Few losing opposition leaders get a second chance - and fewer still succeed if they get it
Andrew Scheer points to Stephen Harper's 2004 defeat for inspiration, but Harper's accomplishment was rare
CBC, Oct 30, 2019
Éric Grenier
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-defeated-opposition-1.5339717
Next time, the wealth tax should be 5% or 10%, not a trivial 1%. Next time, there need to be targets for major green public housing construction. Next time, there needs to be active support for some means to restructure governance so that the poor get a real say in the economic decisions that affect them and are given a chance to play an active role in reshaping life so that poverty is actually ended in Canada. For a start.
Next time the NDP also needs to run on improvements to EI and the CPP that will, among other things, make these program more equitable for the poorest workers.
Canada has not avoided the deep sense of grievance and the political volatility that decades of austerity have generated across the world and the recent federal election here expressed those tensions. When the dust settled, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals had managed to hold on to power. However, they dropped 29 seats and retained only 157, losing their overall majority. Their main rival, the Conservatives, on the other hand, gained 23 seats and actually led in the popular vote. The political forces at work in this election will play out in the period ahead and they are worth taking a look at.
Firstly, the waning fortunes of the Liberals are very much part of the loss of political legitimacy that the neoliberal centre is experiencing on an international scale. For the image conscious Justin Trudeau, this decline in credibility has been particularly jarring. I have written previously about the fake progressive credentials of the Trudeau government that seemed so convincing and durable when the Liberals took power in 2015. However, the days when admirers lined up for selfies with the Prime Minister and he could count on trouble free public events are now long gone.
quote:
Tory blunders
Both the domestic situation and prevailing international trends seemed, given the lack of a sufficiently powerful alternative on the left, to work in the favour of the conservative right. However, if Trudeau was able to salvage a narrow escape in the face of likely electoral disaster, his saving grace lay in the stumbling performance of the Tories. Their hapless federal leader, Andrew Scheer, ran a lacklustre campaign dogged by astounding blunders.
quote:
Left alternative
The social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) finds itself in an challenging situation in a country with an enduring party of the political centre that cultivates a progressive reputation. The problem has intensified during the neoliberal years, as social democratic parties have found a place within an austerity consensus. We should deplore the Blairite project but Tony Blair and his accomplices were looking to occupy political space that was available. The NDP has no such options because the Liberal Party is already in possession of the neoliberal centre. The kind of directions taken by Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, then, not only correspond to the needs of working class people in Canada but are the only viable political option for the NDP.
quote:
Many here who look with respect and hope to the developments that have taken place in the Labour Party in Britain wonder if this could occur within the NDP. In my view, a comparable move to the left can neither be predicted nor entirely precluded. In terms of the immediate future, the notion that the NDP will be highly influential by reason of ‘holding the balance of power’ is significantly overstated. The Liberals are close enough to a majority in Parliament that formal coalition arrangements are unnecessary. They can form voting blocks of convenience and, certainly, rely on Tory votes when they want to build pipelines or boost military spending.
Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault announced Friday that there will be a judicial recount of the votes in the Lower Mainland riding of Port Moody–Coquitlam. It will take place on Nov. 6 and will be conducted by a B.C. Supreme Court judge in Pitt Meadows, a suburb of Vancouver.
In the preliminary results, Conservative Nelly Shin flipped the riding from the NDP by only 153 votes, grabbing 31.2 per cent of all ballots cast.
https://ipolitics.ca/2019/11/01/recount-in-b-c-riding-to-take-place-on-wednesday/
Scott Taylor: We Are Our Own Worst Enemy
https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/national-perspectives/scott-ta...
"On October 23, with the dust still settling over the election, it was quietly announced by the Privy Council Office that there had been no attempted foreign interference in Canada's democratic process. While it was reported by several national media outlets, if you blinked you likely missed this particular news item.
Last January, the threat was supposedly so real that Canada set up extensive counter-measures in an effort to limit the potential fallout from a coordinated campaign from foreign malign actors..."
Saved by the counter-measures!!
Good article, shady website. "About" says nothing about who the website belongs to nor who is funding it. I decided to pop off an email to ask who is backing the website. Hitting "contact" gave me two choices. Website or Office. I hit Office which resulted in a link to join.
Apparently this website is run by ghosts. If they have a reason for hiding their identity they should share that reason.
Have long noticed Babblers seem overwhelmingly to prefer corporate western msm sources like NYT, WaPo, The Globe or the Guardian, etc. All proven and relentless liars. Unfortunately only with alternative media do such questions as to ownership or who funds them arise. Just saying...
