Ontario NDP Accused of Violating Constitution Part 2

What if I agree that due process should be followed - but I also agree that its probably a good idea to postpone the convention until 2012.??

I think most people feel the same as you Stockholm. If the vote doesn't pass we can always reintroduce the motion again at next council where we can vote on it openly and properly. We can also ask for a re-vote - this time with a proper system in place. I just learned of another delegate who only received the second email - with all the emails of executive attached - but never received the voting package. Discrepancies like these are unacceptable.  Perhaps someone could start an on-line petition calling for a re-vote with a proper system in place that ensures everyone gets a ballot; provides voting options for those without email; ensures delegates are alerted to the fact that an electronic vote is coming 2-3 days in advance (perhaps a telephone tree administered by regional rep.s - using our exec.s what a brilliant idea);  provides a secure, electronic venue for discussion, allows one week for delegates to respond (and collect input from their respectful executives, caucuses, members etc.). 

The results of the vote are in and the president and prov. secretary have concluded that the motion carried. Although council has over 300 delegates, 257 ballots were e-mailed out, 124 votes were received back. Of these, 118 were valid and 6 were received after the deadline. 95 votes were for the motion and 23 were against. 

What happened to quorum? Even if we only considered the emailed votes - quorum would not have been achieved. 

I guess Sandra Clifford is above the constitution... 

Oh dear. Not reaching quorum on top of everything else. A week to forget, really.

What is quorum?

Quorum is 50% +1

If 257 ballots were sent out then quorum is 128 + 1

Only 124 votes were received. 

so can we re-send to the 133 people who didn't vote and ask them to vote again - just to get three more votes??

Honestly, though 80% of the votes that were cast were Yes, so it seems like quite a stretch to suggest that almost all of the uncast votes would have been No and overturned the decision. Why is this sooo important to anyone?

The constitution is not to be taken lightly. Most people do not have a problem with postponing the convention. Myself included. Many people do have a problem with proper processes not being followed and a lack of transparency and accountability. Less than half the emails sent out responded. We cannot assume they actually received the email. Not all delegates received the email ballot. Delegates were only given two days to respond and many received their ballots late and therefore had even less time. Some only got their ballots the night before. If the ONDP decides it is going to pick and choose when to follow the constitution then I'm going to have to leave this party. This is not democracy. This is no longer a party directed by its membership. 

If the party constitution says there has to be a quorum - then either the quorum is met or it isn't. How can anyone say otherwise?

I've heard some chatter about a possible legal challenge over this. Has anyone else heard anything?

What a bunch of hotheads. Your own worst enemies.

I figure there is an essentially legitimate grievance- more like an accumulation of them- that underlies these reactions. But the kind of reactions that are engaged in, sheesh.

I may be mistaken, but I thought quorum was 50% of delegates period... not 50% of delegates who received ballots.

But Ontario is so big that it may be a lot easier to fall short of quorom, and that you therefore have more complex formulas for calculating quorom.

@ Stockholm  I agree this seems very cut and dry to me.  Quorum was not met as 124 is less than the required 129 (this does not include delegates who did not recieve a ballot).  It boggles the mind how the vote is being accepted by the Party leadership.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the Convention - for practical reasons - should be delayed.  The challenge on this thread is to separate the issue of Convention dates from the flawed voting process. 

If even one council delegate did not recieve a ballot then the result is null.  We should strive at the next council to hold a revote to ratify the result of the email vote and hold the President and Secretary to account.

why was no one allowed to observe the vote count? and who observed the cretaion of the electors list? i think that is where the real problem is

i think a legal challenge is obvious here. fair is fair, unfair is unfair--who cares how many or or how little. that is the point of progressive politics of inclusion

this president and her gang are dictators hwo think they can bend any rule they want

did we even chose voting by email?

i feel cheated

Not at all. She courageously upholds the constitution no matter who disagrees.

Hello everyone. It mkes me nervous and sad that there might be legal steps taken and I hope we can avoid that, but if it comes to that it must happen.

