Federal NDP blocking nominations for political reasons

LP

Don't know the exact details here, but I would be most delighted if the NDP vetting system was a lot more thorough this time around, after what happened to the NDP in the last election. How many candidates had to step down once they had been approved for nomination in the 2008 election? It's hard to measure but I think the dropped candidates might have cost the NDP 1-2% of popular support last time 

Lord Palmerston wrote:

Well someone is bound to say that like Bob Rae, Ujjal Dosanjh was a Liberal all along!

"the NDP is a natural habitat for somone like me.."

Ujjal Dosanjh

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustafsen_Lake_Standoff]RCMP siege of Gustafsen Lake[/url]

Hmmm The acronym RCMP has a federal ring to it. Let's see, which of the two old line parties was ruling with the first of three phony-baloney bogus majorities in a row in Ottawa then?

I agree with North Report. It was a simple case that Dosanjh slipped past the vetting process and attained his ultimate level of incompetence as a politician. The Liberal Party is where he belonged all along. Opportunistic Liberals often times can't tell their asses from holes in the ground much less which party they should belong to.

Wow Lard Tunderin Jeezus, what an innovative addition to the vetting process! Requiring regular attendance at riding meetings in order to be eligible for a nomination is quite the way to grow the party. As for my limited participation as a byelection volunteer, you can ask the federal riding president who specifically advised that I focus on meeting all of my fall professional commitments during the byelection and in the weeks following so as to free up more time to campaign in what we then thought to be an imminent federal election. Sorry you had to just settle for a donation of my extremely scarce money and the volunteer energy and votes I directed to the campaign from my personal pool of supporters.

Ultimately, people in the riding should be able to decide whether I am qualified to represent them. I see no reason for such a decision to be taken by paper-pushers in Ottawa. If you feel that regular attendance at riding meetings is a necessary requirement for being a candidate in St. Paul's the reasonable course of action is to vote against me and encourage your friends to do so. But I think I will take the word of the federal office for why they chose to bar me over your personal interpretation. They identified a comment about disappointing things the NDP has done in the past and my comment about the inadvisability of crowing about Layton's sub-Bush approval rating. I see no reason to disbelieve them as they clearly weren't fashioning this explanation in order to sound good.

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

Lord Palmerston wrote:

So LTJ how do you think the party would react if they thought that Barry Weisleder had a chance of getting the nomination in St. Paul's? Surely you can't doubt Weisleder's "commitment to the party."

Barry has been allowed to run multiple times, so I'm not certain what your point might be.

Barry's been allowed to run for nomination several times but has never run as a candidate. Stuart Parker has run for the nomination in the past as well, I believe. It appears things have changed this time around.

Wow.

First on the Rae/Dosanjh as Liberal plants theory-- that's beyond silly. Both were quite committed to the NDP in the first case federally and provincially and the second perhaps only with a provincial focus.

Dosanjh has said that the provincial NDP occupies the space the Federal Liberals do in BC with the provincial Liberals more Conservative. I am not a federal Liberal but I don't have a lot of trouble with this argument as the provincial NDP in that province does have a wider "tent." Indeed do we have any evidence that he has even changed his provincial preference? Does he have any membership at all in a provincial party?

Rae was a long time NDP stalwart who choose for reasons that have been discussed to go to the Liberals. While I did not support that decision and I agree he made mistakes during his time in the NDP to suggest that he was disloyal to the NDP while he was an NDP member is silly. Right or wrong, I would never accuse him of working under cover for a different party. As well, he changed parties while in private life. I do not see any reason why that should be a problem. I have a problem with sitting MPs switching parties but he never did that.

There are many things that are negative that people can and do say about Rae but you lose all credibility beyond those drinking Koolaid when you get in to these kinds of conspiracy theories. It is no secret that he hated the Liberals while he was in the NDP, Peterson in particular and that Peterson held him in equally high regard. Any friendships he had with Federal Liberals from that time were more than balanced by considerable provincial animosities. He did not and would not have intentionally sabotaged his party for the benefit of the Liberals. Don't people think there is enough legitimate and truthful criticisms of Rae not to have to make garbage up?

