Elections - QC on rabble.ca

The federal budget continues Canada's legacy of paternalism towards Indigenous peoples. The Left Coast Post talks to former NDP contender Romeo Saganash.

Our wiki-style Toolkit aims to be a space for activist collaboration. Home to a wealth of resources, the content is organized according to 'tooltype' -- each unique in its contribution.

How well the NDP succeeds in bringing its new Quebec players front and centre will decide whether or not the New Democrats are poised to become the dominant player in Canadian politics.

The Liberal Party's demise has been long coming. Without a base in any region, or a strong party membership, or even an easy to identify party philosophy, who will solve their problems?

Quebec has always sat on a political fault line -- and last week it was hit by a massive NDP quake which came because the living conditions for working people in Quebec are dire.

Before the May 2 election, the NDP had only ever won 2 seats in Quebec. Now they hold 58 out of 75 seats in the province. Roger Rashi is a founding member of the progressive party, Quebec Solidaire.

There has been a shift in consciousness. Looking at the NDP and the combined Tory/Liberal vote, a picture emerges of an eroding but concentrated corporate vote, and a surging NDP vote.

So what made this Harper majority? Two intrepid men with calculators decided to add up the win margins in 14 ridings. They were appalled to discover the results.

Many political and social activists right now are taking stock. The left and for that matter, the right, did not see this coming.

Those of us that might want to see a silver lining in the dark clouds ahead and talk of a 2015 breakthrough for the NDP must consider the following points.

Election day thought: The political arena is not a theatre in which the actors are strictly separated from the audience. We can and must express what we want and need. Politics is not merely a game.

The local electorate have reacted most to the ways the traditional PQ-Bloc leadership has been unable to move ahead -- and the NDP are chasing for votes.

Décidément, cette élection fédérale du 2 mai aura été une grande surprise.

Alert! Radio #183 -- Interviews with Antonia Zerbisias on social media and the election, Pierre Beaudet on the NDP surge in Quebec and Patrick Bond on the upcoming UN Conference on Climate Change.

Without a doubt, the key development in this election so far is the apparent decision by a great number of francophone Quebeckers to re-engage in the governance of Canada by voting for the NDP.

The left in Quebec has, as always, different opinions about the rise of the NDP in this province.

An extraordinary alliance is building up in Quebec to defeat the Bloc, and pushing Jack and the NDP forward.

After the departure of Chretien, a sort of “civil war” erupted in the Liberal Party against the establishment led by Chretien and the inheritors of Trudeau, heavily supported by an opaque network.

Jack needs to concentrate where the NPD can make real and sustainable gains, in Ontario and B.C. The enemy of the Canadian left is not Quebec nationalism.

In a distant past when the left was more self-assertive, we used to denigrate the mainstream political process around its usual institutions, political parties, reformist ideologies and elections.