It looks to me as if this is all the persident's doing. If it is not, she should have stepped in and held the vote off until a process was delivered to the members and delegates, then called for a vote. Seems to me she rushed this through and if she knows the membership, she should have known this would cause a problem.

On the other hand if she does not know the membership, she should not be president.

I do not know the constitution that well. Does anyone know if we can call for a confidence vote at the next council ofthe president?

Thank you

KenS, you've hit the nail on the head.  The response is the result of an accumulation of grievances, and many of us believe that this last screw-up was the straw that broke the camel's back.

However, I wouldn't dismiss the reaction as that of a bunch of hotheads.  The apparatchiks follow the rules when it suits them, and break the rules those rules become inconvenient.  The leadership has developed a sense of entitlement that has made them dismissive of the membership.  Apparently, we're there to work the election campaigns and empty our pockets to raise money for those campaigns.  

This party is too small to enter into protracted inner conflicts, but I don't think the party can assume we'll continue to knuckle under in order to keep up appearances.  The NDP is in dire need of an extreme makeover in terms of how we do business.  Maybe we need a few more 'hotheads' to send the poobahs that message.  It might take some kind of internal crisis to kick-start that makeover.  As the saying goes, 'to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs'.  Let's get cracking.  (Sorry, must be a sale on metaphors.)

i think it is time to break eggs. i am just starting my political life and i have no other party to go to. i was told that this was MY party and thats what made the ndp different

now i find out that this is actually the politicl front for union mafia clans. its time we broke from unions. it cant stay an older, white blue collar party for much longer

the party needs to get younger, more divers and more educated... bye bye unions! you are no different than corps!

j

Jason, that's a completely reactionary attitude and using phrases such as "union mafia clans" is reprehensible. It's absurd to say that unions are "no different" than corporations. With the exception of company unions (which are not unions at all) even the most bureacratic trade union is better for workers than having no union at all. If you compare unionized and non-unionized workers doing the same job in the same industry the unionized worker will always be better paid and have better working conditions with more protections. That doesn't make them oppressors of non-unionized workers, it just gives a compelling reason for why the unorganized should join unions.

The answer is not to break with unions but to fight within them to make them democratic and activist. If a union is "older and white" then fight to organize younger workers, women, people of colour. It is the sweatshop factories in and around Toronto that exploit immigrant labour that need to be unionized the most. Saying one shouldn't have anything to do with unions because they are white, male and older is getting it completely backwards (and is also something of a myth). Rather than say you'll be more diverse if you get rid of the unions, make the unions more diverse.

As for the NDP, a) I don't see how the issue of putting off convention has anything to do with unions and b) if the NDP disaffiliates from the union movement then it might as well be the Liberal Party.

@ mycroft

unions control our party, the president and the leader. members who are not part of unions are therefore just puppets

If you're that anti-union then you really are in the wrong party (and frankly, I don't see the Liberals or even the Greens being more democratic, without union affiliation than the NDP is with union affiliation).

If you think that the masses of people who are workers should have more power in society as opposed to the corporations then the only way to achieve this is through working class organization and that means, yes, unions. If the unions are undemocratic then it's up to their members to make them democratic.

There are far too many young people in the party. But all is not lost. The longer you talk to them, the older they get.

@mycroft

teach union members to be democratic!? this is canada and if they dont know how to be democratic yet..wow, they are never gonna get it dude

and what masees of workers are we representing? everyone is a 'worker'

if we really wer representing this old-style worker you think still exists, we would have all the norrthern seats, a couple ottawas, both windsors, all hamiltons and some niagaras... but we dont and we dont because these 'working masses' dont see us as their party...why do they need us when they have their unions?

I didn't say teach union members to be democratic, I said " If the unions are undemocratic then it's up to their members to make them democratic."

And it's in all workers' interests to be in a union. If more workers are organized then the unions become broader, more diverse and more representative. Organize your workplace.