These conversions when they go from federal to provincial jurisdictions are not clear cut betrayals and should not be seen as such when the lines and definitions between the parties federally and provincially are not identical even as they may pretend to be and even as being a member of one may make you a member of another. I sense the real problem is the direction the person made not that politicians like others have the free will to evolve. And to do so from any point of view either positively or negatively.

Frankly the NDP should be kind to those who switch allegiances when they do so honorably from private life because that is exactly what we want about 1 in 5 federal voters to do as that is what it will take for the NDP to form a national government.

Given the  misplaced anger directed at someone who made a very simple point about a person who wants to be a candidate should show some involvement or interest in a party beyond putting a name on a ballot and to be a team builder, it seems at least reasonable to take a wait and see approach and maybe even guess that there might be a bit more to some of the posting history than just 'disagreeing' with NDP positions in the past.  If that were the criteria there wouldn't be a lot of possible candidates available in non-incumbent ridings.

Lashing out is not a good sign for someone who wants to be a candidate and makes one suspect there might just be a bit more to a posting history that is being given one sided.  A history that could very well prove embarrassing to the party or the candidate themselves when presented in the naked light of a news story.  Given the level of mostly unprovocted anger directed as someone rasing a point that would undoubted and legitimately be raised it seems at least possible that maybe there is more to the story than what is being presented.

Frankly I get a bit sick and tired of all the back biting of party officials who are nothing more than men and women of good conscience who are trying to do their best when many of them could make much more, with much better working conditions than doing the work they do.  They at least deserve the benefit of the doubt beyond a one sided context of an issue until something much clearer is provided.  And frankly I don't know who Stuart Parker is beyond his comments in this thread, but based on those it lends me to think that someone was making a right decision about candidacy even if it was for different reasons.

Don't worry, I am not even a member, just a sometime supporter.

However going from zero to full rage in no time flat suggests that maybe there are other more 'embarrassing' comments out there that we don't know about and they are no longer ephemeral in this day and age. I simply believe that party people should at least be given the benefit of the doubt as people with the best interests of the NDP at heart, but also understanding they are fallable human beings like all of us.  Instead though you have tarred everyone in this decison as undemocratic without knowing the facts, or even looking at the possibilities and assuming this is some widespread action done only for purely political reasons of disagreeing with the NDP in the past - (which on the face of it is farcical and unbelievable).  I guess doing that to people just because they are party workers isn't appalling though eh?

Stuart_Parker wrote:

Whereas immediately alleging, on the basis of no information whatsoever, that I must be misrepresenting my phone conversation with James Pratt from federal office, that's not insulting at all.

Not sure if this is directed at me or someone else.

If it is directed at me, I'm sorry you feel insulted. I'll try again: I don't know you, and I've never heard of James Pratt - I have no history with either of you.  I can't judge either side based on past credibility or lack thereof.

All I can say is that speaking from my own experience working in the NDP, (including doing some candidate search) blocking a candidate based on disagreements with Ujjal Dosanjh 14 years ago makes no sense to me, and leads me to wonder if there is more to the story.  Perhaps you are not being told the whole story. 

If in fact, this turns out to be the only reason you were blocked, it still won't make sense to me.

For the St. Paul's by-election, Stuart did not have the support of most of the local riding executive. Even still, he faired quite well and turned heads with an excellent speech. I was told by several long time riding members that Stuart would make an excellent federal candidate. I understand there wasn't total consensus around that but he would have had a much better shot at it. 

Stuart tells it like it is. I think that's what it may boil down to. He was openly critical of the anti-HST-centric campaign in that by-election. He's unpredictable and somewhat uncontrollable. And he gets people's attention. In any case, he would have been a sacrificial lamb in this solidly liberal riding so I suppose it's the party's loss. 

As for showing up at the campaign office, Stuart told his side of the story. Mine was that I joined the party to support Stuart and even though he lost, I dropped literature in a couple of polls and helped out Heller on E-Day. That would not have happened without Stuart.

As for attending riding meetings, I wonder how many riding meetings the banker attended before he was parachuted into the campaign a couple of elections ago? I guess that's "different". 

