ONDP leadership V (plus Ginger)

hand? I thought this was a discussion board, not a crib board.

One gets the impression some of the Tabuns surrogates lurking around this board fancy themselves submariners, silently stalking prey, popping up when they think no one is looking and lobbing what they think to be a well-placed torpedo before easing safely back into the depths.

 Sadly for the campaign, those days are over. Now that you've been flushed to the surface, you've gone to the predictable fallback, which seems to be, 'unfair! They're saying mean things about my candidate! Only we can do that about them!'

Let's move from nautical metaphors to theological metaphors and go all Aquinian. First movers, dear Synth, First Movers. We find ourselves at this juncture because an overzealous Tabuns supporter has been twaddling about this board for a few weeks, talking smack, accusing other candidates, particularly Michael of making crazy promises, etc. etc. For the most part, it was pretty harmless stuff, but he was a little too clever by half when he accused one of the candidates of shoddy labour practices on this board (no union bug on a flyer--quelle horreur!). It's one of those moments that make you hope your opponent has a few hundred more supporters like that.

Now that someone's stood up to that sort of nonsense, you're crying foul and complaining that I'm 'shilling' (gasp!) for Prue. Yeah? So? And you're shilling for Tabuns, and both other candidates have their fair share of shills. Not during a leadership campaign! What is this world coming to?

You're free to play spokesperson to a victimized camp as long as you want. Whenever someone calls the campaign out on their hypocrisy, they get all wounded-looking and moan they're being attacked unfairly. You think the Liberals are gonna be any nicer to you?

While you're playing victim, some thoughts on using a beloved eco-icon (now deceased, so no one can ask him what he thinks about it) as a prop to advance your candidate's political career--stay classy.

And Robo is correct--Libs and New Dems in the know have said the Liberals leaked the book story to garner sympathy for their candidate. No one has ever suggested that Prue had anything to do with the leak. As for the business about Prue not having done enough to denounce the story...gimme a break. Maybe he should offered Hunter's supporters rides to the polls while he was at it.

As New Democrats, we know that no one in the NDP leaked the book story to the press, not Prue, not Churley (who got dragged into that mess, too), not any New Democrat. As a surrogate for Tabuns, you owe both of those fine people an apology.

 ps: Comparing Paul Miller's conduct during this campaign to Cheri's is laughable. I probably am gauche. I certainly will never be mistaken for a Rosedale socialist, but I certainly know a surrogate when I see one.

pps: And since you were thoughtful enough to crassly invoke Bob Hunter's name in your quest to see Peter the Leader, is it fair of me to ask what someone as committed to social and environmental justice as Bob was would think of his beloved Greenpeace engaging in union-busting and contract-stripping? Just wondering.

edited at 6:41 a.m. for typo

Quote:

and when Mr. Bisson asked him his view on the very principle of it, Mr. Prue wouldn't answer.

If one expects to lead on an issue, one should have an opinion on that issue in order to lead.

robo: "Suggesting that Prue or any other New Democrat was "involved tacit or otherwise" is what is scurrilous."

Let me be clear. In no way do I believe the envelope came from the NDP (if I did, there is no way I would have remained a member of the party). Having said that, being in an NDP boat does not in itself protect the party from leaks ("New Dems in the know" know that recent events at Queen's Park prove that).  

Still, what I took great umbrage with was that, especially because it wasn't we who leaked the book, when faced with the choice between the principled condemnation of such defamatory tactics and denial/ silence, Prue and the ONDP chose the latter. Unlike foxymoron I don't see the alternatives as silence or give your opponents rides to the polling station. When DiNovo was being libelously attacked by the Liberals, David Hutcheon (Conservative candidate) repeatedly used his introductory statements at all candidates meetings to roundly denounce this kind of gutter politics.  When we had the opportunity, we should have done the same. We should have denounced, in the strongest possible terms, the people and the politics behind such a hideous personal attack. 