I don't think you really understand the concept of the NDP or the idea of a labour party or unions. But, as point of fact, the NDP's base in Ontario is in the places you mention. If the NDP confined itself to hip artists, students and leftish professionals and shed itself of unions and blue collar workers then it would only have one or two seats, if that.

true. but then again we might be democratic so it will alwasy be a choic i guess. between the educated hipsters and the blue collar worker. sad cause i thought we were the big tent.

you are right though this is not the party for me. see ya

Aka Mycroft is right: party and union play different roles. Neither should dictate to the other. Both have to learn to compromise and respect and complement each other. When that doesn't happen, as Bob White wrote to Sandra Clifford:

I love the concept of unions. I love that the NDP represents the interests of unions, however we are not strictly a labour party. We are also suppose to represent the interests of many equity seeking groups. The problem is our president is first and foremost an OFL employee. The OFL pays for her salary and she reports back to them. Her agenda is the OFL's agenda, which is not always the NDP's agenda. She has overstepped her role in caucus on occasion. She has threatened caucus that if they did not take a certain position labour support would be cut. Since then she has not always been invited to caucus meetings. What we have is a conflict of interest. As much as I love unions I sincerely believe it is labour's stranglehold over the party that is causing so many problems. We need to be able to make decisions based on what's best for the party without fear of reprisal from unions.  We need to secure funding for a president - not have labour loan us an employee. 

@ Mike for Canmore, how is it that you know what happens at NDP Caucus meetings?

Same way most people get their information. I talk with people who attend the meetings. 

You seem like a reasonable person, but you say a lot of things that wrap so much myth or misrepresntation around the point that it gets lost or is discredited.

Technically speaking, we don't 'represent the interests' of unions or of any group. To varying degrees they have formal and informal links. And even where they are strongest, as with unions, we still do not represent them. In fact, thats presumptious looked at from either end of the relationship.

Ditto for the other 'equity seeking groups': we neither represent them or are we supposed to.

That said, there are very compelling unwritten expectations that we speak on their behalf. And there is generally some hell to pay both within and from outside the party when we are perceived not to speak adequately. I'm among the many who don't appreciate that dynamic- the compelled rather than voluntary part of it. And whether its unions or womens groups or environmentalists have no problem saying: 'sorry you are dissapointed in us. We can talk about it. [But unspoken: if you think we've done something unspeakable, sorry, but go pound sand.]'

The difference with unions is that with the federal party and some of the provincial sections union people exert influence beyond that on the governance of the party. This is what you are really referring to. And it really has little relationship to the point of 'who we are supposed to represent'. 

I take strong offense to this overstatement, on behalf of both the party and trade unionists.

You can make as strong a case as you want that the Presidents loyalties are to divided, or spread out. But saying that she is the OFL plant and reports to them is a smear. And I personally think you should apologize for it.

As to her role at Caucus meetings- she does not have a defined role in Caucus. Provincial labour fed presidents are routinely invited to Caucus meetings. The emphasis is on that word 'invited'- regardless of whether they come as often as they want. [And few come all that often.]. Party presidents routinely come to Caucus meetings- but they also are really observors... no matter how much they may offer their opinions or have them solicited.

Labour federation reps- let alone ones like the party preseident who are only employees- do not have the power to cut support for the NDP. That support is always highly decentralized and contingent. It has much more to do with relationships the party has with undividual unions and their leadership. If the provincial fed reps are unhappy with the party that definitely has influence. But it aint the whip cracking relationship you have characterized here.

This kind of apocryphal portrayal is much more common in the myth than the very limited number of times it has been threatened. And even when it has been threated [as with Bob White to the Rae government], there is always some skepticism how real the threat is [things like how many unions will actually pull support, etc.

I rate the credibility of your particular charge quite low. I'd need to hear from a lot of differing viewpoints that anything like that was said by Clifford. [And if she did, how it was variously perceived.]

There are a multitude of good reasons that the position of President is never going to be paid. Since it requires a considerable time commitment that generally means the person has to be either retired or have a friendly employer. Unions are not the biggest source of that.

Its possible that the President of the ONDP should not come from the OFL. Since I know nothing about the current presidents performance, I cant say how I would view that. But if the problems are anything like the way you portray them, it will impact on the election of the next Pres... and probably on how long Clifford wants to serve. If she does throw her weight around, that doesn't mean she'll want to keep doing it. The party survives all kinds of deficiencies in Presidents.

