Andrea Horwath’s Ontario New Democrats starting to implode?

What Mycroft said. It could be a 'real rumour', or it could mostly be the sound of axes being ground.

For myself, its both the kind of think I take seriously, and as a rumour I wait to see. Hesitant to give someone stirring up trouble with nothing the satisfaction of people assuming there is much truth to the rumour.

If its true, we'll keep hearing about it, and withe more confirmable/dis-confirmable 'handles' on it.

well thats all in toronto and a lot of us do not live in toronto and only get together with other ndpers at councils

i would also point that this toronto council is run by some of president cliffords lap dogs. sorry to be blunt but this suggestion brings us back to where this whole debate began. brining up these concerns are not going to go anywthere there cause they are people concerned with their own political careers, not the party

i think the ginger project meeting is gonna be better time spent if you want to be heard and work for progressive change

j

PoliSci Tanya wrote:

 It seems to a non-partisan observer

Non-partisan? Yeah, and the apples in the grocery store are all from Ontario.

KenS wrote:

And Andrea is to be commended for encouraging it. Even knowing nothing about staff and key volunteers at Cecil Street, I'll bet odds are high that the idea was met there with some lack of enthusiasm.

Ken, you're showing your age. It's now Richmond Street, even if they still use mousepads with the old Cecil Street address on them (my mother-in-law has one for her computer in Saskatoon).

PoliSci Tanya wrote:

I have to also pointout that although not as many of you poste das the other two parties, you are more interetsing than than the conservatives, but not as civil with one another as the liberasl.

Does this mean that you posted something similar in Liberal and Conservative forums?  I'm not sure what this means.  Was this some sort of sociology experiment (conducted with unwitting participants)?  Is that ethical?  Did your professor approve your research methodology?

What university are you attending, and on whose behalf are you doing this research?  Will you be quoting any "participants" in your research?  Have you asked their permission to do so?

Mike from Canmore wrote:

Ken why do you think that labour would be any less influential on the party's agenda compared to corporations? 

Mike, do you not see a difference in the role of corporations and unions in society? You seem to be equating them in your mind.

Unions, that have campaigned in the past for the five day work week, the minimum wage, pensions, unemployment insurance, maternity leave, day care, health care and so on represent completely different interests than corporations who have campaigned against all those things at various times. To treat unions and corporations as they are the same is to be, at best, apolitical, and at worst, reactionary.

Unions are meant to be democratic institutions of working people. Now you might say that all of them aren't as democratic as they should be and that they don't represent all workers. The answer then is for workers to make their institutions democratic and to unionize the non-unionized. It's a basic question of how to achieve social transformation and reach progressive goals. To discount unions, or worse to equate them to corporations, shows a lack of analysis.

You give the barking up the tree more credit than it is due.

There are always loans for the central campaign, only a portion of which is paid off during the campaign period. Large campaign debts always follow. Since I haven't seen how much the loan is, and the cash flow available for paying it down in timely fashion, I can't comment at all on whether the size of the loan is prudent. And Mike is just saying "big loan".

I already said above, and its come up more than once, that paying down the campaign debt as fast as possible is always the plan- the speed has nothing to do with the unions having co-signed. If you don't pay down fast, you are in deep trouble come the next election. [The Green Party of Canadahas this problem in spades.]

It isn't necessary the unions make or co-sign those loans. [And by the way, until I see some figures I'm not assuming they are on the bulk of the loans. I'm addressing what the situation is IF they are.] The federal party has better credit than any party, and they still borrow a chunk of the campaign financing directly from the CLC. They get the same low interest from the bank... but its still easier to spread some of it.

As to the downtown building- "big ass loan" means even less. A lot of you have big ass mortgages on your homes, or they were big ass when you got them. So that means nothing. Obviously I can't comment on the specifics because I didn't even know the office wasn't at Cecil Street, let alone what the numbers are.

But presumably they are trying to emulate the federal party with its office building... presumably including rent form tenants. That both saves money compared to leasing on office expenses, and it provides collateral for campaign loans. The building collateral is not a requirement for campaign loans- you can borrow everything on signatures [with lesser collateral]. But for a variety of reasons the NDP needs financial strength and independence more than the other parties. Owning a building gives you cushion which in turn gives you more independence.

I have no idea how the building is working out, but if it was bought at least a few years ago, its unlikely to have somehow become an albatross.

Thanks for the explanation Warren, er I mean Tanya

PoliSci Tanya wrote:

Though I do not like to think of it as "journalism," what folks like yourselves are chatting about on forums and blogs is affectng traditional journalism, even reputable newsources like the CBC and the Globe & Mail now will quote such sources. So in a way I guess this is an experiment as I try and see how this interaction of news and social media continues to develop.

to be honest, part of this exploration is also observing the interaction between facts, opinion, gossip and party loyalty. As someone pointed out above, a lot of politics runs on gossip.

Hope this helps,

polisci t

So you're using this site to plant gossip embellished with purple prose and alarmist hyperbole to see how people react and if the mainstream media picks it up as part of an "exploration"? How very condescending. In what year of your program do they teach you media ethics, Tanya?

You were asking before about exploitation. Well, you've given us a prime example of it. Would you like it if someone posted unsubstantiated gossip about you, trumping it up for effect, as some sort of "exploration" of social media?

aka Mycroft wrote:

Sorry, I meant to type "exploration" before but somehow, in Tanya's case, I got the word confused with "exploitation" and spelled it as a hybrid of the two.

Or perhaps the print aphasia is contagious.

Tanya I suggest talking to a professor about your experiment. The professor will certainly talk to you about ethics and will hopefully discuss the strength of the inferences you have drawn. I think you will learn that your conclusions lack strength as your comparisons were not properly controlled. I appreciate your curiosity but please note that rarely do ethical boards approve experimentation on subjects without their full knowledge and agreement. I'm hoping that the professor you speak with will provide you with instruction on how to conduct a more ethical experiment as well as experimentation methods that will give you credible results.