NDP Leadership 69

Wilf Day wrote:

KenS wrote:

Looks like Topp released his full democratic reform policy today. Download here. [Jan 10 item]

"The concurrent abolition of the Senate would ensure few additional permanent costs are accrued, and no net additional Parliamentarians are created."

 

I disagree with Brian Topp's proposals and I find them totally unacceptable and anti-democratic because they entrench an arbitrary and anti-democratic "geographic distribution" which violates the principles of equality of persons as expressed in the principle of representation by population.

If you are going to put PR dependent on constitutional reform then we should be removing the "minimum provincial seat counts" that favor citizens from Atlantic Canada over those living in other regions of Canada.

I most certainly feel that British Columbian New Democrats will be challenging their MPs who support Brian Topp in a policy which discriminates against British Columbians and ignores the position of the provincial NDP on BC obtaining its fair share of representation in the House of Commons.

In fact, if you read his proposal, it does seem to suggest that the current geographic provincial distribution of seats in the House of Commons will be frozen if Topp gets his way in amending the constitution. (Its hard to tell what he really means as the wording is quite ambiguous). If so, this is a totally stupid policy and it will most certainly make the NDP open to all sorts of mockery.

Maybe people could spend a moment actually listening to what Romeo Saganash, and other candidates, have to say.   I'm going to try that.  

Glib spoken communication is important, but it sure isn't everything.  Listen to some old speeches of Tommy Douglas, or even Shirley Douglas, or try Stephen Lewis.  They pause at what would be weird intervals in Communications 101 course material.  In completely unnatural spots in the sentance structure of what they are saying.  But because of the substance of what they are saying you hang on every word, waiting for more.  

What you have to say is as important as how you say, maybe if I could be so bold, even more so.  (And sorry Malcolm this is one of the reasons I find Niki Ashton's constant 'new politics' riff so distracting.  She has some important things to say that I also really like, but keeps losing me with the constant equivalent of a beer slogan when I listen to her speak.  It distracts from her message).  People will forgive a lot in your ability to speechify if you have something to say.  Even if you don't have alot to say they will still forgive a lot if they feel that you are speaking to them or their concerns- how else can you explain the success of George Bush (1 and 2), Jean Chretien, Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty (who has to be the most boring public speaker at that level I have ever sat through), or can inject a bit of real personal and self-depricating humour. 

Wow.

No kidding, Peter.

Sorry, Peter3, the context was indeed wrong. But I was genuinely surprised to see that endorsement, and Dewar showcasing it. She's a homophobe. Lines need to be drawn somewhere.

KenS wrote:

algomafalcon wrote:

I disagree with Brian Topp's proposals and I find them totally unacceptable and anti-democratic because they entrench an arbitrary and anti-democratic "geographic distribution" which violates the principles of equality of persons as expressed in the principle of representation by population.

If you are going to put PR dependent on constitutional reform then we should be removing the "minimum provincial seat counts" that favor citizens from Atlantic Canada over those living in other regions of Canada.

I most certainly feel that British Columbian New Democrats will be challenging their MPs who support Brian Topp in a policy which discriminates against British Columbians and ignores the position of the provincial NDP on BC obtaining its fair share of representation in the House of Commons.

In fact, if you read his proposal, it does seem to suggest that the current geographic provincial distribution of seats in the House of Commons will be frozen if Topp gets his way in amending the constitution. (Its hard to tell what he really means as the wording is quite ambiguous). If so, this is a totally stupid policy and it will most certainly make the NDP open to all sorts of mockery.

I have not totally processed all of this, but I'm pretty sure you are missing the point both of Topp's proposal, and a lot if not most others [maybe Wilf could way in on that]. The point is to get changes done around which there is existing concensus and/or where constitutional amendments are not required. And where the agenda can be distilled to vision and principles- which also precludes inclding unresolved and divisive issues. You and a lot of other people may feel passionately that small provinces should be deprived of historical weighting. But leaving aside substantive questions of whether that is what 'we' want [which you seem to brush off as obviously 'we' dont].... if you want to travel through that question first, ANY implementation is at a minimum a LOT further off. Related question for Wilf: I do not see that Senate abolition and PR implementation are legislatively linked in Topp's proposal. Obviously, the politics are linked. But I dont see how that makes them 'co-dependent'. Legislatively- legislation on abolishing the Senate just puts it on the table. Because amending the Constitution is required. So its a long term agenda, with the nice threat of taking it to Canadians sooner rather than later if the opposition tries to use the Senate to forestall democracy. While incremental implementation of PR is 'simply' legislated.

You seem to be having the opposite interpretation of Topp's proposals from what I am reading. I am reading it to suggest that he would hold up implementation of PR until the Senate is abolished by a constitutional amendment.

