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Ontario NDP Leadership News
February 4, 2009 - 10:47am
Who will NDP members select as their next leader for Ontario?
The provincial leadership contest will be decided by a vote among all eligible members. It's one member, one vote for the first time. Somewhat surprising is that some riding associations have continued with the now-redundant practice of endorsing leadership candidates. The riding endorsement is a throwback to the old way of selecting a leader, when ridings sent a few delegates to the convention and told them how to vote. Those days are over. No longer is any member's vote beholden to the dictates of the riding association or its executive. That would entirely defeat the purpose of having one-member, one vote. The whole point is that each member is free to think and vote as they choose. NDP voting members should not be swayed by a blanket endorsement from a riding. They should shun being led like sheep. What's important now is that those voting for the NDP leader are fully informed and vote with their eyes open.
How is it, for example, that no one's talking about the fact that leadership candidate Peter Tabuns is the subject of a grievance filed in March 2008 by OPSEU Local 578, representing the staff at Queen's Park? The grievance hearing was slated for January 12, but was postponed when the arbitrator unexpectedly declared a conflict of interest and stepped aside. So the grievance has yet to be resolved. Tabuns appears to be ducking responsibility at every turn. Is that what the NDP, the party for workers, wants in a leader – someone who disrespects collective agreements and, by extension, the people who do his work at Queen's Park?
When a hopeful in the race to be leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party is embroiled in a workplace grievance, it spells trouble. It doesn't help that his running mate Cheri DiNovo is a labour relations nightmare, having fired four people without cause or notice for their sin of failing to give up their Labour Day holiday entitlement to serve drinks at Di Novo's family barbecue.
Stay posted.
The provincial leadership contest will be decided by a vote among all eligible members. It's one member, one vote for the first time. Somewhat surprising is that some riding associations have continued with the now-redundant practice of endorsing leadership candidates. The riding endorsement is a throwback to the old way of selecting a leader, when ridings sent a few delegates to the convention and told them how to vote. Those days are over. No longer is any member's vote beholden to the dictates of the riding association or its executive. That would entirely defeat the purpose of having one-member, one vote. The whole point is that each member is free to think and vote as they choose. NDP voting members should not be swayed by a blanket endorsement from a riding. They should shun being led like sheep. What's important now is that those voting for the NDP leader are fully informed and vote with their eyes open.
How is it, for example, that no one's talking about the fact that leadership candidate Peter Tabuns is the subject of a grievance filed in March 2008 by OPSEU Local 578, representing the staff at Queen's Park? The grievance hearing was slated for January 12, but was postponed when the arbitrator unexpectedly declared a conflict of interest and stepped aside. So the grievance has yet to be resolved. Tabuns appears to be ducking responsibility at every turn. Is that what the NDP, the party for workers, wants in a leader – someone who disrespects collective agreements and, by extension, the people who do his work at Queen's Park?
When a hopeful in the race to be leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party is embroiled in a workplace grievance, it spells trouble. It doesn't help that his running mate Cheri DiNovo is a labour relations nightmare, having fired four people without cause or notice for their sin of failing to give up their Labour Day holiday entitlement to serve drinks at Di Novo's family barbecue.
Stay posted.
I've read on this board and in media reports that Candidate Prue will fund a significant part of his money for riding associations plan by diverting $1 million from the party's $4 million TV ad budget.
Here's the problem. I bet the party didn't have a $4 million TV ad budget. If the party has a $4 million election campaign deficit, it stands to reason there was only about a $1 million TV ad budget, with the rest of the election deficit covering things like the leader's tour, campaign staff at central office and in the ridings, phone banks, polling, lawn signs and support materials for riding associations etc.
If Candidate Prue proposes eliminating all election TV advertising to fund his plans, then what he is proposing is a plan for sure electoral defeat, and that's a plan the party and its members should reject.
If Candidate Prue is serious about providing money to riding associations, he should produce an honest, detailed plan about where he's getting the money and how he's going to pay for it, starting with a proper and honest accounting of the TV ad money.
Prue promises riding associations $10 G for election campaigns - the next election is a few years away and by that time Prue believes the party will be in a financial position to give campaign teams the support they need to win. Prue intends to turn the party's finances around by empowering riding associations and giving them an incentive to raise money and memberships by reformulating the revenue sharing to a 40/60 split. Prue's platform is based on the philosophy that our support base needs to be empowered so that we minimize social and economic barriers; enable people to become full and active participants in the party; and maximize their full potential. Let us not forget that Prue has experience paying down debt while investing in growth. As Mayor of East York he broght in five consecutive budgets with no tax increases, cut the city's debt by $7.8 million, and brought in new industry and commercial growth - all this during the last recession.