I get that we run to win. At the same time, I hold the NDP to a higher standard.  

btw I'm not crying foul. If the will of the commenters is to continue to trot out skeletons from closets and hurl epithets, I'm happy to do that. However, as I've posted repeatedly, I'd rather not.  I'd rather keep the discussion positive (who are you shilling for and why), or least genuine, even light-hearted, criticism of candidates' positions,  comments, platforms etc.

For instance, notwithstanding my reservations with focusing right now on the Catholic school funding issue, I agree mostly with foxymoron's last post. I think a real issue is the democratic renewal of our party.  I believe that what sometimes has gone derogatorily by the name of  interest groups or social movements need to be a reinvigorating force for the party. And I think we more than a promise of "dialogue".  I'd like to know if each of the candidates agrees and how they propose to make the NDP more democratic.

Double post.

this may wind up being a double post, as i thought i'd responded, but the response never showed up. most likely an error on my part, but let me again say with the utmost of respect that Prue is not the candidate "highlighting religious school funding" as a campaign issue. His three opponents never miss an opportunity to do so, however, and in so doing avoid the real issue, which is whether or not the party establishment believes the rank-and-file membership (the ones they take 90 cents of every donated dollar from) are grown-up enough to have a frank and open debate on the convention floor regarding issues of importance to them. A group of such rank-and-filers have said they wish to debate this, and Michael feels they should have the right to bring it to the floor.

While the other three candidates are strangely silent as to whether they share Michael's belief that rank-and-file members should have such a right and are grown up enough to have such a debate, vote on it and emerge from the debate united and stronger, they rarely miss an opportunity to trash Michael with silly demagoguery about how the issue will ruin the party.

Through his words and deeds on this issue, Michael has shown he has the qualities of a leader--a willingness to listen, trust in the rank-and-file's judgement, and a willingness to go to the wall for one of the most important building blocks for any political movement--free and fair debate.

It's a major reason why I, a Catholic who was in the first cohort to receive full funding, am supporting him.

I think that if STV is significantly more popular than Campbell's Liberals in B.C. for a second election, then people in Ontario are going to start enquiring what went wrong with MMP in Ontario. And they'll discover that the public information campaign here was botched on purpose.

well madmax certainly gets the big picture.  nice to see that there are more of us who do.

1. Its not being afraid of debate, its being afraid of dividing the party. Faith based funding is a purely emotional issue. It leads us down the road of irrational debate. The worst part about it is that we have had the debate many times before and the conclusion was drawn several conventions ago democratically). That is the biggest picture there is.

2. We have to be big picture people because if we are not, than everything we hope and dream for is completely demolished. Perfect example right now is Health Care, if Tommy didn't have th Big Picture dream of single-payer health care than we might not have it. Perhaps its one of the major reasons why it's under attack right now.

 3. This question is certainly a loaded question. Because leaders lead the majority, are you saying that the debate about faith-based funding is a majority issue?

4. The problem has actually not to been identified by any candidates and I think that you have a problem when making Prue a martyr because he still hasn't identified the problem either. The problem is the general governance of our party. The executive appoints the resolutions committee, who in turn appoint a priority committee to rank policies, its the power that executive has by our constitution, not the leader. Michael and make grandiose statements like I want to debate policies 50% of the time, but in the end it's not up to him, its up to the executive.

This is why more people have to be at convention to elect our executive.

Voting against Bill 173 in a whipped vote is one thing, but I was referring to the NDP's reaction when the bill was first moved. This was for me a real litmus test for the NDP caucus. Personally I would have liked to see all of them respond the way Peter Kormos did. At the very least, the NDP caucus was obliged to oppose in no uncertain terms the introduction of this insulting bill. The optics were horrible (McGuinty trying to slide this quietly through just before the legislature rose in December, McGuinty offering so little to Ontario's most vulnerable and so much for himself...), and the Liberals were clearly baiting what they felt was a divided NDP caucus. On the latter point, it seems the Liberals were right.  For the record, as far as leadership candidates are concerned, Tabuns opposed. Michael Prue and Andrea Horwath were in the legislature that day and abstained. Gilles Bisson doesn't appear to have been there that day).  

