If Paul Manly becomes the next GPC leader...

JeffWells wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

If it is all those things why not merge and make the NDP do what is already in its mandate? At that point there would be no difference between the parties in purpose or direction only a question of leadership and loyalty to founding purpose.

No?

To that I'd say Hell yes. It's the smart move, and probably inevitable eventually anyway.

Moving the Greens left after May isn't hard to conceive at all, either under Manley or someone else. That's where the grassroots are, and it seems essentially May who's held it back. The biggest block to a merger would be the centrist functionaries who rule the NDP. Especially now, after a crushing setback rather than a wipeout, and losing half the party's seats again is being spun as a great triumph. I'm sure they'd love to fold the Greens into the NDP, but building a truly new Left-Green party would cost them everything.

It may not cost them very much at all becuase they do not actually have very much.

Just imagine if a centre right Green party can put the NDP on the ropes as it did much of this year what a left of centre Green party could do.

I think if most ridings in Canada were like Winnipeg-Centre, the NDP would have formed a  majority federal government a very long time ago.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

I think this discussion about Manley being a prospective leader for the Green Party, or even merging the Green and NDP parties is a projection of frustration and looking for an easy solution. The Greens and NDP exist as separate parties for a reason. Climate change is a focus of both parties, but there are other differences. Krop has repeatedly related his own experience on Vancouver Island, where the Greens are strongest in Canada, how Green partisans hate the NDP. Why would they work together? Many Green activists in Manitoba are Greens because of the Doer government's failure on poverty and hog barns in rural areas. Some are even former NDPers. Why would they go back to work with the very people they think failed them? Looking at regional dynamics, the BC NDP remains in a strong polling position even as the Greens rise in popular support. The NDP in Ontario is within a few percentage points of first place, even as the Greens rise in popular support there. In New Brunswick and PEI, the Greens are doing very well in public opinion on their own as anti-establishment parties. Why do they need the NDP? Finally, I'm not giving up my NDP MP, Leah Gazan, that was just elected on an awesome platform of dealing with poverty and climate change. Speaking of Gazan, did you know that she won the votes of people who had only one month ago supported the provincial Greens? Going back to Vancouver Island, for a few election cycles, it was predicted that a Green surge would hurt the NDP, but the NDP is still standing strong there.

No, we don't need to merge at all. We just need to do the hard work necessary, work that was successfully done here in Winnipeg Centre.

The answer to most of the why questions here is that otherwise these parties are an excercise in futility -- getting single digits in percentage of seats, once a few decades influencing a minority government and once ever being official opposition. Cool if those are the ambitions, not so much if you want to actually change things.

The system is so stacked that a small party breaking through almost never happens and the distinctions between these parties matter to a few in the country but not to most voters. I figure even within a party you ahve to compromise to move forward sometimes. The diffrences between these two aprties is often not much more than within at the cost of having little opportunity to do anything. The majority could work together and actually achieve something.

That's exactly the same argument that Liberals use to try and suggest that they are "the same" as the NDP, and why there have been suggestions that the 2 parties merge. We've discussed through the years why that idea would not work. You're also forgetting that hard core Green partisans want to be Green because they feel they are offering something vital that none of the other parties are.

It's true that the majority within these parties can work together to accomplish something. That is why Leah Gazan was able to win the votes of people who had voted Green provincially one month earlier. I think that campaign has a great deal to teach the NDP about building a winning team, focussing on local issues, and yes, even winning over people who had voted for different parties previously. That will yield more success than trying to simply add 2 or 3 parties together and assuming that it will all work out. I actually think that learning from the success of campaigns like Leah Gazan's will in the long term be easier and more fruitful than trying to combine parties with different cultures, structures, rules, etc.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

I think this discussion about Manley being a prospective leader for the Green Party, or even merging the Green and NDP parties is a projection of frustration and looking for an easy solution. The Greens and NDP exist as separate parties for a reason. Climate change is a focus of both parties, but there are other differences. Krop has repeatedly related his own experience on Vancouver Island, where the Greens are strongest in Canada, how Green partisans hate the NDP. Why would they work together? Many Green activists in Manitoba are Greens because of the Doer government's failure on poverty and hog barns in rural areas. Some are even former NDPers. Why would they go back to work with the very people they think failed them? Looking at regional dynamics, the BC NDP remains in a strong polling position even as the Greens rise in popular support. The NDP in Ontario is within a few percentage points of first place, even as the Greens rise in popular support there. In New Brunswick and PEI, the Greens are doing very well in public opinion on their own as anti-establishment parties. Why do they need the NDP? Finally, I'm not giving up my NDP MP, Leah Gazan, that was just elected on an awesome platform of dealing with poverty and climate change. Speaking of Gazan, did you know that she won the votes of people who had only one month ago supported the provincial Greens? Going back to Vancouver Island, for a few election cycles, it was predicted that a Green surge would hurt the NDP, but the NDP is still standing strong there.

No, we don't need to merge at all. We just need to do the hard work necessary, work that was successfully done here in Winnipeg Centre.

The answer to most of the why questions here is that otherwise these parties are an excercise in futility -- getting single digits in percentage of seats, once a few decades influencing a minority government and once ever being official opposition. Cool if those are the ambitions, not so much if you want to actually change things.

The system is so stacked that a small party breaking through almost never happens and the distinctions between these parties matter to a few in the country but not to most voters. I figure even within a party you ahve to compromise to move forward sometimes. The diffrences between these two aprties is often not much more than within at the cost of having little opportunity to do anything. The majority could work together and actually achieve something.

That's exactly the same argument that Liberals use to try and suggest that they are "the same" as the NDP, and why there have been suggestions that the 2 parties merge. We've discussed through the years why that idea would not work. You're also forgetting that hard core Green partisans want to be Green because they feel they are offering something vital that none of the other parties are.

It's true that the majority within these parties can work together to accomplish something. That is why Leah Gazan was able to win the votes of people who had voted Green provincially one month earlier. I think that campaign has a great deal to teach the NDP about building a winning team, focussing on local issues, and yes, even winning over people who had voted for different parties previously. That will yield more success than trying to simply add 2 or 3 parties together and assuming that it will all work out. I actually think that learning from the success of campaigns like Leah Gazan's will in the long term be easier and more fruitful than trying to combine parties with different cultures, structures, rules, etc.

I get these arguments but when is it going to be important to recognize that we actually do not have a longer term given the predicaments we are in socially and ecologically?

That's the exact same thing Elizabeth May said when she said none of the other parites had good enough climate change plans. One of the things driving support for the Greens is a belief that none of the other parties have a good enough climate change plan. Leah Gazan convinced enough of those people that she was good enough on climate change to support her.

But to answer your simple question, no, partisan Greens and NDPers will not let the lack of a long term stop them from staying in their separate spheres. This is what we have to work with, and it is within this context that we will have to see meaningful change.