Stockholm: just because I'm in an obsessive mood this evening, here is a list of the MPs first elected in 2004 who are 55 or older in reverse order of age:

Cons O'CONNOR, Gordon  71
BQ LÉVESQUE, Yvon  70
BQ CARRIER, Robert  69
Cons TILSON, David  69
BQ MÉNARD, Serge  68
BQ LESSARD, Yves  67
BQ BOUCHARD, Robert  67
Cons ODA, Bev  66
Cons LAUZON, Guy  66
Cons MACKENZIE, Dave  64
Cons SMITH, Joy  63
Lib DOSANJH, Ujjal  63
Lib DRYDEN, Ken  63
Cons KRAMP, Daryl  63
NDP MARTIN, Tony  62
BQ DEMERS, Nicole  60
NDP LAYTON, Jack  60
Cons KOMARNICKI, Ed  60
Cons WARAWA, Mark  60
Lib RATANSI, Yasmin  59
BQ LEMAY, Marc  59
Cons LUKIWSKI, Tom  58
Cons MENZIES, Ted  58
NDP CROWDER, Jean A.  58
BQ BONSANT, France  58
BQ BRUNELLE, Paule  57
Cons KAMP, Randy  57
BQ BLAIS, Raynald  56
BQ LAVALLÉE, Carole  56
Cons PRESTON, Joe  55
Cons TWEED, Merv  55
NDP CHRISTOPHERSON, David  55
NDP SIKSAY, Bill  55

Lou Arab wrote:

All I can say is that speaking from my own experience working in the NDP, (including doing some candidate search) blocking a candidate based on disagreements with Ujjal Dosanjh 14 years ago makes no sense to me, and leads me to wonder if there is more to the story.  Perhaps you are not being told the whole story.

If in fact, this turns out to be the only reason you were blocked, it still won't make sense to me.

I think Lou's right. Sounds like there is more to the story. A 14 year-old vendetta concerning someone who is no longer with the NDP is more in the realm of conspiracy theory as far as I can tell.

Quote:

Because I said so.

Stuart, it would probably be best if you shared with us ALL the reasons you were given for not being allowed to seek the NDP nomination.

I realize this request may seem intrusive, but since the party would be assuming that any or all of their concerns about you could become public knowledge, it's only fair that you share them here.  After all, as even a prospective candidate, you would forfeit at least some of the "right to privacy" that people in private life expect to hold on to.

I disagree, Ken.  Stuart doesn't have to share anything he doesn't want to.  This is babble, not the National Enquirer.

I'd like to apologize for speaking off the top of my head here earlier. I was echoing some comments previously heard, and I probably should have kept them confidential, as they were private conversations. 

And in the spirit of detente, I might suggest to Stuart that keeping his conversations with the party confidential would be best at this point if there's any hope or interest in persuading them to reconsider.

Good luck.

Thanks Brian.

Very well said, and I could not agree more with you.

Brian, if the most important thing is the membership and their money why is the party denying members the right to select the nominee of their choice? Given that the NDP is, in practice, subverting the nomination process and not letting the members decide your argument that this is all about the members' hard earned money is faux democratic at best.

As I said earlier, screening out people who've said something racist, sexist, homophobic or promoted some wingnut conspiracy theory is one thing but barring someone because they once said something critical of the party is absurd. If the NDP wants to win it needs to bring over people who now support other parties. How do you think barring a former Green Party activist for having criticized the NDP as a Green will accomplish as far as winning over Green voters is concerned?

And, of course, this policy will also serve to reenforce the feeling among NDP activists that if you ever criticise the direction of the party you're toast. So much for free and democratic debate within the party if standing up at a party convention and saying you disagree with the party's position on this or that issue means you're forever barred from being a candidate.

Oddly, the Liberals don't seem to worry to much about running ex-NDPers or ex-Tories as candidates despite their having made anti-Liberal comments during their earlier political lives. Heck, the Conservative caucus is made up of people who used to loathe each other and bash either the Alliance of the PC party at every opportunity. Yet, somehow the NDP can't cope with past critics (even past friendly critics) in its ranks.

Brian, if what you are articulating is a true reflection of what the party office is thinking then the NDP has taken a Stalinist turn.