I'm not sure what "existing consensus" you are referring to as to my knowledge, there is no consensus position on any governmental reform proposal out there. Whatever gets proposed, the PM will have to work to obtain consensus.

Howard wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Hunky_Monkey wrote:

Noticed on facebook that Paul Dewar is making an announcement on Friday with a "surprise guest"...

Binyamin Netanyahu. Pass it on.

Overheard at 24 Sussex: Et tu, Bibi?

(I also laughed)

FWIW Unionist, I seriously doubt Paul Dewar would be aptly described as a Zionist. He may have taken some stances that you legitimately disagree with or can criticise him for, but from what I have heard of Paul, I would guess he leans more heavily the other way.

I don't know or care whether he's a Zionist. I do know that he issued a statement praising Harper for being the first government to announce a boycott of Durban 2, in line with the most vicious pro-Israel sentiment then current, and with the international campaign to identify criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. Until he retracts that act, he is the legitimate target of contempt. Likewise for his stand on Canadian aggression against Libya.

ottawaobserver wrote:

Malcolm shouldn't have used the phrase "vile slanders", but was under attack for tenuous reasons. This decision shows a very insecure defensiveness on the part of the moderators, and is overkill.

Agreed.

Though I did think that the best response to Maysie in this thread would have been none.

NDP recognizes Palestinians right to an independent state 2011

Meanwhile our two pro-Israeli/USA lapdog parties in Ottawa simply defer to uncle Sam for all Canada's foreign affairs as usual.

Back in August, I wondered whether this leadership race might be a bit long.  What is clear to me, from reading the threads today (hell, even some of my own posts!) is that this race should have ended last weekend at the latest.

Damn you, Jack, for dying!

Catchfire wrote:

Quote:

The idea that anybody here can toss baseless accusations of racism into the mix and be protected by the moderators from the kind of angry response that sort of irresponsibility richly deserves is sad.

This seems to hit the tenor of the discontent surrounding Malcolm's short suspension, so I'll single out the sentiment, not the babbler. Perhaps the hardest thing about moderating exclusionary or oppressive language in the taken-to-heart attempt to forge an inclusive, safe space for marginalized voices on babble is how violently the users of oppressive language respond to being made aware of such usage. Look above: "vile slanders," "bullshit," etc. Why? We're discussing language here, not personal worth. And moreover the personal worth at stake is volumes away from the violence perpetuated by oppressive language and the oppressive practices such language legitimates.

Maysie, far from being "baseless," went at great lengths to discuss why she felt Malcolm's post was exlusionary. She was careful, twice at least, to make the distinction between Malcolm and his posts. Malcolm was welcome to disagree with her and make his own argument. Instead, he responded with abrupt personal attacks.

Actually the direct quote from Malcolm was "Despite Maysie's vile slanders, that is what I was saying...". If you want to get all grammatical, he was taking exception to the slanders, not the slanderer.

This is sophistry of the worst order, Catchfire, when you say "We're discussing language here, not personal worth". Because if you accuse someone of using racist language -- which I don't think it's at all clear Malcolm did, and was a total stretch on Maysie's part -- then what are you doing if not calling them a racist? And how would you, in that same situation, react if not with the very same outrage.

Catchfire wrote:

This reaction is not welcome on babble, for reasons that should appear obvious. If such behaviour is permitted on babble, that the mere suggestion that a word may be oppressive, with generous time and energy explaining why, should recieve so violent an attack on the signalling voice (who happens to be a POC woman); then what the fuck are we here for? The answer is not one I want to be a part of.

We don't need to change how we talk. Language fluctuates and is manifold; it will change as we change. There are lots of ways to skin a cat, etc. What we need to change is how we listen. I hope Malcolm is considering that now, and I hope that those who disagree with this short suspension will do it too.

This post hoc rationalization of Maysie's critique as the gold standard of identifying racist language is the most sanctimonious of bullshit. And Malcolm is being 24-houred out because the person on the other end was a fellow moderator. Other Babblers are routinely offensive and fly under radar constantly.

Maysie needed to change how she listened too. Malcolm has been shut down not because he used the phrase "vile slanders", but because of an absence of intestinal fortitude to continue to make the opposing argument. Banning him was the cowardly thing to do, sorry. If people had had the courage of their convictions, they would have stayed and argued the point on its merits, and let Malcolm defend his (admittedly way-overzealous) use of that phrase.

I will admit that I cringed a bit when I first read Malcolm's comments, but it was clear to me that those were not the words of a racist. 

Should he have been advised to clarify/retract his remarks?  Perhaps.  But this was not the way to do it (especially for a first try):

Maysie wrote:

Wow. Just wow. While I get that this is your opinion, Malcolm, the racist bits are rather obvious. My advice is to tuck them in better next time.

Beyond being sanctimonious, sarcastic and rude, these comments infer that Malcolm is a racist, and I think he had every right to be upset

Do I think Maysie's remarks are grounds for suspension? No. But then neither were Malcolm's.

