to both the Turdeau prime ministership and the new Conservative leader. I am confident that will give the NDP its best chance of a comeback. What's more, it allows any leadership hopefuls the next 18 months to test the waters and raise their profile nationally, before staging possible vanity runs for the leadership. This is good for the MPs, this is good for the party, and this is good for the membership.

So yeah, Mulcair will go, but before he leaves he will wear this defeat on his chin and do the job he was elected for with pride.

E-flat wrote:

Anyone know how good Charlie Angus' french is?

Nigh on non-existent.