PS: The article author is long-time OCAP activist John Clarke. The platform info can be found here:
Good article, shady website. "About" says nothing about who the website belongs to nor who is funding it. I decided to pop off an email to ask who is backing the website. Hitting "contact" gave me two choices. Website or Office. I hit Office which resulted in a link to join.
Apparently this website is run by ghosts. If they have a reason for hiding their identity they should share that reason.
..not ghosts. they've been around a long time.
Counterfire is a revolutionary socialist news and theory website, from the movements, for the movements.
..the author of the piece
John Clarke is an anti-poverty activist active in Canada.
Chantal Hébert
Election put both the Conservative Party and its leader on a losing track
Mon, Nov 4, 2019
Have long noticed Babblers seem overwhelmingly to prefer corporate western msm sources like NYT, WaPo, The Globe or the Guardian, etc. All proven and relentless liars. Unfortunately only with alternative media do such questions as to ownership or who funds them arise. Just saying...
PS: The article author is long-time OCAP activist John Clarke. The platform info can be found here:
It's not about preferring those sources, it's mainly about knowing of them but not knowing of others like counterfire-thanks for posting that, btw. Why are so many of your posts here predicates on expressions of collective hostility to other Babblers, btw? Most of us mostly agree with you on most things.
Why are so many of your posts here predicates on expressions of collective hostility to other Babblers, btw? Most of us mostly agree with you on most things.
Frank Sinatra has the answer. NDPP is just an old fashioned romantic.
Next time, the wealth tax should be 5% or 10%, not a trivial 1%. Next time, there need to be targets for major green public housing construction. Next time, there needs to be active support for some means to restructure governance so that the poor get a real say in the economic decisions that affect them and are given a chance to play an active role in reshaping life so that poverty is actually ended in Canada. For a start.Next time the NDP also needs to run on improvements to EI and the CPP that will, among other things, make these program more equitable for the poorest workers.
With you on that all the way.
oops!..missed ndpp's post on counterfire and clarke.
Next time, the wealth tax should be 5% or 10%, not a trivial 1%. Next time, there need to be targets for major green public housing construction. Next time, there needs to be active support for some means to restructure governance so that the poor get a real say in the economic decisions that affect them and are given a chance to play an active role in reshaping life so that poverty is actually ended in Canada. For a start.Next time the NDP also needs to run on improvements to EI and the CPP that will, among other things, make these program more equitable for the poorest workers.
With you on that all the way.
Hourly minimums are not effective ways of regulating the market alone.
They came from a time when workers had full time. Now that employers are requiring employees to be available all week so no additional job is possible but only give them a small number of hours the concept of min wage has been end run.
People are not part time "livers" We live 24 hours a day 365 days a year. A living wage covers that. Not okay saying here is 10 or 15 or 20 an hour for 5 hours this week and stay in stasis until we need you again.
Next time, the wealth tax should be 5% or 10%, not a trivial 1%. Next time, there need to be targets for major green public housing construction. Next time, there needs to be active support for some means to restructure governance so that the poor get a real say in the economic decisions that affect them and are given a chance to play an active role in reshaping life so that poverty is actually ended in Canada. For a start.Next time the NDP also needs to run on improvements to EI and the CPP that will, among other things, make these program more equitable for the poorest workers.
With you on that all the way.
Hourly minimums are not effective ways of regulating the market alone.
They came from a time when workers had full time. Now that employers are requiring employees to be available all week so no additional job is possible but only give them a small number of hours the concept of min wage has been end run.
People are not part time "livers" We live 24 hours a day 365 days a year. A living wage covers that. Not okay saying here is 10 or 15 or 20 an hour for 5 hours this week and stay in stasis until we need you again.
Tax incentives for businesses that provide workers with full time work is one idea. Another way to do it would be to have a scale for employer payroll responsibilities, like EI that makes it far costlier to have part time staff compared to full time. Given my desire to see people have a life outside work I think full time is a minimum 32 hours a week.
Have long noticed Babblers seem overwhelmingly to prefer corporate western msm sources like NYT, WaPo, The Globe or the Guardian, etc. All proven and relentless liars. Unfortunately only with alternative media do such questions as to ownership or who funds them arise. Just saying...
