NDP strategy for the next federal election, whenever that may be. (Thread 2)

I wonder if it might not be time to take another look at Cambridge, Ontario given the business dealings of the current MP/cabinet minister !

I don't know much about the area, to be honest with you, but my impression is that it's another medium-sized Ontario city with an industrial base that's probably feeling the effects of the recession like Kitchener and Guelph.

It was 6th in the country for percent of the labour force being in manufacturing jobs in 2006, for example.  I'm just saying, don't get so tied up in how we did last time ... if we thought that way, we'd never have Outremont or St. John's East now, would we ?

Even evangelical Christians

I think the NDP should look at trying to make gains in the Atlantic provinces and the West. As great as it would be to grab a second
QC seat, and Gatineau is still a possibility, Mulcair is going to have a VERY tough fight on his hands to keep Outremont with Liberal
numbers in the province returning to a more normal historical level.
 
Similarly, the Liberals will doubtlessly do better in Ontario next
election, but most of the seats the Libs would gain in Ontario would come from the Tories. The only NDP seats at risk from Lib take
over in Ontario are some of the Northern Ontario seats that flipped Lib-NDP in 08 like Algoma, Sudbury, and Thunder Bay - Rainy River
while while other NDP seats which have been NDP for a couple election cycles now like Ottawa Centre and the Windsor/Hamilton seats.
If generally speaking, Lib numbers in Ontario go up, Tory numbers go down, and NDP numbers stay the same/go up a bit, this could
open three-way seats up like Kenora, Cambridge, Essex, Brant, etc. On the whole, the NDP should be looking to stay the course in Ontario
perhaps trying to pick up some Southern Ontario Tory seats to balance out potential losses to the Libs in Northern Ontario.
 
If Ontario and Quebec have a "hold the line" strategy, the Atlantic provinces have some room for NDP growth, particularly Nova Scotia on
the back of the provincial NDP win there. At best, however, this means a handful more seats, Cumberland - Colchester - Musquodoboit Valley,  
South Shore - St. Margaret's, and St. John's South - Mount Pearl.

It is in the Praries however, that a "Tory down, Lib up" scenario is for the best. In most ridings in the Praries, the NDP is ahead of the Liberals,

so if the Liberals rise a bit in the Praries, in probably won't be able to net them many seats (and more importantly, not many NDP seats,

Churchill is the only NDP seat in the Praries the Liberals could have a shot at). However, Liberal gains at the expense of the Tories

could translate into NDP victories in ridings like Palliser, Regina - Qu'Appelle, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Selkirk-Interlake, Edmonton East,

Kamloops - Thompson - Cariboo, ridings like that.

In the long run, looking primarily West could be usefully for several reasons. Let's assume the Liberals win the next election, based

largely on gains from the BQ in Quebec, and the Conservatives in Ontario, leaving NDP support levels in Eastern/Central Canada

reletively untouched or at most, gaining a couple seats off the Dippers (which as I mentioned could be countered by gaining off the Tories

in Southern Ontario). The Libs might gain back some traditonally Lib western seats like Saint Boniface, but by and large, will be weak

west of Ontario. With the Tories out of power, Harper will be turfed almost immediately, leaving the Tories in disarry. The NDP, assuming

it has made gains in Western Canada, will now be able to speak to a Western-weak narrow Lib minority and speak as the voice of the West, either

in opposition, putting the heat on the leadership Tories or the directionless Bloc to prop up the minority, or wrangle some very big consessions out

of Iggy (which in turn would weaken his hold on the party and the minority, as his right-leaning crew of plotters chaffes at being pushed to the left)

Anyway just my thoughts and a potential post-election scenario.

Starsuburb your cut and paste formatting is difficult to read, perhaps an edit?

Um, has anyone given any thought to what policies the NDP might offer?

Or does that not count as strategy?

There's no rule saying you can't tell us what you think they should be, Stephen.

So giving money to poor people is obviously not the place to start, right?

Stephen Gordon wrote:

So giving money to poor people is obviously not the place to start, right?

Is this what social democrats have done in creating a top five competitive economy in Sweden? Or do they tend to compare with Canada's social democrats on things like generous EI benefits - access to job training and re-training - makng PSE accessible to all - and well-funded public services, like daycare, a national housing strategy,  and top notch public health services?

Okay, and since youre bigger than me as far as economics goes, I cant argue. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Sweden's draws some economic strength from having good macroeconomic policies. And if corporate taxes are low in Sweden, then their overall federal tax revenues must be high in order to pay for the socialism? I think they have relatively high VAT taxes, their consumption taxes equivalent to our GST. So why can't we simply raise taxes on consumption here in Canada and pay for social democracy that way instead of relying on markets for financing of new infrastructure and social programs, and poverty reduction?

And before you remind me that the NDP is against raising GST on text books and basic necessities, does Canada have other options for raising overall tax revs which Sweden does not?