As to the 'stranglehold unions have on the party'... leaving aside substantive disputes as the veracity of that characterization... you are tying an anchor to your leg and tossing it overboard. A ggod way to alienate a lot of party activists who you otherwise have some common ground with.

I stayed out of the debate about when the convention should be because I felt that it wasn't my fight.

However, I did think that the fury was way overblown for a decision (moving the convention) that everyone seems to agree with.  I wondered if those who were trying to whip up the anger had other motives.  Process is important, but not to the point of civil war for convention timing.

Now, suddenly an admisitrative decision seems to be bundled up with a nasty fight about labour in the NDP - and a personal grudge against Sandra Clifford.

And suddenly my earlier suspicions seem much more plausable.

But then, I work for a union - so you all know where I get my marching orders.

Theres also a lack of basic logic in the account of the role of the President and of the OFL.

Talk about a leadership clique manipulating process is one thing. But a rogue President that is a puppet of the OFL cracking the whip?

In the vast majority of cases if the Pres shades towards being someones puppet, the Leader is the puppeteer. And the party structure as a whole tends very strongly to at the very least takes its cues from the Caucus side. But in this portrayal the Leader and Caucus seem to be passive forces.

I get my marching orders from the forces of anti-unionism, by the way.

Lou, that's a ridiculous assertion. Jason is not the spokesperson for NDPers who have objected to this decision and his rant about unions is, frankly, a complete non-sequitor having nothing to do with anyone else. He is not an author of the open letter or the person behind the facebook group or petition so to hold them and others in the party who agree with them responsible for Jason's views is not outside the bounds of rational discussion.

I also don't see how it's in the OFL's interest to violate the NDP constitution or why the timing of the convention would be of any concern to them.

I'm quite confident that the decision has nothing to do with "marching orders" from labour. Jason's conspiracy theory is just that and says everything about his lack of knowledge about unions and nothing about the subject of this thread.

Fair enough, but I've only been following this on babble.  And my initial opinion was based on what I read on babble, not the original letter.

Same goes for my new suspisions.  It's not just Jason, but Mike from Canmore who are trotting out this anti-labour tripe.  But fair enough - I'll contain my comments to those two for now.  But in any event, the credibility of their opinions on the original matter has, in my estimation, dropped.

Just one more point to Jason. If the labour movement ran the NDP we wouldn't have had the Social Contract or Sunday shopping or other measures opposed by labour.

Conversely, if it wasn't for the NDP's influence over some union's we wouldn't have seen the Days of Action against Harris terminated prematurely.

But you forgot one crucial fact, young people these days are better at not listening than anyone before us. We shall never grow old!

Pardon?

Papal Bull, if they were all like you (and I think and hope lots are), my faith in the youth is not misplaced.

@ aka Mycroft. I went off topic with my last post. I do not think the OFL is interested in violating the NDP constitution, nor do I think they care about the timing of our conventions. I was pointing out that there is a conflict of interest with having the OFL loan the party an employee and that the employee's first allegiance is to the OFL not the ONDP. I do think she's a terrible president. Any president that violates the constitution, holds an unfair and exclusive vote, and deems the vote valid even though it did not make quorum is a terrible president. 

@ KenS You seem like you have been with the party for a while - you're certainly a long time member to rabble. Perhaps you can offer some insight. If not the president, who proposed the vote and oversaw it, who do you think is setting the agenda? 

@lou arab. if you were followingthis thread you would know that this debate did NOT start with and administarive decision. it started because of a constitutional VIOLATION.

big or small, a constitutional violation is just as serious. the ofl woman known as our president has commited so many fairnes violations in the year that i have know her they have all lead to this very serious violation.

lou, what is a SMALL constitutional violation? we have a president that will do whatever she wants and a secrtary that has no idea hos to interpret a constitution, but that is a main part of her job.

sanrda is beholden to the ofl. andrea beholded to the unions. the secretary is andreas campaign manager...

what s anyone supposed to think other than unions control our party. god help us if blue collar people control things in ontario, obviously they don't care about little trivial things like constitutions

I'm sure She will. That's probably what She's been waiting for. God speed the day!