PS: The article author is long-time OCAP activist John Clarke. The platform info can be found here:
Still doesn't tell me who created the website or who it belongs to. Check out "about rabble".
rabble.ca is a registered not-for-profit organization. We rely on the support of individual and organization donors and our sustaining partners. If you would like to support independent journalism you can here.
But they still removed the organization donors names that used to be at the bottom of the home page. Now you have to look at cahoots but it isn't clear there who the donors are.
PS
When I look at the Montreal Gazette site I see that it belongs to Postmedia and yes that tells me something about it. It is not wrong to want to know who is backing a website. I grant you the authors have their own credibility but it is still good form to identify your backers or say why not.
So tell me Pondering who created the Globe and Mail website or the NY Times website and why do you not question those peoples bona fides?
Next time, the wealth tax should be 5% or 10%, not a trivial 1%. Next time, there need to be targets for major green public housing construction. Next time, there needs to be active support for some means to restructure governance so that the poor get a real say in the economic decisions that affect them and are given a chance to play an active role in reshaping life so that poverty is actually ended in Canada. For a start.Next time the NDP also needs to run on improvements to EI and the CPP that will, among other things, make these program more equitable for the poorest workers.
With you on that all the way.
Hourly minimums are not effective ways of regulating the market alone.
They came from a time when workers had full time. Now that employers are requiring employees to be available all week so no additional job is possible but only give them a small number of hours the concept of min wage has been end run.
People are not part time "livers" We live 24 hours a day 365 days a year. A living wage covers that. Not okay saying here is 10 or 15 or 20 an hour for 5 hours this week and stay in stasis until we need you again.
Tax incentives for businesses that provide workers with full time work is one idea. Another way to do it would be to have a scale for employer payroll responsibilities, like EI that makes it far costlier to have part time staff compared to full time. Given my desire to see people have a life outside work I think full time is a minimum 32 hours a week.
another very good point:
The rate of hourly minimums is based on presumptions of what full time work is. The calculation must be based on a reasonable number of hours. I would say that 32 is a maximum not a minimum. I think with technology which means we can do more in less time, people could work 4 7 hour days a week = 28 hours abd that is enough. I would advocate a minimum wage based on the presumption that you ought to be able to live on 28 hours of that.
Then I would penalize employers who offer less than 28 hours and do not fix the time -- so that people have a chance to make up the hours with a second job which they cannot if they are effectively on call for a job that does not give enough hours. I have advocated stand-by pay for employers unable to predict when they need work. This should not be free as it is now. Also employers shoudl be penalized if they have too many part time rather than full time workers.
By the way the $20 proposed above x 28 hours x 52 weeks comes to 29,120/year. Living wage has been calculated to be something near $23,000. Perhaps we could go for a minimum wage of $16 per hour which we are not that far from but bring in the better planning measure I mention -- limits on numbers of involuntary part time workers (less than 28 hours a week), banning changing hours without paying standby time and other measures. Then index the wages.
Besides focusing just on minimum wage we also have to address the need for well-paying jobs. Some of this can come from measure to promote unionization and the need to create better than minimum paying jobs.
We also should address minimum income. It should not be less than 1/2 of a living wage so about $1000 minimum across the country to start.
My suggestions here are modest and affordable.
If we had the political will it would be not too difficult to advocate for a better employment picture.
..a 24 min aptn interview.
‘We need a movement right now’: says NDP MP Leah Gazan
Leah Gazan is looking to bring the grassroots to the House of Commons.
Clean air, clean water, food security, affordable housing and basic human rights are all among the issues Gazan has been advocating for her whole life.
The newly elected NDP Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre hopes becoming a federal politician provides a new platform to bring these issues forward.
“We need to elevate the voice of people right now who are on the front lines of many of these issues,” says Gazan, who defeated Liberal incumbent Robert-Falcon Ouellette.
Gazan, who declares herself a “proud socialist” like her mother and father, grew up a supporter of the NDP.
“I think it’s deplorable in a country as rich as Canada that we have issues with homelessness, that Indigenous communities still don’t have drinking water and this current government is on it’s 8th non-compliance order to immediately stop racially discriminating against First Nations kids,” says Gazan who is featured on the Tuesday edition of Face to Face with Host Dennis Ward.
“We need strong voices bringing up these kind of issues and making strong connections with people on the ground and grassroots.”
Gazan was one of the candidates running in the last federal election who was supported by the Our Time campaign.
The movement is pushing for what they call a Green New Deal, a plan they say is the only one bold enough to tackle the “climate emergency and rising inequality.”