Click here for Hansard Dec. 12, 2006

For most this might appear like a very minor deal; for me, it was in the language used previously in this thread, a dealbreaker. It was a moment when our principles were challenged and we were asked to respond. Kormos gets the only A+ from me. BTW I intended my comment as a reply to a specific cluster of comments around "dealbreaking" and to trotting out old skeletons to hammer the candidates with. I do not intend to engage again in this way (unless specifically addressed).  There's much more important debate to be had!

22 percent of the eligible is all we need next election, ndpman. It's not impossible - just ask Pinocchio McGuilty and his Bay Street pals.

Yes we can!

Suaveman wrote:

Well, I guess we know whom Ottawa wants as leader.

There's no doubt in my min that the Tabuns website was made by federal staffers. I wonder how the other candidates are taking it...

Care to elaborate. I can't tell if your comment is a slur or a compliment. Are you saying the Federal NDP has come out endorsing Tabuns. That's big.

Any evidence the website was produced by federal staffers or just intuitive certitude? Were they paid or volunteers? Federal staffers volunteer on provincial campaigns all the time and vice versa, or as was previously written, "visa versa" (my favourite typo so far on this thread- I believe it refers to successfully challenging a charge wrongfully made to one's credit card, as in "After pleading my case that my credit card had been stolen there was a visa versa applied to my account"). 

Is it perhaps time to start a new thread?

It's not surprising you express concern about 'trotting out old skeletons' and aspiring to elevate the debate by focusing on the issues, Synth. It's just the kind of truthy bromides the Tabuns camp loves to toss around. It's not that they're true, just that it 'feels right in the gut' for them to be true.

Case in point--just as the debate was beginning to move back over to actual issues, you see fit to trot out your campaign's hoary little lie about your rivals' position regarding the pay hike. Make no mistake--When Tabuns' people (most notably his chief surrogate Cheri DiNovo) claim Andrea and Michael didn't oppose the pay increase, they are lying liars who will use any lie to get their candidate elected. That their candidate countenances such behaviour speaks volumes about the truthiness of claiming to run an ideas-based high road campaign.

But Synth, you at least have the benefit of a few more smarts than the average Tabuns supporter around. You've cleverly parsed and qualified the issue by adding the ridiculous red herring of first vote, one which Hansard indicates only that he was not present for the vote. Neither were several other NDP MPPs. By your estimation, Prue and Horwath did the right thing, just not right enough for your lofty standards. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these candidates ever -- ever -- abstained from a decision in support of locking out unionized workers, then thought better of it and opposed such a decision. At least Peter was consistent on that matter. When he had to make a decision on whether to lock out Greenpeace's door-to-door canvassers in an attempt to strip their contract, he didn't abstain or absent himself from the decision--he just locked them out. 

Then, on second and third vote (ie: when it actually matters), when Andrea and Prue actually voted against the offending bill, you decide simply voting against isn't enough. Well, you know, they didn't have any choice, after all. It was a whipped vote, etc. So dishonest, but as I indicated earlier, nothing surprises me from this crew.

Convenient too that you want to focus on 'the much more important debate to be had,' after your lying drive-by smear. For future reference, claiming you're driving the high road tends to sound less credible when you have a ring of sewage around your neck.

You want to take the high road? Stop being truthy like your candidate and his surrogates. Sure, it feels much better to say your candidate is a friend of labour...it feels so much better right there in your gut. A very small portion of your candidate's appalling labour relations record (the portion from his tenure at Greenpeace, where he was instrumental in locking out unionized workers and trying to strip their contracts) has come to light, which shows just how truthy the statement is.

foxymoron: you showed me your dealbreaker, I showed you mine.

As far as, "By your estimation, Prue and Horwath did the right thing, just not right enough for your lofty standards."

No! Not at all what I think. In my estimation, as I stated, the right thing to have done when the bill was moved was to follow Kormos and get kicked out of the legislature in protest. Failing that, and given that Prue and Horwath were present in the legislature that day (I know because I was in the gallery), the right thing would have been to make sure to be counted as opposed. It's a matter of absolutes not degrees. The bill was just as egregious during first reading as during third reading.

