Latest NDP News

Ken Burch wrote:

And once again, let us all remember that Singh-who I agree cannot be replaced before the election-was the candidate the party "pros" repeatedly insisted the party MUST choose as its leader...that he brought so much electoral magic with him that none of the other candidates could even be seriously considered.  

Thanks, party pros...the NDP owes it all to YOU!!!! 

Let us also not forget that much of the national media annointed Singh as the NDP's answer to Justin Trudeau before anny candidates had announced their intention to seek the NDP leadership, and before Singh had expressed any interest in jumping from provincial to federal politics.

Elizabeth May is taking another shot at Jagmeet Singh, this time for him skipping the Calgary Stampede for the second year in a row. While all the party leaders (even Maxime Bernier) visited the Stampede this year, Singh has been MIA.

About Singh absence, Elizabeth May says if he doesn't "... recognize that Calgary Stampede is a must-do stop on your summer schedule, you’re just not paying attention.”

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Mighty Middle wrote:

Elizabeth May is taking another shot at Jagmeet Singh, this time for him skipping the Calgary Stampede for the second year in a row. While all the party leaders (even Maxime Bernier) visited the Stampede this year, Singh has been MIA.

About Singh absence, Elizabeth May says if he doesn't "... recognize that Calgary Stampede is a must-do stop on your summer schedule, you’re just not paying attention.”

Nothing screams environmental awareness like the Calgary Stampede. EMay is now lecturing on how to do politics the same old, same old, somehow doing politics differently is not a major focus anymore.

Yeah...nothing could possibly be more Green than demanding that all party leaders attend Canada's most famous animal cruelty festival.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Mighty Middle wrote:

Elizabeth May is taking another shot at Jagmeet Singh, this time for him skipping the Calgary Stampede for the second year in a row. While all the party leaders (even Maxime Bernier) visited the Stampede this year, Singh has been MIA.

About Singh absence, Elizabeth May says if he doesn't "... recognize that Calgary Stampede is a must-do stop on your summer schedule, you’re just not paying attention.”

Nothing screams environmental awareness like the Calgary Stampede. EMay is now lecturing on how to do politics the same old, same old, somehow doing politics differently is not a major focus anymore.

And meanwhile Liz May just hired a man like Warren Kinsella, and hundreds of progressive voters are sending her tweets calling her out.

Yes, that was announced several months ago.  The new BQ Leader apparently lives in St. Maurice, but didn't want to run there since he didn't think he could beat Francois-Philippe Champagne.

Although Kinsella is not a household name, more voters are getting to read about him every day.

New cartoon from de Adder:

WWWTT wrote:

Not attending the Calgary stampede is probably the best thing to do for a major political leader like Jag, in contrast to attending.

Not only is this story 12 years old, it was relentlessly run by the Conservative media over a year ago during the Ontario election.

You wonder why Kinsella resurrects it now.

Except, it is no mystery that the Greens see their mission, as they ofetn have, of surpassing the NDP. They are more interested in heaping dirt on the NDP than in running against the Liberals or Tories.

Kinsella is backing the Greens in order to defeat Trudeau, not to elect Greens. He knowsthat if the Greens poll 10% they will elect very few extra MPs but at the same time drain enough votes from the Libs and NDP to elect numerous Conservatives.

nicky wrote:

Kinsella is backing the Greens in order to defeat Trudeau, not to elect Greens. He knowsthat if the Greens poll 10% they will elect very few extra MPs but at the same time drain enough votes from the Libs and NDP to elect numerous Conservatives.

Maybe, maybe not?

Hard to say because May and this other character that I won't bother researching are both liberal hacks. The difference between liberals and conservatives is invisible. There's a difference between a big chunk of the core supporters on either side. The liberal and conservative politicians want to make voters thing there is a difference. Lots of posters here think there's a difference. But the only difference is maybe 3 years. 4?

E May is a Liberal.

pietro_bcc wrote:

Those seats are lost, focus on trying to maintain Montreal seats and possibly even gain in Montreal by using Bill 21 as a wedge issue against the Liberals.

Some wedge

https://globalnews.ca/news/5413922/justin-trudeau-quebec-bill-21/

“We do not feel it is a government’s responsibility or in a government’s interest to legislate on what people should be wearing,” he said.

 

Debater wrote:

May is not a Liberal.  She has never worked for the Liberals.

