NDP Leadership #87

CanadaApple wrote:

I've got another question for the Mulcair supporters on here. How confident are you that he will be able to bring all the different parts of the party together? I ask because some people in the party really seem to dislike him, and if he can't bring the party together after he wins, I'm not sure if he could win the next election, or if it would be worth it. 

oh, and I guess non-Mulcair supporters are free to answer as well. = D

I have zero doubt that any of the candidates will enjoy the broad support of the Party proper the minute they are elected.  Newt Gingrich is going to smile and endorse Mitt Romney in August and they definitely hate each other.  Compared to that freakshow our leadership campaign has been a love-in.

The only place peoples tempartures are even being raised is on rabble and frankly most of the vitirolic slings and arrows aimed at Mulcair are paranoid fears of an outsider from a different political culture, but on March 25th the people ranting about his wife or French citizenship will remember they aren't Conservatives and they'll get over it. 

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

 Why WOULDN'T all our MPs support the eventual leader?

In theory there is no reason why they wouldn't - but you can never exclude the possibility that some people just don't get along with one another personally and that there could be some friction. Not that i expect that - but it is possible.

Wasn't Chretien vs. Martin purely a personality conflict? its not as if they actually disagreed on anything substantive.

Martin/Chretien was a genuine difference of opinion about Meech Lake, and economic matters. An old ideological and factional battle between Trudeau (centralization, socialist leanings) and Turner (provincial rights, neoliberal leanings). Plus a bitter power struggle between factions -- literally hundreds of lawyers, lobbyists, and pundits -- who felt entitled to run the country.

The NDP was pretty much decimated in the 90s, and we've always been on the outside of power.The Tony Blair "third way" and hard socialist factions have been completely marginalized and have no representative in the leadership race. (Probably because we've been so successful without any change in direction.) We just don't have the same factionalism or baggage.

Quote:

Calling Mulcair “principled and disciplined,” Wallbridge said Monday that he believes Mulcair will have wide appeal to Canadians and will make the best candidate for prime minister.

“He will attract many to our party who have not supported the NDP federally before,” Wallbridge said.

“I think he offers a strong alternative to the government. When you look at what’s happening in health care funding, pensions – like cutting seniors’ pensions – the environment, he’s on the right side of issues that Canadians care about and that I certainly care about.”

http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/59749-ns-cabinet-ministers-back-...

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

Martin/Chretien was a genuine difference of opinion about Meech Lake, and economic matters. An old ideological and factional battle between Trudeau (centralization, socialist leanings) and Turner (provincial rights, neoliberal leanings). Plus a bitter power struggle between factions -- literally hundreds of lawyers, lobbyists, and pundits -- who felt entitled to run the country.

The NDP was pretty much decimated in the 90s, and we've always been on the outside of power.The Tony Blair "third way" and hard socialist factions have been completely marginalized and have no representative in the leadership race. (Probably because we've been so successful without any change in direction.) We just don't have the same factionalism or baggage.

Agreed on all counts.

I think the economic ideological divide between Chretien and Martin often goes overlooked because so many policies from the Martin/Turner/Martin/Ignatieff playbook were adopted during the Chretien years (while Trudeau's and Dion's economic policies were more in line with the more progressive faction of the Liberal Party).

But there are two very clear reasons why Chretien governed to his own right: economic circumstances and political pressures.

I'm refering mostly to huge deficits followed by an economic boom--with pressure to cut early in Chretien's mandate and a "rah, rah" atmosphere later--and the global move toward third way neo-liberal policies combined with Paul Martin as an enormously powerful Finance Minister.

But Chretien, prior to being elected Prime Minister, was always more of a "Big Government Liberal"--or at least from that wing of the Liberal Party.

Supposedly, this is a stream of the debate.

Mulcair's foreign affairs position paper...

http://www.thomasmulcair.ca/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Policy-backg...

An interesting debate, although there was not any back-and-forth, I am quite pleased that some of the candidates are improving while also noticing that some are stagnating. What I meant by stagnation is that some are making errors when they reference something in history and small other errors. All in all, they all did quite well. I also liked how some of the questions/answers were focused on the specific province they were in.

People keep saying how bad Dewar's french is, but what exactly is so bad about it? I'm asking because I don't speak french (I just had no interest in learning as a child, though I regret it now that I'm older), and I would like someone who does to explain it for me.