The fact that Malcolm tried twice to deal with the accusation rationally (all while the nature of the accusation was being ratcheted up) speaks well of him: I would have flipped right off the go if Maysie's initial remarks had been levelled at me.  No one should be treated like that (and by a moderator, no less!)

NDPP wrote:

Israel's actually existing zio nukes

Really!!!  Right after Malcolm gets suspended, I have to read this shit!

wow, definitely time to suspend myself from this board from a while.  catch you all in a month or so.

flight from kamakura wrote:

wow, definitely time to suspend myself from this board from a while.  catch you all in a month or so.

I hate it when these online forums I'm on turn toxic, but I mostly ignore the offending threads. Problem is, I'm a politics junkie, and it's the politics threads that are toxic here. I'm relying on the Mods to exercise some control.

AnonymousMouse wrote:

For my part, I was referring to things like the blurb on the front page of his website that points to the "My Vision" page:

Quote:

I am running to lead the New Democratic Party of Canada, to become Leader of the Official Opposition and to become Prime Minister after the next election because I believe that, together, we can make this vision a reality.

I am asking you to share in this vision with me, to share it within the party, to share it with people from across Canada who will join our party to pursue it, and to share in the hope that it brings for all Canadians.

I like Romeo Saganash a lot, but... Those are 84 words on the front page of his website (not some accidentally meandering off the cuff remark) about his vision without giving us any indication of what that vision is. You have to click to go to the "My Vision" page to find out what the vision is and even then there are another three paragraphs and another 149 words about his (admittedly quite interesting) perspective on the world before anything concrete about his vision for the country.

I see nothing wrong with this introduction to his vision or his vision statement. It's a welcome change from glib campaign slogans.

Vision statements are supposed to be aspirational. Read the preamble to the Broadcasting Act or the Act to create the Canada Council. Both create a vision of what an ideal society would look like and are meant to inspire faith in those legislative acts eventually attaining those goals.

I share Saganash's vision, as large as it may be. That's something we have been lacking in our political landscape where politicians campaign on the issue of the day or promises of immediate gratification seem the norm.

All of us should take a deep breath and realize what a horrible day this has been on the board. This board has a much larger mandate than this NDP leadership and if some caution is taken with respect to the larger mandate, so be it. People might want to not post for an hour or two instead of reflexively becoming defensive.

There really is a huge learning opportunity. I've been guilty of implying Canadians won't buy Saganash. But after being reminded I'm perpetuating the sub-latent racist bias, I stepped back to rethink it. I'm having a hard time putting it together but I'm trying.

Let's all try to play nice with each other as Jack would have wanted it.

KenS wrote:

I have not totally processed all of this, but I'm pretty sure you are missing the point both of Topp's proposal, and a lot if not most others [maybe Wilf could way in on that]. The point is to get changes done around which there is existing concensus and/or where constitutional amendments are not required. And where the agenda can be distilled to vision and principles- which also precludes inclding unresolved and divisive issues. You and a lot of other people may feel passionately that small provinces should be deprived of historical weighting. But leaving aside substantive questions of whether that is what 'we' want [which you seem to brush off as obviously 'we' dont].... if you want to travel through that question first, ANY implementation is at a minimum a LOT further off. Related question for Wilf: I do not see that Senate abolition and PR implementation are legislatively linked in Topp's proposal. Obviously, the politics are linked. But I dont see how that makes them 'co-dependent'. Legislatively- legislation on abolishing the Senate just puts it on the table. Because amending the Constitution is required. So its a long term agenda, with the nice threat of taking it to Canadians sooner rather than later if the opposition tries to use the Senate to forestall democracy. While incremental implementation of PR is 'simply' legislated.

After re-reading the paper, I think that I am probably mis-interpreting the meaning of Brian Topp's proposals. I think he could have used better wording to make his meaning more obvious. A lot of the language is kind of confusing. 

I think he simply means that the system he is proposing retains our existing practice of electing MPs by geographically based constituencies and adds additional MPs to ensure greater proportionality (or at least, I "hope" thats what he means).

I do think we would be better off if we could set some ceiling on the MPs in the House of Commons and eliminate "provinces" as a basis for determining "seat allocations". But to do this would of course require a constitutional amendment removing the provincially based "floor allocations". I can see that it might make it easier to obtain proper PR if we eliminate the provincial allocations, because we could obtain proper PR without sacrificing effective MP representation and without sacrificing electoral equality (equal weighting of votes).

Dear Wilf,

It's interesting to re-read the paper through your eyes. You're not being unreasonable in your interpretation BUT, I think you'll be pleased to hear, that's not my intent. I didn't mean "concurrent" to make electoral reform conditional on senate reform. I was noting an advantage to doing both at the same time -- this way, parliament is made more democratic at little net cost (always a public concern).