The NDP MP elect says young people are on the front lines of the climate crisis that she says has been created by a failure to act.
“We need a movement right now” says Gazan to action on the climate emergency.....
NDP. Content with losing half their caucus. Even more so than the party that won.
NDP. Content with losing half their caucus. Even more so than the party that won.
No, they are not content. This is a lie.
Just becuase they do not blame the leader or do not think blaming the leader is productive or having a leadership convention on credit does not mean they are content. No party is content with a loss.
In this case Singh was the greatest asset the NDP had by the end of the election and this poll reflects that not any satisfaction with the results.
The NDP members do not accept the party finances as they are (either the party's management of them or the rules they work under) and they do not accept the electoral system they compete in. As a result the blame the leader reaction will be muted.
Interesting. So 85% & 87% of party supporters are happy with Trudeau & Singh but only 41% are happy with Scheer.
It appeared things were a little difficult for Scheer, but those numbers make it look worse than people thought.
Port Moody-Coquitlam recount terminated at NDP candidate’s request
Port Moody-Coquitlam New Democrat Bonita Zarrillo originally trailed winner Conservative Nelly Shin by 333 votes but sought the recount after the election night tally was officially certified.
It showed Zarrillo had gained 180 votes, putting her just 153 votes behind Shin, while more than 500 ballots had been declared spoiled.
A B.C. Supreme Court justice began the recount Wednesday but Elections Canada says the process was terminated Thursday at Zarrillo's request.
The federal election gives the Conservatives 17 of British Columbia's 42 seats, while the Liberals and New Democrats each hold 11, the Green party has two and former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould sits as Parliament's lone Independent member.
Meanwhile, the BQ has said it now accepts the 2 Liberal wins in Hochelaga and Québec.
Next time, the wealth tax should be 5% or 10%, not a trivial 1%. Next time, there need to be targets for major green public housing construction. Next time, there needs to be active support for some means to restructure governance so that the poor get a real say in the economic decisions that affect them and are given a chance to play an active role in reshaping life so that poverty is actually ended in Canada. For a start.Next time the NDP also needs to run on improvements to EI and the CPP that will, among other things, make these program more equitable for the poorest workers.
With you on that all the way.
Hourly minimums are not effective ways of regulating the market alone.
They came from a time when workers had full time. Now that employers are requiring employees to be available all week so no additional job is possible but only give them a small number of hours the concept of min wage has been end run.
People are not part time "livers" We live 24 hours a day 365 days a year. A living wage covers that. Not okay saying here is 10 or 15 or 20 an hour for 5 hours this week and stay in stasis until we need you again.
Sean, you clearly didn't get my point, which I admitedly didn't fully spell out. We need to drastically reduce the number of hours that people have to work at their job in order to be elegible for EI (none of this 720 hours bullshit), and we need to ensure that all workers are allowed to have their CPP contributions stay in the program (the way it is now, if you havn't worked enough hours in a year your CPP contribution gets refunded to you and there's nothing you can do about it).
Next time, the wealth tax should be 5% or 10%, not a trivial 1%. Next time, there need to be targets for major green public housing construction. Next time, there needs to be active support for some means to restructure governance so that the poor get a real say in the economic decisions that affect them and are given a chance to play an active role in reshaping life so that poverty is actually ended in Canada. For a start.Next time the NDP also needs to run on improvements to EI and the CPP that will, among other things, make these program more equitable for the poorest workers.
With you on that all the way.
Hourly minimums are not effective ways of regulating the market alone.
They came from a time when workers had full time. Now that employers are requiring employees to be available all week so no additional job is possible but only give them a small number of hours the concept of min wage has been end run.
People are not part time "livers" We live 24 hours a day 365 days a year. A living wage covers that. Not okay saying here is 10 or 15 or 20 an hour for 5 hours this week and stay in stasis until we need you again.
Sean, you clearly didn't get my point, which I admitedly didn't fully spell out. We need to drastically reduce the number of hours that people have to work at their job in order to be elegible for EI (none of this 720 hours bullshit), and we need to ensure that all workers are allowed to have their CPP contributions stay in the program (the way it is now, if you havn't worked enough hours in a year your CPP contribution gets refunded to you and there's nothing you can do about it).
I think that goes very well with the point I was making -- I am not sure why you think I did not get your point though.