From the email from Sandra Clifford to Provincial Council delegates.

Provincial office staff tabulated the votes in the presence of the Provincial Secretary, myself and Jack Murray.  Jack Murray, who served as Chief Electoral Officer for the one-member-one-vote leadership vote last year, scrutineered the tabulation.

I'll put up with a lot of stuff but making insinuations that impugne the integrity of someone like Jack Murray is beyond the pale. If Jack Murray oversaw this vote, it was overseen properly. period. full stop.

Jason, I don't have a copy of the ONDP constitution handy, so I really can't judge if the party has violated the constitution or not.  I will say that generally interpreting a constitution is not a black and white exercise - there is usually room for disagreement among reasonable people.

So without the constituion in my hands, I have to rely upon 'the credibility of the witnesses' so to speak.

And when you say things like 'god help us if blue collar people control things' you lose credibility with me.

You are not helping your case.

Well Lou there is certainly a complete misunderstanding of what quorum is.  Quorum is the number of participants involved in the discusion.  Quorum was clearly acheived through the number of emails received.  The number of votes cast, has no bearing on quorum being acheived.  They are different and seperate issues.  In card votes for example at counicl there is no counting - expect on a standing count of course, of the votes for and against, just whether something carries or not.  That is because quorum and vote total are different animals.

There are potentially some legitimate concerns about this decision, but the grasping at straws does not make them more legitimate, they make them less.

BA, I haven't seen any objections to the tabulation so Jack Murray's integrity is not being questioned. Rather, the issue is the medium in which the executive made this decision, the allegation that naysayers were bullied, the decision to have provincial council vote by email, the issue of whether such a vote was legal, whether there was proper deliberation, whether everyone was sent a ballot and whether quorum was met. None of those issues involve Murray.

Thats a good list of the concerns- to which should probably add specifying the concern about justifcation for an emergency process when the information it was based on was known 2 weeks earlier when there was a full Council meeting [with the usual prior Exec meeting to vett issues that should be raised at Council].

But there has been a lot of grasping at straws, one of which was that the scrutinizing was a sham. The opening post attributed motive to the Exec wanting to extend their terms. Then there's the canard of the OFL pulling strings. Thats just the most prominent of the graspings- and those and responses to them have been the bulk of discussion.

If you don't think the OFL has an interest in this, why did you bring it up? Why didn't you leave it at she's a terrible president?

More to the point- you're still waving that red flag at everyone: the OFL allegedly 'loaning' the NDP an employee "whose first loyalty is to them".

Note that point I made upthread that being President takes a lot of time and either being retired or having a lenient employer or very flexible work situation. I can't remember an ONDP Pres that has been retired or semi-retired. The ones that worked for NGOs or whatever, do you suppose people would be repeatedly tossing off that the employer was 'loaning' them so they would speak in the employer's interest? 

I have no idea. And frankly, even if I was in Ontario, my reaction would probably be to wonder what exactly was going on... to not really know who exactly were the key players. But there are always plenty of people who that does not stop from making trumped up allegations, with a lot of others seizing on them, leaving the actual issues lost in the ensuing uproar.

For what its worth, there was a time when I could say who did what and why in the processes of the NSNDP. But I was a lot closer in than you are in the ONDP. I was no happy camper, and that was well known. But I had the sense to stay away from making who did what and why allegations that require people have their own inside knowledge to make critical assessments of whether to beleive or refute you.

If the process sucks, there will be plenty of on the surface evidence. Unfotunately, the North American left has a hard time making a case without building it around outrage... a lot of which is so trumped up it is apparent to everyone except those spewing it and the few who are primed to uncritically beleive and join in stoking the fires.

Mycroft, I am sure that there are those out there that are legitimately raising concerns 'out there', but on babble and in this thread the allegations have definetly been made that this was manipulated, including the tabulations of votes.  However, it still seems to me to be much ado about nothing.  It is not the end of the world, or a terrible assault on democray to move the convention back a year.  There are undoubtedly some very good lessons in this for future decsion making processes within the party, but some of the criticism, especailly here on babble, just seems terribly overwrought.