To be clear I think we should pursue both senate abolition and electoral reform, with a mandate on both secured in an election. If senate abolition is then vetoed by provinces, i think we should still proceed with electoral reform.

All the best,
Bt

Wilf Day wrote:

And not just to abolish the Senate, but to do all the other constitutional reforms that other players will insist also be "concurrent." That's why people have been afraid of constitutional amendments; Pandora's box. A few posts up we saw yet another example: if we are going to amend the constitution, then while we are at it, we must also abolish the "Senate Clause" so New Brunswick won't have ten MPs, PEI four, and so on. And that's a good question: with no Senate, does the Senate Clause disappear like the Cheshire Cat's smile?

No doubt that is part of the reason why the Liberal Party supports retaining the Senate. Because those Senate allocations provide exaggerated and inequitable representation for these provinces in both the Senate and the House of Commons and the Liberal Party has often benefited by this undemocratic anachronism.

Conservatives are just as guilty as they pretend that the House of Commons is actually based on rep by pop. It was originally, but we have veared further away from it due to the minimum seat allocations and the desire to limit expansion of the House of Commons (for practical and financial reasons). I seriously doubt that BC or Ontario would ever have agreed to entrenching minimum seat allocations into the constitution if they could have foreseen that this would be used to rob residents of these provinces of their electoral equality.

And let us not forget that nobody's looking back to why Malcolm's original words would be such a trigger to POC or First Nations. Nope. All of us mostly white men and women don't reflect on the reason the words were objected to quite strongly by a POC but instead focus on the objector's actions. A lot of us NDP type would do better to brush up on our anti-oppression training if we want to win this country.

Personally, I don't agree with the suspension but how hard would it have been for Malcolm to step back and see the problem with his words if he's truly coming from an anti-oppression lens or at least a willingness to even see that lens? It seemed quite obvious after Maysie explained it. And Rebecca and Catchfire. But I guess it is really hard to focus that lens.

Wow.  Thread 69 or what?  Maysie wasn't calling anyone a racist..but was calling out a few words she felt were racist.  Big difference between the two.  Being no expert in the field, I didn't see anything particularly wrong with Malcom's words.  It would certainly come as a pleasant surprise to most here I'm sure if the dominant culture finally and truly did away with its norms, such as they are...which I believe Malcom was attempting to channel, solely as an illustration of a challenge that any aspiring national leader not of the dominant culture would face...or at least that would be the immediate impression anyone might readily come away with from reading the online political and social commentary sections just about everywhere else.  It just mushroomed from there unfortunately.  But what really disappointed me is in finding out that Maysie follows these threads so closely as she apparently does.

Wilf, I think the politics in Brian's proposal might be smarter than you think. He is trying to anticipate what the first crisis will be in an NDP government (conflict with the Senate), and use that crisis to (a) at the very least constrain the authority and legitimacy of the Senate (otherwise not one other thing will ever get done), and (b) build the public case for Senate abolition. Given the known disagreements with abolition in some quarters, using that opportunity to bring in MMPR seats would help assuage the opposition, and also smooth the way for MMPR.

I'm going to say something hard, but it's meant well: the pro-electoral reform movement in Canada has not been reknowned for its political strategic acumen, and has been beaten more than once out of noble idealism.

Brian Topp, on the other hand, and whether one supports him for leader or not, is one of the smartest mould-breaking strategic minds on the left in our country. He's on your side, but you just disagree with him over how to get there.

I think in your shoes, I would give him a longer listen, with a newly-reopened mind. Don't confuse orthodoxy as to the precise model of what will be achieved and the precise method of getting it, with the importance of moving that agenda forward faithfully.

You have a friend in Topp on this one, and you shouldn't look that gift-horse in the mouth.

Brian Topp wrote:

Wilf Day wrote:

Brian Topp wrote:

Dear Wilf, It's interesting to re-read the paper through your eyes. You're not being unreasonable in your interpretation BUT, I think you'll be pleased to hear, that's not my intent. I didn't mean "concurrent" to make electoral reform conditional on senate reform. I was noting an advantage to doing both at the same time -- this way, parliament is made more democratic at little net cost (always a public concern). To be clear I think we should pursue both senate abolition and electoral reform, with a mandate on both secured in an election. If senate abolition is then vetoed by provinces, i think we should still proceed with electoral reform. All the best, Bt

Wonderful. Thanks.

But you need to amend your position paper. I'm surely not the only one who will take its plain meaning.

I was thinking I'd do exactly that -- thank you for notes.

Thanks Brian. Also, I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but your speech at the Economic Club of Canada today looked very interesting. I have sincerely appreciated the policy contributions you have made to this race, even when I take issue with them, and I look forward to reading your democratic reform document. You are a candidate with substance. Right now I am wading through Singh's policy paper on pharmacare...