Michael Byers has endorsed Mulcair and is considered a leading expert on foreign policy etc...I am sure he had a big hand in Mulcair foreign policy paper.

I recently read Brian Topp's book How We Almost Gave The Tories The Boot, and enjoyed it.  It was written before the last election, when things were not looking too rosy for the NDP.  In it Topp did express some reservations about Layton continuing to promote the coalition after the prorogation when Ignatieff had basically eliminated the coalition as an option ("coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition").  As we all know, Layton showed great foresight in this, as he had with Afghanistan, realizing that the coalition was very popular in Quebec.  So, this concern of Topp's turned out to be misplaced.

I was glad then to read his Plan To Strengthen The NDP Throughout Canada (full pdf here).  I think he is showing the same foresight that Layton had shown.  He plans a full outreach to and involvement of the membership for developing the policy of the NDP before the 2013 Convention.  The policy paper also speaks against Cullen's open nomination proposal.

mark_alfred wrote:

I was glad then to read his Plan To Strengthen The NDP Throughout Canada (full pdf here).  I think he is showing the same foresight that Layton had shown.  He plans a full outreach to and involvement of the membership for developing the policy of the NDP before the 2013 Convention.  The policy paper also speaks against Cullen's open nomination proposal.

He also seems to show a willingness to work with other parties if needed, which I like.

CanadaApple wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

I was glad then to read his Plan To Strengthen The NDP Throughout Canada (full pdf here).  I think he is showing the same foresight that Layton had shown.  He plans a full outreach to and involvement of the membership for developing the policy of the NDP before the 2013 Convention.  The policy paper also speaks against Cullen's open nomination proposal.

He also seems to show a willingness to work with other parties if needed, which I like.

Yes, but only after all voters have had a chance to choose among all of the parties. That's a crucial difference (and how democracy works in most of the rest of the democratic world).

A one-off thing guaranteed to alienate Quebec. Well done!

“But I want to really leave it to the members. I really need to have a mandate given to me by New Democrats to say that they're willing to get out of the bunkers, shake hands on some agreements together and make sure that we don't have a Conservative government again ... It would have to be driven from the grassroots. If they're into it, then I'm into it. If they're not, then we'll do it the old traditional way ... The real sticking point with the Bloc is that their fundamental purpose is to destroy the country. So to work with them in such an intimate way would be harmful to my view of Canada. I mean, they individually and many of their voters are progressive . Many of their voters came to us in the last election. But if the primary reason that the party exists is to dissolve Canada, then I can't count on sitting down with them for something like this."

— Nathan Cullen

Interested Observer wrote:

It's unfortunate, given that, that he wants to gamble with a referendum, but at least it sounds like a two-part one so that backers of different models don't fight each other while trying to get rid of fptp.

How would that even work? Lets say (miraculously) 51% of Canadians agree our voting system needs to change, then only a small plurality agree MMP is the best replacement, do we than have our stupid ephemeral mandate for replacing fptp ignoring the irony of MMP only succeeding on a fptp basis.

Writer, let me assure you that anyone who says, "We need alliances to stop Harper - but we can never ally with separatists", has not learned Jack Layton's secret which helped facilitate the Orange Wave.

I would never vote for anyone who spoke so arrogantly about Quebecers who favour independence. And I'm a federalist! Most days.

I find being numbed by it all is a pretty good alternative to being continually disturbed.

I am 100% against Cullen's plan to begin with so its all academic. If you want me to give reasons why I oppose any any electoral schemes with the Liberals or the Greens i will provide them. Someone raised the issue of the BQ - that is a no-brainer. A party whose one and only policy is for Quebec to separate from Canada is not a progressive  party, nor is it a conservative party. It is a party that wants to opt out of all politcal debate in Canada. Quebecers already showed what they thought of the BQ in May when the reduced it to 4 seats after Duceppe gave a histrionic speech at a PQ congress in support of another referendum on sovereignty - and that earned him a giant THUMBS DOWN from Quebecers.

Even if Cullen's plan were ver carried out - it would be somewhat of a non-event in Quebec since his plan is explicitly aimed at ridings with Conservative incumbents and there are almost none of those in Quebec to begin with! That being said, he is obviously putting limits on what "grassroots" can do in the rest of Canada as well. What if the eccentric members of some rinky-dink NDP riding association somewhere in western Canada decided that it they hated the Liberals more than they hated the Conservatives and they wanted the NDP to not run a candidate and to back the tory instead?