She used to work for the old Progressive Conservatives under Mulroney.

And now she is working with Liberal hater Warren Kinsella to help pull votes away from the Libs & NDP.

It's hard to believe that May hasn't at least been allied with the Liberals when you consider her history of repeating anti-NDP talking points that were started by the Liberals-including the repeatedly-discredited claim that the NDP caused the 2006 election by voting for the no-confidence motion-a report May and the Liberals repeated for a decade, even though both knew that the Liberals would have fallen by two votes even if the NDP had voted for them and even though the no-confidence motion only moved the election forward by a month-a month in which nothing that could possibly have elected the outcome of the election.

If she wasn't at least a Liberal ally, she would have stayed neutral between the Liberals and the NDP, not taken the Liberals' side against the NDP over and over and over.  She would also not have spent most of her career as Green leader seemingly engaged in a deliberate strategy to hold down her own party's growth in the seat count in the name of the "strategic voting" concept.

In any case, May has proved that her party is not anywhere on the progressive part of the political spectrum.  Paul Manly is, and so are the bulk of the GPC rank-and-file, but neither Manly nor the rank-and-file have any say in what the party stands for.

brookmere wrote:

pietro_bcc wrote:

Those seats are lost, focus on trying to maintain Montreal seats and possibly even gain in Montreal by using Bill 21 as a wedge issue against the Liberals.

Some wedge

https://globalnews.ca/news/5413922/justin-trudeau-quebec-bill-21/

“We do not feel it is a government’s responsibility or in a government’s interest to legislate on what people should be wearing,” he said.

 

The Liberals' response to Bill 21 has been mealymouthed. "We're against it, but we won't do anything about it and won't call it out as racism." If Singh comes out strongly against it he can use it as a wedge in Montreal, but he won't do that and will give a similar mealymouthed opposition to it because being strongly against it would end the NDP's hopes of holding the regions seats they'll be losing anyway.

Bombardier is losing business becaues of its terrible record in meeting deadlines and delivering a reliable product, as is well known in Toronto. Throwing taxpayers' money at it would be corporate welfare for the Bombardier/Beaudouin family which controls and mismanages the company through a two-class share structure. If Singh had said this would have to go in return for procurement guarantees he would be on to something. But no mention of the real problem.

R.E.Wood wrote:

Well, here is a glimpse into the NDP / Singh's Summer campaign strategy:

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to swing through Brampton, Toronto on a tour of Liberal-held ridings this week

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh will swing through the GTA this week on a tour of Ontario ridings his party thinks it can win from the Liberals, as the New Democrats embark on a summer offensive in a crucial battleground for the coming federal election.

Singh’s travels begin Tuesday in the western Toronto riding of York South—Weston, where he will tout the NDP’s proposal to earmark funds for flood mitigation, according to an itinerary the party provided to the Star on Monday. Local New Democrat candidate Yafet Tewelde is trying to unseat Liberal MP Ahmed Hussen, who won the riding from the NDP in 2015 and is now Canada’s immigration minister. 

On Wednesday and Thursday, Singh will canvass voters with local candidate Emilie Taman in Ottawa Centre, another former NDP seat that now belongs to a Liberal cabinet member. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna defeated New Democrat incumbent Paul Dewar there in 2015. 

After that, Singh plans to highlight his party’s climate plan in Welland, where former MP Malcolm Allen is trying a political comeback against the Liberal who defeated him in Niagara Centre in 2015. Singh will return to the GTA to attend the Carabram festival in Brampton — a key target region for New Democrats, since it is there where Singh began his political career as an Ontario MPP — and then finish off with a jaunt through Toronto—Danforth, the riding held by the late party luminary Jack Layton. 

The party said Singh was travelling from British Columbia Monday and not available for an interview, but NDP spokesperson Mélanie Richer said this week’s tour of select Ontario ridings is the opening stretch of a summertime jaunt to regions where the party believes in can gain seats this fall. 

Richer said Singh will tour Quebec next week, and visit the Atlantic later this summer, but will spend much of his July in the GTA and Toronto, a region painted almost entirely Liberal red in the 2015 election. A host of prominent New Democrats lost their seats in that vote, as the party that was the official opposition in Parliament for the first time was returned to third place with 44 seats in the House of Commons.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/07/08/ndp-leader-jagmeet-s...

