Just like the climate change file (contrast Norway’s progressive leadership compared to Canada’s dismal performance) Canada deprives the citizens of Burnaby South their Parliamentary representation.
It's obvious Liberals only believe in democracy when it furthers their political ends.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1OW0YP
Actually the timing couldn’t be better for Jagmeet and he will be the only Leader of the three main political parties that will be running on actual Environmental Protection for Canada, which should prove to be a nice lead-in for the NDP to the upcoming federal election as well.
Announcement will be on Wednesday, but could come as early as Tuesday
Your link is to a different story than you’ve posted about.
Actually the timing couldn’t be better for Jagmeet and he will be the only Leader of the three main political parties that will be running on actual Environmental Protection for Canada, which should prove to be a nice lead-in for the NDP to the upcoming federal election as well.
Unless, of course, he loses... Kennedy Stewart only won the riding by 547 votes last time against the Liberals in second place. If Singh loses, the NDP will head into the federal election with an unbroken string of by-election losses, and a lame duck leader. It will be an interesting roll-of-the-dice to watch play out.
dp
Thanks rd I have corrected it.
Your link is to a different story than you’ve posted about.
Just the usual comnents from the ‘I hate Singh and the NDP’ crowd.
Actually the timing couldn’t be better for Jagmeet and he will be the only Leader of the three main political parties that will be running on actual Environmental Protection for Canada, which should prove to be a nice lead-in for the NDP to the upcoming federal election as well.
Unless, of course, he loses... Kennedy Stewart only won the riding by 547 votes last time against the Liberals in second place. If Singh loses, the NDP will head into the federal election with an unbroken string of by-election losses, and a lame duck leader. It will be an interesting roll-of-the-dice to watch play out.
And don’t forget the racism, the big time racism that exists in Canada too?
Oh Canada, where are we now!
https://www.straight.com/news/1112701/douglas-p-welbanks-oh-canada-where-are-we-now
Good decision. I'm not a big fan of Singh but it gives him much needed exposure, its a winnable seat and it allows him to draw a distinction between the NDP and Liberals on the environment where the Liberals have no credibility. As for the question of "what if he loses"? If Singh can't win this seat he doesn't deserve to be leader.
Just the usual comnents from the ‘I hate Singh and the NDP’ crowd.
Actually the timing couldn’t be better for Jagmeet and he will be the only Leader of the three main political parties that will be running on actual Environmental Protection for Canada, which should prove to be a nice lead-in for the NDP to the upcoming federal election as well.
Unless, of course, he loses... Kennedy Stewart only won the riding by 547 votes last time against the Liberals in second place. If Singh loses, the NDP will head into the federal election with an unbroken string of by-election losses, and a lame duck leader. It will be an interesting roll-of-the-dice to watch play out.
I said nothing negative about Singh or the NDP in my post. Your dismissive comment is inappropriate. All I said was basically a "What If?" "What if Singh loses in Burnaby?" Kind of like John Lennon's "Imagine there's no Heaven. It's easy if you try..."
I think it's a necessary decision. He needs to do something to give his party a shot in the arm. It's worth the gamble.
I agree with pietro_bcc and josh that this is a forced move. Sure, as R.E.Wood says, there is a downside if he loses, but he appears to be doomed anyway if he does nothing between now and the election. At least this will shake things up, provide some visibility, and if he wins, which I think is a better than even chance, give the appearance of some momentum.
I agree that it's probably a necessary gamble, and as I said, it will be an interesting roll-of-the-dice to watch play out.
And so the right-wing bullshit begins
I suppose Pankratz, the rest of the Liberals, Zussman and Global News all have collective amnesia and have never ever heard of John Turner.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4373325/jagmeet-singh-facing-questions-burnaby-south/
Bingo!
The Liberals are up to their typical dirty tricks with Canada’s compliant right-wing press doing their bidding.
I suppose Pankratz, the rest of the Liberals, Zussman and Global News all have collective amnesia and have never ever heard of John Turner.
Turner didn't run in a byelection, he ran in the general election against an incumbent from another party and won. Which is the same thing Jack Layton did, and Jack wasn't mentioned in the article either.
It's his best shot at a seat - but Singh won't find Burnaby South easy
It's a weighty political legacy for Singh to carry into the Burnaby South byelection. He isn't making it easy for himself. Past leaders in his position generally have contested safe seats in byelections — the leader's party has averaged a 21.7-point margin of victory in the previous federal election in these seats. Stewart won Burnaby South by just 1.2 percentage points.
No leader of a major federal party has tried to secure a seat in a byelection in a riding won by a narrower margin than Burnaby South in 2015.