And I will say it again if Jack Murray was involved than the process of vote tabulation was done ethically and well.  Period.

@bookish

there is no place in the party to disuss legitimate concerns. ondy reps have reported againa and again that the president will shut down any debate she doe not like. she has altered iur reports to exec and she amnipulates meetings. if you don't know this by now, where have you been this last year. go to an exec meeting and observe. period

it seems like what you reallr are saying is the exec members who have  raised concerns are unqualified to raise concerns. is this because they are all from ondy, lgbt or ethnic comm? if they are execs and are saying something, should we assume that they have something important to say?

Bookish Agrarian, i am very concerned that their are some in our party who would advocate for the position that the some constitutional violations are okay ift hey are not "the end of the world." In my experience, this is the kind of thing that reall sacres people off the NDP and feeds into the misconception that we are communist, undemocratic or unable to manage a government. This kind ofthinking is not okay of you were an MP, MPP or any other politician making a decision, so how can it be okay in our party? If we win the next election, will you start acting like a competent decsions maker then? Will our President then worry about a the little details then?

I also think you have missed the points being raised here, once again. While Mr Murray may have been at the vote count, he was not at the prepartion of the voters list nor any of the other steps. We do not know who was on the list, who should have been on the list or who was sent an email.

I have worked on many elections I have never met an NDP campaign manager that if shefound that 1000 eliigble NDP supporters had been left off the List of Eectors whould have simply accepted Elections Ontario's explanations that ohe well, we had a vote in the office and decided the list was fine, or said theose votes would not have changed the outcome so it really doesn't matter, or well this was just a small violation and does not threaten the province.

You are in very dangerous territory here. If people are concerned, why not allow the process to be transparent? Stopping this from being talked about on Rabble wa svery simple: make the process transparent as fairness dictates. Shutting the debate down is not the answer, being fair in the first place is.

Olive

Maybe the people that have been in charge of the ONNDP for whatever reason aren't able to do the job required of them. Do they have any goals? What are their goals? Are they reaching their goals? If not, perhaps they should step down, be thanked for their efforts, and let some others, with some new ideas, have a kick at the can.

I echo JasonNDP's point in post #51

The ONDY report to council was edited without ONDY's permission.  When the issue was rasied at an exec meeting Sandra screamed at them - quite literally screamed and yelled at them.  That's not the way to go about keeping young people on the executive.

I've spoken to a few ONDY members a none of them are happy.  A scary number are even considering not renewing their memberships.  When the young people are that worked up over the issue and feel that marginalized we have a problem.

@ PassionateGardener - how do you know what happened at an exec meeting?

There seems to be a lot of people here who claim to know exactly what happened at closed door meetings that they weren't attending.

Why the concern over secrecy?

@ John J the meetings are not closed door. People come to observe all the time. 

Hello, John J.

If you are an MDP member you are represented on our Executive by a few of the Members. Do you not speak with them? Do you not get reports form your Regional Representative of Committee Representative? Are you aparticpating in your democracy and your party?

Further, these meetings are not closed. They are open to all party members. Please remember you cannot tell who is on a conference call. Our riding president was on the xeceutive call that disucssed this and remained anonymous.

Olive

The earlier claim you questioned was about what happens at Caucus meetings, which are not open.

John J,

I attended the meeting where I witnessed the screaming first hand.  I truely regret not speaking out at the time.

I encourage more ONDP members to attend meetings of the Executive if only to promote a return to civility.

First, was not the NDP a product of a merger of sorts between the CCF and the labour movement? 

Second, it's always been my impression (from the outside) that in the NDP / OFL relationship, it's the NDP that wags the dog, not the other way around. 

Third, (aside)

That may not be the best example. Since Mike Harris did away with enumeration and moved Ontario to a  permanent voters list (in order to help win the 1999 election - by less than 10,000 votes in 12 ridings), the voters lists are really screwed up - especially among tenants, young people and immigrants. I don't know why the ONDP (or the federal party for that matter) haven't taken up this issue.