Xavier Lafrance is a member of Québec Solidaire. He teaches political science at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
The Federal Election and the Resurgence of the Bloc Québécois
The October 21st Canadian federal election brought a resurgence of the Bloc Québécois and the decline of the NDP vote in Québec. The former will now have 32 seats in the House of Commons (a 22-seat net increase compared with the 2015 elections), while the latter will be limited to a mere 24 (a 22-seat net loss). Only one of the NDP seats is in Québec. At 66 percent, the overall vote turnout declined, but only moderately compared with the 2015 election’s 68 percent. The Liberal and Conservative parties’ vote shares in Québec remained relatively stable. Meanwhile, the NDP’s share in Québec collapsed from 25.4 to 10.7 percent, while support for the Bloc jumped from 19.3 to 32.5 percent. This suggests that at least a substantial portion of the Bloc gains were due to NDP losses. The 2011 “orange wave” that had brought a massive NDP surge in Québec and a nearly complete eradication of the Bloc seems to have entirely receded. How can we explain this electoral shift?
One of the key factors behind this shift has to do with a transformation of Québec’s provincial politics that culminated with the 2018 electoral victory of the economically neoliberal and socially conservative Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ). The Bloc Quebecois’ campaign strategists made it clear that they were inspired by the CAQ’s successes and were pursuing the 55 and older nationalist vote. Put simply, the strategy was to emulate the CAQ’s “nationalisme identitaire” (ethnocentric white nationalism). The party adopted “Québec is us” (as opposed to whom?) as its slogan, and the core of its campaign revolved around “laïcité” and the defense of Law 21, which bans Muslim religious dress for some public sector workers, including teachers. The Bloc consistently relayed the demand formulated at the start of the electoral campaign by CAQ leader and Québec premier François Legault that federal parties abandon any attempt to launch a judicial challenge to Law 21. The Bloc also supported the CAQ’s restrictive immigration policy. In especially vile fashion, the Bloc’s leader Yves-François Blanchet also refused to expel four Bloc candidates who publicly made Islamophobic comments.
Posturing as a gentleman alpha-male, Blanchet led a good communication campaign and harnessed some of the environmentalist opposition to Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, constantly opposing the Energy East tar sands pipeline.[1] This, in addition to Trudeau’s refusal to commit to not contesting Law 21 (together with a crowded electoral stage and tight three-way contests in many ridings), certainly contributed to the Bloc’s ability to take nine seats away from the Liberals. Yet, Blanchet’s green stance sounded hollow, coming from a former provincial environment minister who had, in 2013, declared himself as a “partner” seeking to work together with oil companies.
quote:
As for the NDP, it had already lost a lot of ground in the 2015 election after its 2011 surge (which had stemmed from a protest vote against Stephen Harper’s Conservatives rather than from any kind of deep-seated implantation of the party in Québec). NPD leader Thomas Mulcair was sunk during the 2015 campaign by Harper’s Islamophobic wedge politics and an economic platform that was outflanked on the left by the Liberals on many points. The NDP’s 2019 platform under leader Jagmeet Singh was better, but not transformative in any meaningful and exciting ways. And some of its most interesting proposals, like a public drug coverage plan and a public daycare network, are policies that have already been in good part implemented in Québec. Singh also ceded too much ground to the Bloc on environmental issues and, as an open practitioner of Sikhism, the NDP leader had to fight an uphill battle in Québec, where opposition to “religious symbols” is peaking. The upshot was that, of the 15 seats lost by the NDP, ten went to the Bloc.
OK. Well, the NDP can't run as a "nationalisme identitaire" party without ceasing to be an anti-oppression party, so it appears that the only way forward-or out of the hole it has currently dug itself-in Quebec is to go big and go bold on economic justice and challenging corporate dominance of politics and life. It should make the case that it's corporate power, not Muslim clothing, that is the major threat to Quebec identity, and that what should unite that identity is language, not dominance by any particular race or identity. Also, if there are more Quebec MPs next time, for God's sakes don't force them to suppress their radicalism and don't force forbid them to display public support for radical struggles within Quebec. Nobody who opposed the Quebec students on the tuition issue was going to agree with the NDP-NPD on much of anything and none of those opponents were even going to think about voting NDP, so it wasn't worth even trying to appease them.
Can we please quit repeating this nonsense that it was the niqab issue that cost the NDP seats in Quebec? The vast majority of seats the NDP lost in 2015 were to a party with an identical position. It's true the NDP lost seats to the Conservatives, but that could have been a dead cat bounce of the Conservative party recovering to traditional levels of support.