Idealistic Pragmatist wrote:

Yes, but only after all voters have had a chance to choose among all of the parties. That's a crucial difference (and how democracy works in most of the rest of the democratic world).

OK, I'll bite. I'm always confused by this argument, since Canadians _never_ have a choice among _all_ of the parties. In the last election, my ballot didn't include a Bloc candidate, and prior to 2004, plenty of ridings didn't run a Green candidate (not to mention all the other small parties).

That said, I don't agree with Cullen's plan to exclude the Bloc from his cooperation plan; however, I can see why he might choose to do so, given the attacks it would provoke from the right. What I like about the plan is that it signals a strong intention to empower progressives to cooperate at the local level. It's also hard to discount the members of the Leadnow community who strongly support this idea (and probably represent the engaged younger voters that are the future of the NDP).

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=379331815416346&set=a.20714973930...

But what has really impressed me about the Cullen campaign is his dedication to maintaining introduction of proportional representation in parliament as his highest priority. We can quibble about the details, and I'm personally opposed to a referendum, but what I really want to see is a very strong committment to making this happen.

Does anyone have a list of people who endorsed BC-STV (particularly MPs)?

Yeah, not only do I disagree with strategic cooperation on principle (most days), I also think Cullen's proposal will backfire, especially in Quebec. We won over far more BQ voters than we won over Liberal voters, but we're going to cooperate with the supposedly right-wing corrupt party that we criticize and sideline anyone who has favored independence. No matter how much we rationalize it in the RoC, it plays out very poorly in Quebec, where we now have half our seats, and we likely need to hold most of them to get a majority.

I'm not confident it plays out particularly well in other parts of Canada either, and I see the potential for those joint nominations to be gamed and lawyered by the most weasely people in politics.

In other news Sudbury MP (and all-around wonderful person) Glenn Thibeault has endorsed Mulcair.

Idealistic Pragmatist wrote:

CanadaApple wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

I was glad then to read his Plan To Strengthen The NDP Throughout Canada (full pdf here).  I think he is showing the same foresight that Layton had shown.  He plans a full outreach to and involvement of the membership for developing the policy of the NDP before the 2013 Convention.  The policy paper also speaks against Cullen's open nomination proposal.

He also seems to show a willingness to work with other parties if needed, which I like.

Yes, but only after all voters have had a chance to choose among all of the parties. That's a crucial difference (and how democracy works in most of the rest of the democratic world).

I think that's important.  Also, I feel it's good that he is open to a variety of ways to work with other parties if in a minority situation to defeat the Cons after an election (case-­‐by-­‐case cooperation, a budget accord, a governing accord, or a coalition government), and will openly campaign on this.  Layton openly campaigned on a coalition possibility, so including accords is an expansion.  It was interesting how the Liberals under Dion, and later Ignatieff, responded to Layton (they rejected the possibility).  It would be interesting to see how the Liberals would respond to Topp in the next campaign (they may worry about alienating their blue-Lib base by agreeing, but may wish to try to make gains in Quebec too, so hard to say how they'd respond).  The good thing about this is it allows the NDP to truly distinguish itself as the main alternative to the Cons (and specifically, the social democratic alternative) while simultaneously giving the electorate some reassurance that even if things are close (IE, looking like a minority) the NDP would be the safest bet (thus frustrating Lib attempts at "strategic voting").  Topp's plan could both cause conflict in Liberal ranks while reassuring the electorate.  Also with extensive plans to consult the membership before convention, revitalize riding associations, and re-energize fundraising.  Good strategy, I feel.

marciam wrote:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=379331815416346&set=a.20714973930...

But what has really impressed me about the Cullen campaign is his dedication to maintaining introduction of proportional representation in parliament as his highest priority. We can quibble about the details, and I'm personally opposed to a referendum, but what I really want to see is a very strong committment to making this happen.

I agree - Cullen's dedication to proportional representation is one of my favorite things about his campaign. 

I do think he's right about not co-operating with the Bloc however, because we already know how the Conservatives spin that - "in bed with seperatists, blah blah blah..." and it plays terribly in the West (not sure about the optics of that in the Atlantic region, the North, or Ontario). Sure we have to hold Quebec - no one is going to disagree with that, it's a clear priority - but we also have to grow in other regions in order to have a hope of ever reaching government. BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba - there are a lot of Conservative seats that could be converted (heck, a bunch of them used to be ours!)