NDP Convention (Thread 3)

I guess we're just not communicating, A24. I never said the NDP needs to campaign on this issue, did I? I just said it would be fatal to discard that policy. Sort of like freedom of religion. Not a big campaign priority right now. Or free K-12 education. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

NorthReport also raised a startling point about the elimination of income tax for small businesses. This proposed dramatic departure from past policy never got to the delegates. Yet Layton and his team are already saying they will [url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ndp-trumpets-new-policy-in-... ahead with it anyway![/color][/url]:

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The NDP Leader told reporters at a closing press conference Sunday afternoon he is extremely excited that the party has approved policies that would bridge the gap between the environment and the economy.

“And also that we want to help out small business,” he said, “because that's where so many of the jobs get created these days.”

But the proposal to phase out income tax for small business never made it to the convention floor. [...]

He and the party's small-business critic, Bruce Hyer, said the issue of [b]phasing out small-business income tax would not be allowed to die.[/b]

Mr. Layton said it would be put to the party's federal council, and [b]Mr. Hyer said he would find a way to introduce it in the House of Commons[/b] when Parliament resumes in the fall.

This takes me back 35 years. The party bigwigs downplay and ignore convention decisions that they're uneasy about (on Afghanistan and now, apparently, Québec self-determination from the 2006 convention), while pushing forward their own pet policies with no membership mandate to do so.

For what its worth:

The NDP does not have a mechanism for one member one vote on policy questions. If it did and you were to put that small business tax question to the membership- I'm quite certain it would easily sail through with a compelling majority.

Given who in practice goes to Convention, it would get a rougher ride there. My guess is that it would ultimately pass, especially with Jack speaking strongly to it. But I'm not at all sure of that.

And given the even greater selectivity of who gets elected to Council, and the aggregate characteristics of those folks, you can expect that this resolution will get a somewhat rougher ride at Council... that an ultimate majority in favour would take this kind of resolution a bit more to achieve.

Unionist wrote:

genstrike wrote:

Hasn't the NDP pretty much always been a federalist party?

Yes, but favouring federalism is not inconsistent with recognizing the democratic right of the nation of Québec to exercise its sovereignty and establish its own state, if it so chooses, without external threat or interference. For decades, the CCF-NDP refused to recognize that fundamental democratic right - until September 2006, when the NDP convention overwhelmingly ratified the Sherbrooke Declaration, which explicitly affirms that right. That doesn't mean the Sherbrooke Declaration is "anti-federalist" either - it is not.

Not recognizing Québec's right to separate means being prepared to use force to prevent its exercise of the sovereign will of Quebeckers. This is not an insignificant matter.

Quebeckers have shown they will support and elect parties that promote a federal state - but not without the right to leave.

Unionist, it is important to remember that Quebec does not have a unilateral right to separate - the Supreme Court of Canada said this in 1998 in the Secession Reference.  This is also reflected in many other principles and norms of international law.

The "right" to separate is subject to certain principles, rules and conditions.

NR:

"At the end of the day, I would say Barack Obama worked his tail off. He never let up. He was willing to ... sit in living rooms and go to events that were small in the beginning ... A lot of it means going to these homes and saying, 'What do you think? ... I don't have all the answers,'" said Myers,

And that is exactly what he learned to do in Chicago, with the little, desperate folks. It's fun reading about how organization and a media prompted to respond, brought the city politicians onside. That's how he later did it state wide, and then nationallly. But he needed many $50 and $100 donations to do an advertising number on his opponents.

We'll see if the threat of environmental degredation and breakdown moves the philosophers forward to the current  realities.

Stockholm wrote:

"DP is also open to bad retro (post ww II)  jokes about the party's fate as "displaced persons".  Go ahead, be morons."

Gee if it was that simple, why don't we all start referring to the Liberals as the "LP" and make a lot of jokes about how they are as out of date a vinyl and how long-winded they are because they are long playing...

Actually, the LP (vinyl) is making quite the resurgence these days and is the "in" thing amongst many audiophiles, and you'd be surprised how many young people I see in used record stores buying vinyl.

The convention was more than adequately covered on CPAC, which is available to most cable and satellite subscribers, and paid for by the cable and satellite industry. Far better this than taking commercially viable shows off of the public broadcaster, which already soaks up $1 billion in taxpayer money.

George Victor wrote:

We'll see if the threat of environmental degredation and breakdown moves the philosophers forward to the current  realities.

If you're referring to anyone who sees capitalism as the problem as a "philosopher" (which includes workers, students and yes, some academics as well - I don't see what is wrong with workers and working class students understanding and talking about how society functions and issues a little deeper than ATM fees or Jim Maloway's airline passenger deal), I think a lot of the "philosophers" are facing the realities of environmental degradation head on.  At least they realize that things like carbon taxes and cap and trade aren't going to avert the problem, and that the only way is a radical restructuring of the economy on ecosocialist or ecological anarchist lines.  And from time to time we see real mass working class movements pop up which are far ahead of political parties - the anti-globalization movement was an example, and I can imagine that if things get much worse we're going to see Seattle 2.0 on the environment.

And there are a lot of young people out there active on environmental issues.  The only difference is that they see through and are incredibly frustrated with party structures which have been choking activism for years and try to solve the problems in the streets and in their communities.  While this can sometimes be a little individualistic, it can also get collective results - a local university recently banned bottled water on campus, a very positive example of "think globally, act locally".  This was the result of what you praise in the beginning of the post - organizing and talking to people, not working in some decrepit power structure in some political party to get some politician elected.