What a ridiculously stupid waste of the limited federal resources the NDP has. The fact that it took the NDP so long to find candidates to run in Brampton says a great deal about the public support they have in the area. Jagmeet Sing himself was not able to break through here in 2011 under Orange Crush conditions, which no longer exist. No matter what reservations progressive voters in the 905 have about the Liberals, they are not going to risk electing Conservative MPs by voting NDP. That ironically is what actually cost Singh the seat in 2011, because the NDP had no history in this area and nobody believed the NDP could win.

If you want to target progressive voters disappointed with the NDP, you should target former NDP ridings that recently went Liberal that don't have a chance of going Conservative. Winnipeg North and Winnipeg Centre are 2 such ridings. Both have had their candidates in place since last spring. The NDP nomination for Winnipeg Centre filled up an old church on a beautiful Sunday afternoon (something actual church ministers have not been able to do for decades). Leah Gazan is an amazing candidate who is determined to put everything she can into bringing Winnipeg Centre back into NDP hands. Kyle Mason has worked with community organizations dedicated to helping poor North End families. Daniel Blaikie is also in for a hard fight and could use some help here. Singh can also connect with the small Punjabi community out here. Yet time is ticking down, and I haven't heard anything suggesting that he is coming out here.

Seriously, what is going on here? Triage and priorities are the name of the game. If the groundwork for victory hasn't already been done in areas like Brampton, it is too late now. Focus on areas you can win, even if they are not in Ontario.

R.E.Wood wrote:

Singh calls Trudeau’s withholding of SNC-Lavalin report ‘troubling’

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/08/13/news/singh-calls-trudeaus-wi...

It was released today (the McLellan Report).

In fairness, A24, do you think Jagmeet's appearance in Winnipeg would help, or hurt strong local candidates like Leah Gazan, Kyle Mason, or Daniel Blakie? My understanding was that Jagmeet's leadership has not been well received on the Prairies as a whole. There's certainly no love for him in Saskatchewan (although that's obviously tied in part to local issues). Jagmeet may be an asset to the party in Southern Ontario where he is from, or in the greater Vancouver area where he is currently an MP. I can certainly see his appeal in areas where there is a strong Sikh/Punjabi diaspora like Brampton, Ontario or Surrey, B.C. But everywhere else I would assume a lot of NDP candidates will be runnning away from their leader, or at least not emphasizing his role. If the goal for the NDP in this election is to save the furniture, maybe it is best that Jagmeet stays away.

Former cabinet minister in the McGuinty Government (Liberal Sandra Pupatello) is throwing her hat in the ring, and is going to challenge current NDP MP Brian Masse for the riding of Windsor West

WWWTT wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

R.E.Wood wrote:

Well, here is a glimpse into the NDP / Singh's Summer campaign strategy:

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to swing through Brampton, Toronto on a tour of Liberal-held ridings this week

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh will swing through the GTA this week on a tour of Ontario ridings his party thinks it can win from the Liberals, as the New Democrats embark on a summer offensive in a crucial battleground for the coming federal election.

Singh’s travels begin Tuesday in the western Toronto riding of York South—Weston, where he will tout the NDP’s proposal to earmark funds for flood mitigation, according to an itinerary the party provided to the Star on Monday. Local New Democrat candidate Yafet Tewelde is trying to unseat Liberal MP Ahmed Hussen, who won the riding from the NDP in 2015 and is now Canada’s immigration minister. 

On Wednesday and Thursday, Singh will canvass voters with local candidate Emilie Taman in Ottawa Centre, another former NDP seat that now belongs to a Liberal cabinet member. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna defeated New Democrat incumbent Paul Dewar there in 2015. 

After that, Singh plans to highlight his party’s climate plan in Welland, where former MP Malcolm Allen is trying a political comeback against the Liberal who defeated him in Niagara Centre in 2015. Singh will return to the GTA to attend the Carabram festival in Brampton — a key target region for New Democrats, since it is there where Singh began his political career as an Ontario MPP — and then finish off with a jaunt through Toronto—Danforth, the riding held by the late party luminary Jack Layton. 

The party said Singh was travelling from British Columbia Monday and not available for an interview, but NDP spokesperson Mélanie Richer said this week’s tour of select Ontario ridings is the opening stretch of a summertime jaunt to regions where the party believes in can gain seats this fall. 