Horwath, Tabuns and Bisson are largely vague about their plans of rebuilding the party and fail to acknowledge the costs attached to these projects. Horwath believes we need to better engage our membership but fails to mention what better engagement might look like. Horwath's platform for party renewal does not seem to be rooted in any particular philosophical belief; rather it's made up of sweeping and vague statements that are pleasing and politically correct.
Tabuns also believes we need to engage the membership and offers a little more detail. He says we need to "mobilize our base" and "develop out reach strategies to new groups." Good idea - but how is Tabuns going to mobilize and do outreach if he's not willing to commit funds to these projects? Tabuns vaguely proposes that we need a more balanced revenue sharing system - but fails to define what balanced is. In addition, he'll offer non-financial support: as leader, he promises to come visit your riding and have other MPPs visit too. He's going to get the NDP into power one photo-opt at a time - now that's rebuilding the party in a flash
Tabuns also proposes to engage the membership in policy discussion on-line - but he fails to take into account the cost of staffers monitoring and reporting on such a system, and it assumes our (aging) membership base has access to computers and the skills to use them. Tabuns also promises to hold regular policy forums in order to listen to Ontarians - yet fails again to summarize the costs of such an endeavor. I wonder, if all the school board trustees, teachers, parents and students in support of a one school system resign from the party and join the Ontario masses, will they too finally have the opportunity to be heard by Tabuns and our party? 
From a wider glance, Tabuns approach to rebuilding the party is based on the belief that our party shouldn't have to bear the costs required to build membership and it's based on the belief that low membership and party engagement is a personal choice and that they just need to be inspired into action. It fails to consider social and economic barriers. The plus side is Tabuns has lots of experience getting poor and disadvantaged people to provide cheap, practically free labour to raise loads of cash for a good cause (Greenpeace). Surely he'll be able to transfer that skill set and apply it to our membership base 
Finally there is Bisson who offers a more detailed vision. He too wants to see a 40/60 split revenue sharing system and he also believes that "when ridings are well-financed and armed with strong organizers the electoral results will follow." However, Bisson makes no promises of financial support to ridings or nor does he offer a plan about how he intends to go about raising funds to ensure ridings are well-financed. Most intriguing is Bisson's argument that we need to better engage the Francophone community as there are over 1 million Francophones in Ontario alone. I hope this goal is pursued by whoever becomes leader of the ONDP as it is a very worthy investment. Bisson has great insight, but fails to articulate an approach of how to engage the Francophone community and he fails to attach a price tag to this project.
Michael Prue is up front and honest about the costs associations with his vision of rebuilding the party. The other candidates conveniently fail to mention the costs associated with their proposals, or hold the misguided belief that all costs can be passed to the membership. To grow a party you have to invest in it. To be a good leader you need more than direction, you need firm ideas about how to attain your goals. Experience helps too!
"Most intriguing is Bisson's argument that we need to better engage the Francophone community as there are over 1 million Francophones in Ontario alone."
Its not necessarily a bad idea, but let's keep in mind that according to Statscan, only 250,000 Ontarians speak French at home (i.e. about 2.4% of the province) and two of the ridings with the greatest concentration of francophones are already safe NDP seats (Bisson's own Timmins-James Bay and Nickel Belt). I suppose that this strategy might someday allow the NDP add Ottawa-Vanier - but that's about it.
Of course if Prue became leader with his pledge to scrap the entire separate school system, what support the NDP has among the overwhelmingly Catholic franco-Ontarian community would vanish overnight.
I think we need to reach out to non-voting Ontarians with more on the slate than just school funding. I dont think the 22 percent who elected this bunch in government will swing NDP for this issue alone. No point in fretting over spilled milk, because it's cat food now. There are lots of young people out there with concerns about the economy and environment and who are still pondering which party to support over the long term.
that's not necessarily accurate, given that overwhelmingly catholic quebec and newfoundland have dealt with the issue in a very mature fashion, and there was little, if any, fallout to the governments in power when the issue was dealt with.
'sides, as i keep on saying, this is really a debate about whether the rank-and-file has the right to debate things on the convention floor. the other campaigns like to argue this is a scary thing and should be avoided, but at least one candidate thinks real, live members are grown-up enough to have a grown-up debate, followed by a grown-up vote, followed by getting behind whatever policies flowed from that debate, like grown-ups.
or
I know what my choice will be;)
First, Prue has said that he will allow the membership to decide on the party's policy on education. Secondly, just because you are Catholic does not mean that you don't support a single education system. Indeed, a number of Catholic school board trustees have been elected on platforms supporting a single education system. More importantly, people in rural areas are more concerned with having a job than whether or not the kid gets catholic education. Having one system would actually create more jobs because it would free up all kinds of money so we could afford to have more teachers in the classroom and we could afford to pay for specialty classes like music, art and rotary. Right now 80% of schools in Ontario, public and Catholic, are only 50% full. Environmentally, financially, and morally we should be paying for one system. Education is the second biggest pocket the province pays out too - so you can imagine just how much money is tied up paying for all these half empty schools and two administrative systems. I don't know about you, but in a recession my bet is that the voter is going to choose food and shelter over separate schools. Finally, Bisson's idea to pick up the francophone community is not just about winning seats, it's about building membership and expanding our donor base - a million new members would be a welcome addition!