Can we please quit repeating this nonsense that it was the niqab issue that cost the NDP seats in Quebec? The vast majority of seats the NDP lost in 2015 were to a party with an identical position.
The problem was they didn't reveal that position until the middle of the campaign.
..lafance's piece in #228 makes a compelling argument. from harper's wedge politics, the election of caq, the rise of the bloc to singh's sikhism. and then relating it to “nationalisme identitaire”. the niqab issue in this context can hardly be called nonsense. from what i remember from the 2015 election, it was accepted that mulcair did nothing wrong re his niqab position. lafrance provides insight into that.
It is asolutely not nonsense that the niqab issue ruined the NDP's position in Quebec in 2015. Within a day or two of the federal court ruling the party's support plunged from about 45 to 25 % and never recovered.
Although Trudeau had broadly the sam position as the NDP he kep quiet about it while Mulcair doubled down and resolutely defended the position. This was highlybprincipled but electorally unwise.
It is asolutely not nonsense that the niqab issue ruined the NDP's position in Quebec in 2015. Within a day or two of the federal court ruling the party's support plunged from about 45 to 25 % and never recovered.
Although Trudeau had broadly the sam position as the NDP he kep quiet about it while Mulcair doubled down and resolutely defended the position. This was highlybprincipled but electorally unwise.
I believe that Tom Mulcair did the right thing.
OK. Well, the NDP can't run as a "nationalisme identitaire" party without ceasing to be an anti-oppression party, so it appears that the only way forward-or out of the hole it has currently dug itself-in Quebec is to go big and go bold on economic justice and challenging corporate dominance of politics and life. It should make the case that it's corporate power, not Muslim clothing, that is the major threat to Quebec identity, and that what should unite that identity is language, not dominance by any particular race or identity. Also, if there are more Quebec MPs next time, for God's sakes don't force them to suppress their radicalism and don't force forbid them to display public support for radical struggles within Quebec. Nobody who opposed the Quebec students on the tuition issue was going to agree with the NDP-NPD on much of anything and none of those opponents were even going to think about voting NDP, so it wasn't worth even trying to appease them.
Yes. Unfortunately Quebec has backed itself into a corner on Bill 21. Supporting Bill 21 means not voting for Singh. I am so ashamed and disappointed in my province. If it were not for that I think the NDP would have had an excellent showing in Quebec and kept all its seats.
To change a leader based on the racism or xenophobia of voters would be shameful yet at the same time we are facing a world crisis that impacts everyone including minorities. Do we sacrifice the planet on principle? I support Singh but I don't see the NDP winning under him. I very much want to be wrong, to believe that Quebec just needs a bit of time. I'm just very disheartened by the NDP losses in Quebec. I blame Legault and his stupid Bill 21. I am sure he is happy to take responsibility.
Mulcair lost because he was a Quebec liberal and Quebec voters chose the younger sexier liberal leader. Mulcair lost because he muzzled his left wing Quebec MP's and tried to make them sound like a liberal government in waiting. So Quebec voters voted for the Liberals, go figure.
Do you agree that it is a positive outcome that Mulcair lost?
I think that goes very well with the point I was making -- I am not sure why you think I did not get your point though.
I am late back to the table here and I am therefore conflating two parts of this thread: hourly minimums and part-time work. I will take on part-time work first and then hourly minimums, on the latter of which I have had some things to say publicly in the past which I have later come to regret and that do not fit well with the progressive values of this site.
On part-time work - be careful! I have been respectful of the efforts on this of the Workers Action Committee in Toronto and similar and understand why they would push for nearly universal full-time work because it is a shitty situation to have to string together part-time jobs, with the attendant anxiety and, in many cases, lower benefit coverage and/or wages than would be the case full-time.
BUT part-time work is not inherently bad. There are hundreds of thousands of students who can only work part-time while pursuing their studies. Ditto those who may be involved in child or family caregiving and cannot do so with a full-time employed position, seniors who are supplementing otherwise inadequate pension incomes, artists, fishers, farmers and others who need an income supplement when their core vocation is thinly rewarding and so on. We are sometimes talking past one another here, as precarious employment and part-time employment can be but are not necessarily synonymous. And for some folks, a stark choice between full-time employment and no employment leaves them no operable choice at all.