Richer said Singh will tour Quebec next week, and visit the Atlantic later this summer, but will spend much of his July in the GTA and Toronto, a region painted almost entirely Liberal red in the 2015 election. A host of prominent New Democrats lost their seats in that vote, as the party that was the official opposition in Parliament for the first time was returned to third place with 44 seats in the House of Commons.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/07/08/ndp-leader-jagmeet-s...

What a ridiculously stupid waste of the limited federal resources the NDP has. The fact that it took the NDP so long to find candidates to run in Brampton says a great deal about the public support they have in the area. Jagmeet Sing himself was not able to break through here in 2011 under Orange Crush conditions, which no longer exist. No matter what reservations progressive voters in the 905 have about the Liberals, they are not going to risk electing Conservative MPs by voting NDP. That ironically is what actually cost Singh the seat in 2011, because the NDP had no history in this area and nobody believed the NDP could win.

If you want to target progressive voters disappointed with the NDP, you should target former NDP ridings that recently went Liberal that don't have a chance of going Conservative. Winnipeg North and Winnipeg Centre are 2 such ridings. Both have had their candidates in place since last spring. The NDP nomination for Winnipeg Centre filled up an old church on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Leah Gazan is an amazing candidate who is determined to put everything she can into bringing Winnipeg Centre back into NDP hands. Kyle Mason has worked with community organizations dedicated to helping poor North End families. Daniel Blaikie is also in for a hard fight and could use some help here. Singh can also connect with the small Punjabi community out here. Yet time is ticking down, and I haven't heard anything suggesting that he is coming out here.

Seriously, what is going on here? Triage and priorities are the name of the game. If the groundwork for victory hasn't already been done in areas like Brampton, it is too late now. Focus on areas you can win, even if they are not in Ontario.

You don’t know fucking shit A24! I’m from Brampton and the NDP through Jags supporters have a good chance there in all 5 seats!

Fair enough if you're actually on the ground in Brampton, and are seeing things happen locally that the national media or public opinion polling have yet to pick up. From my vantage point, the NDP have not historially been in contention in Brampton. If the priority is to stop the Conservatives, then progressives are going to go for whichever party is most viable, so provincially that would have been the NDP, and federally that would have been the Liberals. Even in Manitoba, when the NDP used to win large majorities in the 2000s, that spill-over never helped the party federally, and the NDP is better established in Manitoba than in the 905. Again, things change, and if there is something happening on the ground not obvious to people who don't live there, we will see that play out.

robbie_dee wrote:

In fairness, A24, do you think Jagmeet's appearance in Winnipeg would help, or hurt strong local candidates like Leah Gazan, Kyle Mason, or Daniel Blakie? My understanding was that Jagmeet's leadership has not been well received on the Prairies as a whole. There's certainly no love for him in Saskatchewan (although that's obviously tied in part to local issues). Jagmeet may be an asset to the party in Southern Ontario where he is from, or in the greater Vancouver area where he is currently an MP. I can certainly see his appeal in areas where there is a strong Sikh/Punjabi diaspora like Brampton, Ontario or Surrey, B.C. But everywhere else I would assume a lot of NDP candidates will be runnning away from their leader, or at least not emphasizing his role. If the goal for the NDP in this election is to save the furniture, maybe it is best that Jagmeet stays away.

Then that says a great deal about his lack of outreach to this part of the country, and it boggles the mind that a new leader wouldn't have reached out in areas that are strong for the NDP. As for Winnipeg, there are many New Canadians here that he could find support among, including a small Punjabi community.

As far as the leader staying away? We are in a provincial election campaign right now, and the one riding that has a realistic chance of going Green is in Winnipeg Centre. Elizabeth May will certainly stop by Winnipeg during the campaign. The success or failure of the Winnipeg Centre NDP campaign will hinge on how effectively it handles the small-g green vote, and Singh staying away is not going to help out. As far as Manitoba goes, here Singh isn't really on the radar one way or another, but if he has messed things up to the point that him showing up hurts the party (a la Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin and Michigan) that is pretty bad.

By the way, disregard the pundits who say that Winnipeg Centre is a surefire Liberal hold. I was at the nomination meeting. It was an old church that was packed on a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon. I spoke to the candidate. I live here. Yes, she is swimming against some very strong currents, but this constituency is very winnable for the NDP.