Whether addressed by others on this thread or not I promise to those who see this as pointless wrangling that this is the last I will say on the matter. You're welcome to have the last word foxymoron.

It seems to me some New Dems have a very short memory.

When I hear people say we cannot have democratic discussion and that the direction of the ONDP can no longer be derived from the membership because we're in a crisis, we need to win, and that we need to reflect the attitudes held by the majority - I say you forget that our party was not founded on fears and false myths of the status quo - it was founded on their wildest dreams.

When Tommy Douglas arrived on the scene there was no public out cry for free healthcare - he created one. It was a recession. People wanted relief from the government but they had no idea about what form it should take. Tommy was very successful at reaching out to the people, listening to their needs and then educating them about possible solutions - solutions that they never thought possible. The idea of free healthcare was strongly criticized. Massive protests from the dominant groups raved across the province. Still Tommy was successful.

Today, the ONDP has three more seats than the CFS did when it first started. I have no doubt in my mind that the ONDP can be just as successful as the CFS, but it needs to stand up and start taking a stand on difficult issues like Catholic school funding. ONDP needs to be a leader - not a follower. Avoiding issues does not win votes.

Most importantly, the party's direction must be informed by the membership. When the voice of the membership is forsaken so are our democratic principles. There's no proof that forsaking our principles will get us elected. It further alienates people and drives them away from the party. The current swell in our membership is proof that when people are offered the opportunity to participate in our party, such as the leadership race, they take advantage of it and join us.

I don't trust Peter Tabuns and Andrea Horwarth because they have both said they are not interested in allowing a democratic discussion about public school funding on the convention floor. They say they want to get elected.

Tommy Douglas said, "I have watched politicians for the last forty years drop their principles in order to get power only to find that those who paid and controlled the party which they joined prevented them from all the things they really believed in."

Tabuns and Horwarth are dropping NDP principles in order to get to power. They too will be prevented from doing all the things the NDP believes in because at the end of the day they will find that they are now accountable to the status quo and interested in maintaining the status quo so that they can continue to get elected.

I'm voting for Michael Prue because I too believe that we the NDP must honor the democratic process. And through this democratic process I believe Prue will lead us to power!

"Tabuns and Horwarth are dropping NDP principles in order to get to power."

The thing is there is no consensus on what "NDP principles" are on this issue. The NDP has been in favour of separate school funding for about the last 40 years and in fact used to attack the Tories for NOT wanting to extend full funding to separate schools. 

That ebing said, I don't see why people feel that they have to start making nasty accusations about other candidates just to help their candidate win though some sort of mutual assured destruction.

 Why don't people try something novel - like telling us why they think their candidate is the best instead of trying to run down other candidates with personal attacks and innuendo. These four people are all New Democrats and are on the same side. There is no reason to go negative. Save that for McGuinty and Tory in 2011. 

I wish there was a reason to vote one of these candidates

I forget--why didn't Kormos run? 

Stockholm wrote:

 

 Why don't people try something novel - like telling us why they think their candidate is the best instead of trying to run down other candidates with personal attacks and innuendo. 

Ummmm because this is Babble.  

Better to get all the nasty out into the open rather than have it fester in private. This is politics and it's a full contact sport, so strap on a helmet. 

JMasse wrote:

foxymoron wrote:

Far be it from me to get the last word, but does anyone else find this vision of party democracy a little chilling?

 Synth, you really need to tell the attack poodles to stay in line. They ruin all your best ripostes!

You see this kind of ignorance perpetuates everywhere in your posts. There are "rules" for a reason.

 The fact still remains that New Democrats voted for a constitution, they Voted for the executive, they continue to VOTE for the processes to which we all agreed too. I don't see you, or Prue proposing anything different. The Leader is supposed to be a talking head for the party. If that party has some democratic setbacks than we as the grassroot membership have to fix it. The Leader does not have the power to work around our constitution. That would be........ undemocratic. 