Just for some clarification, what Mr. Bisson has been saying about Party reform has revolved around the idea of giving ridings the ability to be more self-sufficient, the idea being that if the ridings have more money year after year, they will be able to afford their own organizers and things of that nature. His party reform platform really revolves around giving the grassroots the tools and incentive to build themselves up and not wait for the central party to do it. If you look at the ridings where we are most sucessful in this province, they are ridings that have built themselves up a great deal and don't need the central party to succeed.
As for Mr. Bisson and the Francophone community, the fact is that the Francophone vote is huge in Northeastern and especially Eastern Ontario (and area where we are shut out provincially). We are not going to win government without areas like those, and it's important that we reach out to them. As Lost points out, it's not just about votes, but about building membership and expanding our base.
But as for a "price tag" in regards to reaching out to the Francophone community, last time I checked no one, not even Mr. Prue, has put a "price tag" on any of their outreach efforts to any community, so I would argue that is a complete red herring. If the suggestion is that Mr. Prue's $10k per riding every election year promise is his price tag, than I would suggest that it sells ridings short at the end of the day. Mr. Bisson's plan of changing the funding formula and fundraising practices would give ridings the chance to bring in much more funding and would do it in a consistent manner, not just at election time, and that would really be the best way to build ridings and internal capacity.
I still don't see an issue with the francophone community. It is most prevalent in northeastern Ontario - where the NDP is already very strong - and then you have two or three seats in the easternmost extremity of the province - that's it!
We'd probably get more bang for our buck putting a major emphasis on building up support in the Chinese and Indo-Pakistani communities which are much more numerous, swing much more ridings and where the NDP isn't already almost maxxed out and clearly has a lot of room to grow.
"Secondly, just because you are Catholic does not mean that you don't support a single education system."
I'd like to think that was true but since something like a third of Ontarians send their kids to separate schools (coincidentally about a third of Ontarians are Catholic!) - obviously a helluva of a lot of Catholic chose the separate school system for some reason.
Of course, let's not forget that if the ONDP decided to eliminate the entire separate school system, we could also look forward to mass resignations and disaffiliations from the million or so people who are separate school supporters and also having the Catholic teachers unions all disaffiliate and call upon their members to actively work to defeat NDP candidates etc...
In principle, having one secular school system is good. In principle having Canada withdraw from the Commonwealth and ending all references to the monarchy are also good. The question is whether these are issues that are important enough to be worth driving away vast segments of the population.
Further to my earlier post, I thought I would include the link to the media story where Candidate Prue lays out how he'll pay for his plan to give riding associations $10,000 each --
"He [Prue] suggested 'a radical idea' of giving $1 million of the $4-million party television advertising budget to local riding associations."
www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1383969
I'd like Prue to produce some documentation of the "$4-million party television advertising budget" - and if he can't - admit that his promise is either ill-informed or worse.
There is more to Ontario's Francophone population than Northeastern Ontario. Don't forget about all of Eastern Ontario, both urban Ottawa and rural surrounding, where there are larger francophone populations, where we get between 7-15%, where the Liberals tend to draw most of the francophone vote and where we don't hold any seats provincially. Right there is a group for growth. Also, many immigrants to the GTA and Ontario as a whole speak French as a first language.
But to drill down on these numbers further would be to get away from the big point. Mr. Bisson has never suggested reaching out to Francophones to the exclusion of other communities. It's not an "either/or" proposition, so it's not a matter of "getting more bang for one's buck". Mr. Bisson is talking about the Francophone community because that's a community that we as a party have not traditionally actively reached out to in Ontario and because French is one of our official languages.
Tabuns can speak for himself. I am expressing my personal opinion, i am not involved in any of the leadership campaigns. We learned once again in the last Ontario election that picking at the scab of religion and education is a lose-lose proposition.
You can try to make this into a vendetta against Tabuns, but I suspect that his views on separate schools in Ontario are the same as those of Bisson and Horwatch and Hampton for that matter - and that also goes for every NDP leader going back to the 60s.
Tattler: Prue's shills have been dropping the innuendo laced attacks on Tabuns & DiNovo everywhere they can. It's on at least three threads around here. You're indignation at our lack of awareness of the labour troubles seems a little misplaced and way overdue. We all know already! Several times over.