So (deep breath) minimum wage. I work in the retail sector at a fairly elevated level and have in the past been critical of minimum wage hikes that have far outstripped CPI. I would like to make a virtue out of that if I could but I can't. If I were answering Billy Bragg's musical question "Whose side are you on?", I feel that I have failed the test. I obviously accept the principle of having a minimum wage but have argued that a guaranteed minimum income is a far more effective social/economic policy tool and that there are more specific ones (e.g., CCTB for families, lower tuition for students and so on) that are much more effective at overcoming poverty challenges. All that said, I have reconciled myself to higher minimums as an ingredient among others in addressing poverty issues and look to entities like Costco that pay those sort of $20+ starting wages as being industry leaders on this issue.
What's the right number? It is hard to say. A struggling shoe shop faced with Amazon and such could have a different answer than say, an Apple store. I would say (to anticipated hoots of derision) that it depends in part upon what the market will bear. The operation has to remain economically viable or there are no jobs at any $ per hour. That's why I believe that addressing poverty is a broader societal obligation rather than one subject to the vicissitudes of a particular industry or circumstances of a single employer.
dp
Do you agree that it is a positive outcome that Mulcair lost?
I think Mlcair's win of the leadership was a negative outcome from start to finish.
I think that goes very well with the point I was making -- I am not sure why you think I did not get your point though.
I am late back to the table here and I am therefore conflating two parts of this thread: hourly minimums and part-time work. I will take on part-time work first and then hourly minimums, on the latter of which I have had some things to say publicly in the past which I have later come to regret and that do not fit well with the progressive values of this site.
On part-time work - be careful! I have been respectful of the efforts on this of the Workers Action Committee in Toronto and similar and understand why they would push for nearly universal full-time work because it is a shitty situation to have to string together part-time jobs, with the attendant anxiety and, in many cases, lower benefit coverage and/or wages than would be the case full-time.
BUT part-time work is not inherently bad. There are hundreds of thousands of students who can only work part-time while pursuing their studies. Ditto those who may be involved in child or family caregiving and cannot do so with a full-time employed position, seniors who are supplementing otherwise inadequate pension incomes, artists, fishers, farmers and others who need an income supplement when their core vocation is thinly rewarding and so on. We are sometimes talking past one another here, as precarious employment and part-time employment can be but are not necessarily synonymous. And for some folks, a stark choice between full-time employment and no employment leaves them no operable choice at all.
So (deep breath) minimum wage. I work in the retail sector at a fairly elevated level and have in the past been critical of minimum wage hikes that have far outstripped CPI. I would like to make a virtue out of that if I could but I can't. If I were answering Billy Bragg's musical question "Whose side are you on?", I feel that I have failed the test. I obviously accept the principle of having a minimum wage but have argued that a guaranteed minimum income is a far more effective social/economic policy tool and that there are more specific ones (e.g., CCTB for families, lower tuition for students and so on) that are much more effective at overcoming poverty challenges. All that said, I have reconciled myself to higher minimums as an ingredient among others in addressing poverty issues and look to entities like Costco that pay those sort of $20+ starting wages as being industry leaders on this issue.
What's the right number? It is hard to say. A struggling shoe shop faced with Amazon and such could have a different answer than say, an Apple store. I would say (to anticipated hoots of derision) that it depends in part upon what the market will bear. The operation has to remain economically viable or there are no jobs at any $ per hour. That's why I believe that addressing poverty is a broader societal obligation rather than one subject to the vicissitudes of a particular industry or circumstances of a single employer.
Interesting points.
Minimum wage is an attempt at providing a base but it is not an answer to the problem of a fair wage. There are people whose work is less productive and who should not be shut out by having a floor they have to meet. I think minimum wage tries to achieve this but then applies to a mass of workers who are much more productive and are penalized.. For the most part it is far below the value of most work. I am sensitive to this issue due to some involvement in the past with people who were limited due to capacity in what they could do but could produce some value.
To this end I think there are two possible solutions:
For those who cannot meet the floor, they also cannot hold down the floor for most people. Options must include some kind of subsidy and job creation where the work is designed to be something they can do. These are a small minority. For most people they work do decent work and struggle to live. This is not what we define as a living wage. This is where pressure to raise wages comes from. That said minimum wage is only a solution for a floor.
When it comes to fair wages the solution comes through fair negotiation. I can think of no mechanism better than much, much, much more widespread unionization. If we could achieve this fewer workers would be at a minimum and collective bargaining can take account of an employer's situation if bargaining is fair coming from the employer as well.