I think these days we're just seeing a lot of party politicians resentful that young people are taking to the streets to fight for change and trying to build extra-parliamentary movements instead of taking to the campaign offices to work in their decrepit power structures.

And I guess I should add to my above comments, how close are professional politicians to "current realities" anyways?

remind wrote:

Unionist... I must ask about your newly found angst over where the Sherbrooke Declaration is on the NDP website and why isn't it out there in full, and all the other comments you have made in this thread.

Because over here you clearly knew where the Sherbrook Declaration was on the NDP site, in fact you linked to it. And  you  declared there quite the opposite  just a little over a month ago,  of what you stated  here in this thread.

I'll try to be patient with your question.

The Sherbrooke Declaration is not and has never been on the NDP website. No, I never linked to it either, because it's not there. I'm having trouble believing this conversation where you say, "Look at the elephant over there". There's no elephant.

Why my "newly found angst"? Because (and I've said this several times) you linked to [url=http://www.ndp.ca/sites/default/files/hfx09/Policy.pdf][color=blue]this new policy statement on the NDP website, which I had never seen before[/color][/url] - and I followed your link and found that even though it talks about Québec quite a bit, it omits the most fundamental recognition of self-determination which was the main achievement of the 2006 convention.

So, I am now concerned that some party bigshot somewhere, who decides what goes into the policy books and on the website, has decided to backpedal on this issue.

If the above sounds familiar, it's because I've repeated it several times.

Let me know if there's anything in the above that isn't clear. 

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I find it all very unusual actually.

What a strange sort of statement that is.

By the way, I'm not alone in my concern - Bärlüer said above:

Quote:

If the NDP is turning its back on the Sherbrooke declaration, it can kiss my vote goodbye. (I'm among the voters who elected Mulcair, BTW.)

Uncle John wrote:

The convention was more than adequately covered on CPAC, which is available to most cable and satellite subscribers, and paid for by the cable and satellite industry. Far better this than taking commercially viable shows off of the public broadcaster, which already soaks up $1 billion in taxpayer money.

But the Liberal and Conservative Conventions get covered, and you have no issue with that?

Do you have a link to what the Supreme Court has stated?

what are you saying policywonk?

Got a link?

remind wrote:

what are you saying policywonk?

I'm saying I'm not clear that all of the previous policies are now defunct.

Thanks meloves, I did not see it before.

I like Alexa's comment

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But Alexa McDonough, a former NDP leader, doesn't see the need for a dramatic twist.

“The foundation of this party is rock solid, the roots are deep, they're strong,” she said. “Of course there needs to be change as the world changes around us. But what isn't going to change is our basic values, and most of our policies simply build on those values.”

remind wrote:

Do you have a link to what the Supreme Court has stated?

Not at this precise moment, but I may look for one tomorrow when I have some time.  I assume most political followers such as yourself would be familiar with the basics of it anyway.  I am sure you are able to research it yourself on the Internet if I don't get to it first.

Unionist wrote:

. . . someone has taken obvious pains to eliminate Québec's right to self-determination from the platform. As I said before, if this is the case, the NDP reverts to its historic position of chronic losers who just don't get it. I hope it's not true, but I intend to find out, and I would appreciate others doing likewise.

The Policy Review Committee produced a precis of many previous convention resolutions. I am aware of several that were summarized. In each case some significant details were left out, but not the most significant.

However, the resolutions process was designed to give riding associations and affiliates a chance to say "you've left out something important" as well as "we have something new to add." Resolutions were to propose specific amendments to the new Policy Book, which has the new status of a standing "Party Program." Some did so. Others were in the old format. A little-noticed feature of this new process was that old-style resolutions do not amend the Policy Book, but are nothing more than directions to Federal Council as to future action.

The Quebec delegation was very visible and active. In the Friday morning panel on section 5 of the Resolutions Book, they were well-organized. This panel dealt with policy on federalism, as well as First Nations, Inuit sovereignty, and even electoral reform ("Renewing Canadian Democracy.") Anything on the eight points in Section 5 of the new Policy Book .

The Quebec delegation focussed on moving resolution 5-11 into eighth place, right after their other favourite 5-06. (Aboriginal delegates were also hard at work, and moved 5-10 (on consultations with First Nations communities) into third spot.) This new 5-11 called for a new policy transferring to Quebec all federal funding and programs for cultural activities except the CBC and NFB. It passed the panel, and passed the plenary. Similarly 5-06 passed at plenary, calling for extension of Quebec's language policies on language of work to employers under federal jurisdiction. Both 5-06 and 5-11 had been submitted by the Quebec Section, not just by some ridings.

In the result, on Section 5 in the Policy Book, we adopted a specific amendment expanding party policy on Aboriginal Peoples (5-02, submitted by the party's Aboriginal Commission), and passed eight other resolutions including the two from the Quebec Section.

No one mentioned Quebec's right to self-determination. It would be presumptuous of me to say why. To all appearances, the Quebec Section felt it went without saying, and the short five-point precis of the Sherbrooke Declaration was acceptable. But then again, maybe there were private discussions on this point that were more contentious.

At the end of the convention, as announced earlier, a motion was moved and adopted without debate adopting the new Policy Book as amended.