If you want true change in the party you have to change the executive. Because by our constitution they set the agenda (at least for now, but that would mean that someone will have some policies that speak to changing the constitution.....I'm looking at you foxy). Stop talking about change, we need action. It wont matter who the leader is, if the policies and processes, haven't changed.

All Michael Prue and his minions are doing is talking.

One reason I and the Socialist Caucus are supporting Prue is he is willing to have the  membership debate and set policy.

from the Prue for leader site

-----------------------------------------------------------
New Democrats have a long and proud history of being unafraid to tackle difficult, contentious issues. However, in recent years that willingness to debate one another has been sorely tested. More often than not, resolutions brought forward to conventions by riding associations disappear into the resolutions committee room, never to be seen again. This is unhealthy and stifles our party’s greatest asset, its talented and committed rank-and-file riding association members. Therefore, Michael Prue will commit first to allowing for more time to debate resolutions at conventions and increase the time allocated at conventions to debate resolutions to 50 per cent of the convention schedule.

As well, the Prue campaign proposes a new approach for convention delegates to prioritize which resolutions they would like to see come to the floor. Under the Prue proposal, each delegate would have the opportunity to signal up to five items they wish to see debated. The results from all delegates would be fed into a computer, then tallied. These results would then be rank-ordered, and those resolutions receiving the most votes would be guaranteed a place for debate on the convention floor. The exact number of resolutions to be included on the floor in this manner is yet to be determined, but should be decided upon by convention delegates.

Thanks for the enlightening post Mr. Cassidy!

The Leader is not the ONLY democratically elected member of the Executive.  They are all democractically elected at Convention, or in the case of a vacancy at Provicial Council.

Actually, one of the reasons I feel strongly about this race is the fact that structurally, it's going to present the leader-elect with a unique mandate no ONDP leader has ever had--a popular mandate from each and every rank-and-file member. In essence, the leader will be a far more powerful creature within the party than we've ever had before.

Let's move away from the pluses and minuses of the individual candidates and address the Elephant in the Room--that the leader will now be able to state, with some justification, that he or she will speak on behalf of ALL members. Certainly with more justification than they have now, and certainly with far broader a mandate from ordinary members than any individual member of the executive.

I wonder what such a mandate means in terms of our existing structure. Does anyone else wonder about such things?

Bookish, that's not at all what I said.

What I did say was that the leader will rightly be able to state that he or she has a mandate from EVERY Ontario New Democrat. They literally will be the only person who can say they have such a mandate. That is a first in Ontario. It's happened federally now with Jack, but never in Ontario.

Such a fact has no bearing on whether or not the party membership has ever supported an individual leader, such as Ed B. or Tommy D. Ed and Tommy were and remain iconic figures to New Democrats, but they could never point to a mandate based on one member, one vote.

Nor can any other party official in Ontario now. That the leader will have such a mandate may alter the balance of power between the leader and the executive. That strikes me as noteworthy, that's all.

Its been interesting watching Andrea in the trenches. I just don't know how effective she will be in the Ontario Leaders Debate. She certianly has been winning the online campaign in terms of looks and graphics but still to this date lacks a lot of depth in her direction.

To respond to Foxy's comments, I don't know where you are but in Ontario members still don't know that we have a leadership race going on. Its actually quite alarming that people haven't been as engaged as we have. You would almost think that its an election.

Stockholm:

Howard Hampton foresaw and raised every major issue to hit Ontario way before the urbanites in ngos, engos, and cabinet addressed them. And under his leadership, the NDP won urban seats. 

Jack Layton, the urbanite, lost Toronto ground, and only gained in the North because of the groundwork established by Howard Hampton. He has a northerner to thank for his increased staff budget.   

the grey wrote:

That you clearly don't understand how the executive, council and party work doesn't make Michael's statements asinine.

Um. No offence TG....  Re: JMasse,  I say this -leadership squabbles aside- that his understanding of the NDP executive is excellent. He is very well informed, to say the least. If you knew him, his work, and background you'd know that too.

-Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.....