I have long been aware of this issue of voluntary part time work. I have said two things to that here:
1) first I think it is possible to establish that most part time work is not volunatary and to a great extend it can be policed. One issue is the businesses who demand many more hours be availalbe than they provide. By definition it seems this is largely involuntary as students could not offer that flexibility. Making employers have to keep to consistent schedules provides a lot of benefit for those who have limited times they can work.
2) The second point that I and others have made here is that a smaller number of hours should be the basis for what we determine is full time work. In this case more people who can only do what is now part time might find themselves happy with a new definition of full time. There would also be more employment opporutnities to cover -- but the catch is this smaller number of hours has to toal a living wage. With technology and the efficiency of labour full time work should be achievable in 25 hours a week. Many studies have shown that workers are more efficient in this range anyway. Many people who want part time would find 25 doable but for those who cannot there needs to be a way to prove that it is something they want. Part of doing this is to remove the benefits employers have by making people work fewer hours -- consistent shift schedules is one, preventing opting out of programs or paying less an hour is another.
Do you agree that it is a positive outcome that Mulcair lost?
I think it was a negative outcome that Mulcair won the NDP leadership in the first place. I think Nathan Cullen should have been chosen instead.
Yes better that he had never won the leadership to begin with but he did win it. Having won it, is it not better that the NDP did not win federally under Mulcair's leadership?
Yes better that he had never won the leadership to begin with but he did win it. Having won it, is it not better that the NDP did not win federally under Mulcair's leadership?
It would be better if pigs could fly then I would have better transportation but the odds of that are near the same as the odds of Mulcair winning government.
Yes better that he had never won the leadership to begin with but he did win it. Having won it, is it not better that the NDP did not win federally under Mulcair's leadership?
To you and other Liberals, this is a valid question.
I think there's no way to know how things would be if Mulcair had become PM. I think once in office, especially once Trump took power in the US, it is possible that Mulcair could have implemented many good programs such as pharmacare, national daycare, a national housing program, national dental care, a national optometry program, carbon cap and trade, raised pension rates, and accepted deficit spending, In that case I think things would be a lot better now even if the NDP lost the subsequent election. On the other hand Mulcair could have done very little while in office and just balanced the budget every year and then lost the subsequent election in which case things would likely be worse than they are now for Canada and the NDP. Most likely things would have fallen somewhere in the middle and Canada would be a little better off now but who knows? I think Mulcair was chosen because it was felt by many NDP members that he was the candidate best placed by far to hold on to the NDP'S Quebec seats. The Liberals were lucky to be able to choose their leader knowing they were going up against Mulcair so they chose Trudeau knowing Trudeau could pick up seats against Mulcair in Ontario, the West, BC, the Atlantic region, and that Trudeau even had a good chance of getting many seats back in Quebec as he has support there too. I think Nathan Cullen would have been the best candidate to go up against Trudeau as Cullen has the positive personality to compete with Trudeau's popularity. I think personality has as much impact on voting as does ideology. Mulcair was not very likable and that may have been his biggest flaw as leader. He came off as angry and condescending which is not a good combination in electoral politics. Singh is likable but I think most people view him as the "other" which limits his popularity. Scheer comes off as a closet religious fundamentalist that most people are uncomfortable with which hurts the Conservatives popularity and electability. I think most people view Trudeau as being generally a nice person who is even still too naive and inexperienced to be PM but that weakness may make him more popular with many people who don't like politicians. I think it should be remembered that Trudeau ran ahead his party in the election. Given that Scheer and Singh will likely both run again in the next election, I think Trudeau is in good position to win a third term, especially if Ford is still premier in Ontario.Yes better that he had never won the leadership to begin with but he did win it. Having won it, is it not better that the NDP did not win federally under Mulcair's leadership?
I think there's no way to know how things would be if Mulcair had become PM.
Here's roughly what I think would have happened had Mulcair become PM with a majority (minority would likely have achieved less).
For starterss, as I will explain, I think Mulcair would be a 1-term PM.
Those were really interesting answers. Not at all what I expected.
Mulcair actively promoted Energy East as the alternative to Keystone XL to keep jobs in Canada so I think he would have supported the oil industry.
It didn't occur to me that he could have won a majority. Was that ever in the cards even when he was in first place?
I was thinking that if the NDP won they would be firmly established as a Liberal Lite party. The left wing of the party would have no chance. It is only in losing that the party turned left.
The picture you tried to post there didn't come through. You can't post images as quotes on this board-you need to click on the "image" icon-it's just to the right of the quote icon-and then paste the URL of an image into that.