What truly concerns you, undoubtedly, is that Tabuns is still a front runner I get that you're a newbie and signed up only to heap disdain on the candidates you're not supporting, but is it too much to ask you to use the search function or better yet read the other ONDP leadership threads before you redundantly inundate us with your umbrage at our being so misinformed?
btw are you one of Prue's shills? Think I'll ferret through his past departmental "labour" relations to see if anything seems untoward. Maybe I too might dig up some kind of grievance. Then I could be magnanimous like you and drag his accomplices/ supporters through the mud. All in the name, of course, of full disclosure and enabling our members to make informed decisions. Then again, maybe I don't feel that Prue poses any threat to Tabuns.
nhti: grmoandnauc
Question. How is Tabuns (let alone anyone) considered a frontrunner. Just because he is purported to have the backing of some high up folks in Ottawa and the old party club it seems to me that in a one member one vote system without polling figures there is no front runner. btw given the rumours of post coalition attempt backlash amongst the membership, were I to run I would want some distance from the Ottawa elites. Back to my point.....Would someone please produce the magical hidden poll results please?
Otherwise give the front runner talk a rest. (kindly)
I am disappointed at this vacuous discussion on the leadership. For any party to build and energize its members and the population it needs to respond to issues of concern to people in a manner that improves democracy, social and environmental justice. This should be the core of the discussion.
Presenting a principled vision that addresses economic and environmental injustice is the core of building the party, attracting new members, electing more representatives and strengthening social movements. The most coherent vision is the new energy economy pushed by Tabuns. A vision that has earned him caution from the Labour and Party establishment which has swung in behind Horvath.
This is the real debate: how are we going to address the economic, democratic and environmental crisis in a way that furthers the cause of justice, rather than strengthening the dominant social order. Many of these posts use lies, innuendo and personal attacks that simply marginalizes the NDP, and other progressives, and detracts from a needed debate on the core issues.
Two points on this... First of all I would argue that Mr. Bisson has the most coherent vision for the party as he has been the one that has been running on making our party stronger and in a better position to form government. In my opinion we have great ideas as a party and that isn't what has been keeping us from getting to government. It's been organization and lack of fundraising. Of course that's my opinion so please take it for what you will
Secondly, I wouldn't presume that the party establishment and labour movement have completely swung behind Ms. Horwath. We'll see in the next couple of weeks as more and more unions come out with their endorsements that there is no universal direction where labour is going.
But I would agree that the tone of the discussions here could be better. We can all have our differences and discuss this race without resorting to smears and name calling (not singling anyone out, just a general observation). Remember, when this is all over we need to come together as New Democrats and fight the next election together, and we can't afford to splinter off into factions and such.
Not precisely off the top of my head, but I know that coming into the leadership it was somewhere around 20-25% of the membership. I assume that it's somewhere above that now.
Plus remember Mr. Bisson did just add over 1,100 members to his riding association, making it the largest in the province. More than likely his campaign did sign up other members across the province and in the North too, so that pre-leadership amount is pretty likely to have grown.
http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/full_story.asp?StoryNumber=37415
Horwath has been endorsed by OFL president Wayne Samuelson and I guess that would constitute being backed by a major "establishment figure". In general though, the party "establishment" (FWIW) seems to have lined up pretty solidly behind Tabuns (ie: the Lewis family, Jill Marzetti, Diane O'Reggio etc...), as have people from the more "environmentalist" wing of the party.
I have no idea who will win since as has been noted, there is no polling and we also don't know what the turn-out among members will be. Past experience has shown that people who join parties as "instant New Democrats" in order to vote in leadership or nomination votes - often don't actually vote in high numbers. We also have no idea where all the preferences will flow. A lot of people in southern Ontario (where the vast majority of members reside) may regard Bisson as a regional candidate and rank him last on the ballot and so the preferences of Tabuns, Prue and Horwath may clump together. Its all speculation at this point.
I would agree that no one knows quite where everything will fall, but I would suggest that the members of southern Ontario view Mr. Bisson as a fair bit more than a regional candidate. The more that he's getting seen and exposed to the folks in Southern Ontario, I would suggest that more and more members are moving him up on their ballots. Add to the fact that he's been living half of the time over the past 20 plus year in Toronto, he's also able to speak to the issues of Southern Ontario with some authority and experience.
Also, as for the "instant member" issue, I would argue that the opposite of their voting tendencies are true. If you've gone out of your way and taken the time and money to take out a membership to support a candidate, you're more likely to actually take the time out to vote for them. Otherwise wasn't the whole exercise of taking out a membership pointless??? Add to that all members can vote by mail, it doesn't take a lot of time out of someone's day to take that next step of voting.