The NDPs golden egg of opportunity
Decent article but there is no need for Singh to be in the house to push the issue. He can't do more than any other NDPer already there. Mulcair's performance in the house was fun to watch but it didn't have any impact on his electoral popularity and Harper came close to winning another election. The house is political theatre that only political junkies pay attention to.
It seems to me that in the 2011 election Ignatieff and the Liberals paid a huge price for Ignatieff not being in Parliament often.
It seems to me that in the 2011 election Ignatieff and the Liberals paid a huge price for Ignatieff not being in Parliament often.
I don't think that impacted the vote at all. Trudeau became leader and he didn't hang around the house either. Mulcair did and he lost. Ignatieff lost because he didn't connect with people so it was easy to paint him as an out of touch elite that lived outside of Canada for so long that he didn't know the country.
The expectations being placed on Singh are unrealistic. The current playing field dictates that the NDP takes the long view for electoral success.
Someone in another thread was complaining that Guy Caron had to alert Singh to NDP policy while in another the complaint was that he was surrounded by his loyalists and rejecting NDP power people.
I see it as an excellent sign that he chose to have Guy Caron at his right side while fielding media questions. Trudeau did not win purely on his own merits, even the shallow ones. He won because he has an excellent team that prepared him for press questions and provided him with an economic platform and organized his campaign. The crew matters.
I do think tax havens are a great issue to jump on but not now. When the election rolls around if the Liberals still haven't made progress towards getting that money it will be a great way to attack the Liberal record. Projecting the collection of that money in their economic plan will give them room for social programs.
He has been leader for 2 and a half months. The election is decided in the last week or two before election date. The time between now and then has to be spent preparing for then.
Unlike Trudeau Singh does not have the most popular PM in history as his dead father so he isn't getting the bump from that. Singh's path to popularity will have to be different. I'm positive he and his team are working on a plan.
He has stated he is for the decriminalization of all drug use. He declared support for the right of Calatonians to vote for separation. He stated the migrant worker issue will be addressed in his 2019 platform.
I agree the numbers are really bad. They dropped since he became leader. Racism could be a factor in that. Regardless 2 and a half months is way too soon to be drawing conclusions. How people would vote tomorrow doesn't matter because they won't be voting tomorrow. In the last months before the 2015 election the numbers were all over the place.