And no leader of a major federal party has ever suffered personal defeat in a byelection. That's a winning streak Singh can't afford to break.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-singh-burnaby-south-1.4776366
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh runs political risks by running in B.C. by-election – and also if he doesn’t run
If he runs in Burnaby South and loses, “it’s bad” for the NDP, said Barry Kay, a political science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. But, Mr. Kay said, it would also be embarrassing for the party if he did not run. “It just looks like he’s been sitting it out because he doesn’t have confidence in being able to win,” he said.
... Mr. Kay said he believes Mr. Singh’s odds in Burnaby are reasonably good. The narrow margin of victory for Mr. Stewart in 2015, he said, could be attributed to a late-campaign surge by Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.
“The question will be whether the Liberals want to really take a run at him” this time, Mr. Kay said. “The Liberals may actually put a lot of effort into trying to block him if they think that if they can defeat him. [That would] hurt the NDP a year from now which is the big payoff" in the general election.
... Running in Burnaby South would be a risk for Mr. Singh, said Rick Smith, the executive director of the Broadbent Institute, a social democratic think tank founded by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent.
“But the first racialized leader of a federal political party in Canada is used to taking risks,” he said. “So I think, on balance, it’s a good move for Jagmeet Singh.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ndp-leader-jagmeet-sing...
The obvious positive comparison would be to Tommy Douglas, who contested and won TWO by-elections during his tenure as leader-both in B.C.
I agree with most comments here -- it is a necessary risk. The NDP leader cannot fail to run in an NDP incumbant byelection.
I also agree that his chances are pretty good.
He does have to resign if he loses, though. No possible case for him hanging on in the job if THAT happens.
Trudeau’s connections are beginning to have the look of Trump’s connections
dp
Singh will have more than enough ammunition to use against Trudeau and Pankratz
The latest poll has national NDP support at 17%. I think this may take Singh out of contention in this riding.
Didn't Jack Layton contest a Liberal seat in a by-election and win? Also Burnaby has a lot of supporting political players, Provincial, Federal and Municipal. Moreover if he wins the critics will have to crawl back under their rocks. If he loses then it is a mess all around.
No leader of a major federal party has tried to secure a seat in a byelection in a riding won by a narrower margin than Burnaby South in 2015.
It's a make-or-break byelection for NDP's Jagmeet Singh
This is an NDP-held seat, so Singh should win it. But stress the word “should.” If he loses, it would be disastrous for him, and threaten his leadership of the party.
To understand why, consider Singh’s underwhelming record so far after 10 wobbly months leading the federal NDP.
The party is trailing badly in the polls, currently tracking at around 18 per cent. That’s well behind Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives, who are duking it out at around 35-to-36 per cent each. Singh trails Trudeau and Scheer in job-approval rating, too.
Even worse for Singh is the NDP’s dire situation in Quebec, where the party made a historic breakthrough under the late Jack Layton’s “Orange Wave.”
The wave has turned into a dried-up trickle under Singh. In a Quebec byelection in June, the party eked out an embarrassing 8.7 per cent of the vote in a riding the NDP won in 2011.
The money is drying up, too. In the last fiscal quarter, the NDP raised just $872,401. The Liberals raised over $3 million and the Conservatives raised over $6 million over the same period.
All of this has some NDP insiders quietly grumbling about the party’s predicament with just over a year to go until the next election.
For Singh to turn this around, it is crucial for him to win in Burnaby, a seat the NDP won by a narrow 547-vote margin in 2015.
It won’t be a cake walk. He should win, but he could lose. And if he does blow it, I think his leadership of the NDP blows away with it.
Changing a leader in the buildup to an election did not hurt the Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario, where Doug Ford turned a crisis into a majority-government victory.
That’s why I think some unhappy New Democrats might be silently hoping Singh actually loses this byelection and the party leadership.
https://theprovince.com/news/bc-politics/mike-smyth-its-a-make-or-break-...
For Jagmeet Singh, a byelection bid without a net
The political future of Jagmeet Singh and the foreseeable fortunes of his federal NDP now sit with voters in the Vancouver-area riding of Burnaby South. No federal leader in modern history has ever lost a byelection bid to gain entry into the House of Commons. He cannot afford to become the first.
... In recent history, Singh is the third federal NDP leader to rise to the party’s pinnacle without benefit of a seat in the Commons. Both Alexa McDonough and Jack Layton resisted pressure to ask for a caucus member to give up a seat or seek a byelection path, and both waited until the next general election, winning at home. McDonough waited 19 months; Layton, 16 months.
Singh no longer has that luxury with a federal vote still 14 months off. With little presence in Ottawa, he has fallen into a political black hole and dragged his party with him.
In October of last year, he inherited a dispirited NDP with a mandate to lead it back to relevance after a 2015 election debacle. He was to inject much-needed energy into a party that had left far too much lame-duck rope for its deposed leader, Tom Mulcair.
Instead, the federal NDP has faded from the national conversation, the party’s finances are precarious and the leader is working without a salary.
... The riding, through all its incarnations, has a strong NDP pedigree and the chance to have a federal leader as MP should be a lure for voters.