A Guaranteed Annual Income would eliminate income poverty. If we can't afford it now, the least the NDP could do would be to bring in a negative income tax for those on social assistance as the NDP has started to phase in in Manitoba. That would cost almost nothing and help a lot of low income Canadians get off assistance and hopefully out of poverty.

Stephen Gordon wrote:

Not really. Sweden's VAT rate is something like 25-28%, if memory serves. I'd support adding another surtax on people in the top 1% of the income distribution (roughly 500k or more), but that's not going to bring in all that much in the way of extra money.

I was thinking of [url=http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Taxes#Aggregate_Tax_Burdens]aggregate tax burdens[/url] According to that, Sweden has the highest tax burden as a percentage of GDP. And I think Canada is somewhere below the OECD average.

Sweden is not a significant exporter of fossil fuels and hydroelectric power as Canada is. Perhaps taxing those items should be considered as vital to our standard of living and tied to socio-environmental responsibility etc

And we have three tiers of government in Canada but with competition between provinces wrt the race to the bottom on corporate tax rates as that relates to jobs and investment. But surely the feds have room to manouver as far as overal tax revenues are concerned

I think we need to consider a futuristic economy not one as reliant on natural resource exports. Easier said than done I suppose.

Stephen Gordon wrote:

A negative income tax and a GAI are pretty much based on the same idea, and (depending on how they're structured) are generally considered to be equivalent.

It's true that they can be structured to achieve the same end. The negative income tax element is important if you want to avoid creating an economic disincentive to work- as Western Europe has discovered.

On the subject of government revenues, why not legalise, regulate, and tax marijuana so that you can actually afford to fight it like the public (and social) health problem that it is? Federal government could reschedule it, the provinces could tax, regulate it and finance health care, policing, poverty reduction, etc etc. The NDP wants to get "tough on crime," but they will never be able to "out-tough" the Conservatives, as the Conservative base will stomach any barbarity in the name of fighting crime. Why not stop fighting the sympton (crime) and go after the disease (illegal drugs) in the same way that civilised societies have gone after other social ills?

Unionist wrote:

Fidel wrote:

Is this what social democrats have done in creating a top five competitive economy in Sweden? Or do they tend to compare with Canada's social democrats on things like generous EI benefits - access to job training and re-training - makng PSE accessible to all - and well-funded public services, like daycare, a national housing strategy,  and top notch public health services?

 

Right on, Fidel. The best road to the elimination of poverty is the universal, public, and free/affordable access to all the necessities of life which now cost money, a few of which you have listed - along with jobs - combined with the social ownership of the levers of wealth production, but you can make huge inroads before going that far. Then you won't have to dole out "income transfers" to the poor, with the exception of the aged and disabled.

Right and thanks. And there are some economists and politicians on the political left, centre and right backing the GAI or basic income. Economists, I believe, realize that the economy itself does not care where people get money from to spend. The economy itself knows no Puritan ethics or morals. There is no mathematical or law of logic that says we need to punish people with guaranteed low incomes, or incomes that are less than 45% or so of the national median.

I think some environmental economists have even suggested paying people to stay home in order to reduce overall stresses on the environment, and until we can figure out what sustainable economies of the future should look like. Everyone should have a chance to participate in the economy and do meaningful work. People were designed to be in motion, and at the same time I think it's great that fewer  workers today are physically worn out by the time they are 45 and 50 years young. And at the same time, technology should be used to make work and life easier and not just to lay workers off in order to reduce costs. The pace of technological change will increase, and workers will need access to education and training like never before.

The day the writ is dropped, I want Jack to go on national media telling the story of Mouseland. Then I want us to fo for power, running on tthat platoform/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouseland

The Story of Mouseland was a story told first by Clarence Gillis, and later and most famously by Tommy Douglas, leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and, later, the New Democratic Party of Canada, both social democratic parties. It was a political fable expressing the CCF's view that the Canadian political system was flawed in offering voters a false dilemma: the choice of two parties, neither of which represented their interests.

The mice voted in black cats, which represented the Progressive Conservative Party, and then they found out how hard life was. Then they voted in the white cats, which symbolized the Liberal Party. The story goes on, and a mouse gets an idea that mice should run their government, not the cats. This mouse was accused of being a Bolshevik, and imprisoned. However, the speech concludes by saying you can lock up a mouse or a person, but you can't lock up an idea.

Was the mouse actually a Bolshevik?

How about putting taxes on sources of pollution (fossil fuels) coupled with cutting thousands of low-income Canadians from the income tax rolls? Or cutting income taxes for all Canadians?

Oh wait, that's called the Green shift and the NDP "opposes" that.

Cutting taxes for all Canadians is called the Libertarian shit (up the Greens' alley).

Not taxing the working poor - a growing part of the population - will be a part of NDP policy come fall.

A tax on fossil fuels would not come anywhere near the driving disincentive of $150 a barrel oil again by next year, and climbing every year after that. We'll have to subsidize heating oil for the country folks who can't afford to go over to ground source heat pumps (about 9 out of 10). And make meaningful additions to public transit for workers no longer able to drive.