Yet, for all the history and the calculation that has gone into this choice, there is the nagging sense that this party is spiralling downward and may have more grief ahead before it bottoms out.
As Singh took questions after his announcement Wednesday, a reporter asked him if he had considered what would happen if he didn’t win.
He properly ignored the question. No politician should bite on the “what if you lose?” question.
But then he reverted to rookie form on the final question when he was asked if he lost, would he continue as NDP leader without a seat.
Inexplicably, Singh bit. “Absolutely,” he said.
He might be right, but only because the party had run out of time to make a change before the general election.
Singh has no room for error. There is no net.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/08/08/for-jagmeet-s...
ndp-leader-jagmeet-singh-expected-to-announce-hell-run-in-burnaby-by-election
Sometimes URLs are funnier than what they link to.
ndp-leader-jagmeet-singh-expected-to-announce-hell-run-in-burnaby-by-electionSometimes URLs are funnier than what they link to.
He's expecting to have a devil of a time in this campaign?
Jagmeet suggests we purchase our oil elsewhere
Great negotiations Trudeau. Seems like Canada is earning the mantle: "A sucker is born every minute".
Cost to twin Trans Mountain pipeline could be $1.9B higher, Kinder Morgan says
Pipes are seen at the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain facility in Edmonton on Thursday, April 6, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
OTTAWA -- Kinder Morgan Canada says expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline could cost the federal government as much as $1.9 billion beyond the company's original construction estimate and take 12 months longer to finish.
The figures are included in documents the company filed Tuesday with the United States Security and Exchange Commission related to its plan to sell the pipeline to the Canadian government for $4.5 billion.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/cost-to-twin-trans-mountain-pipeline-cou...
The next task for Horgan’s very successful NDP will be to ensure Jagmeet does well in the upcoming Burnaby South by-election
https://globalnews.ca/news/4381896/keith-baldrey-john-horgan-ndp/
The next task for Horgan’s very successful NDP will be to ensure Jagmeet does well in the upcoming Burnaby South by-election
https://globalnews.ca/news/4381896/keith-baldrey-john-horgan-ndp/
Come on Jagmeet. Anyone can do better than this Trudeau mess!
https://globalnews.ca/news/4382233/donald-trump-trade-deal-canada-mexico/
I'm surprised! I thought he would prefer a Brampton East or other Brampton riding to represent?
I wonder if he is trying to get as far as physically possible away from Quebec/Ontario in trying to find a seat where he still has a good chance of winning?
I'm surprised! I thought he would prefer a Brampton East or other Brampton riding to represent?
I wonder if he is trying to get as far as physically possible away from Quebec/Ontario in trying to find a seat where he still has a good chance of winning?
I doubt it's the geography issue.
Probably it's a combination of these factors:
1) It's a seat the party HAS to hold in order to have any chance of avoiding a disaster(perhaps even a 1993-style disaster) at the next election;
2) Jagmeet may have accepted the argument that, as leader, he can't be credible in the job without holding a federal seat;
3) A sense on Jagmeet's part that he has to make SOME kind of a move-that he needs to be out there, in an active role, fighting for something, taking part in some sort of real battle;
The Liberal vote in Burnaby goes up and down almost every election. The Conservatives have more often been the competition in the last 15 years for the federal NDP. The Liberals came close in this riding and won Burnaby North because of gerrymandering however both those candidates were strident in their oppostion to the Kinder Morgan expansion. The young Liberal asshole who beat an excellent NDP candidate and an excellent Green candidate campaigned against the expansion as his dominant theme.
Burnaby is one of the most multi-racial areas of Canada but it has less ethnic neighbourhoods than most of Metro Vancouver. The people of Burnaby elected an openly gay lawyer and increased their votes for him after he publically "came out". One provincial NDP MLA is from the union movement and started out as an organizer for the Farmworkers Union. Raj has been very successfull and I think his riding partially overlaps with the federal riding. Burnaby also has the most successfull civic party in Candian history. The Burnaby Citizens Association is not affliated to the NDP but to buy a membership you have to already belong to the NDP. This has led to three distinct campaign teams that all use the same volunteers. The base is there to win a seat but the central office can easily screw it up.
If Singh listens to the locals this is a riding he can win however in all the years I helped elect first Robinson and then Siksay we never, ever used the central campaigns literature and messaging because it was not a good fit for Burnaby. If he arrives with a team that is tone deaf he will lose the riding.
@ Ken Burch
All good points.
I really can't put my finger on it, but for some reason I still believe he wants to distance himself from Ontario/Quebec.
Here's some wild speculation. Jag/NDP may feel that in the next federal election, there may be another big orange wave or the potential for one. If he already has a seat in the house, it will be easier for him to build maintain momentum leading up to the election.
But from what I have read, the PM doesn't have to call this bi election. If there's no bi election call then what?
