NDP leadership candidate Paul Dewar will be on babble to answer your questions on February 27th, 8pm EST, 5pm PST. Babblers were asked a while back to submit questions about his candidacy and his vision for Canada. You can find that thread here.
Please feel free to add more questions in this thread, give your approval of previous questions, and variously discuss Paul's upcoming appearance.
Mr. Dewar, if you are selected as the next leader of the NDP and elected as the next Prime Minister of Canada will you do the following?
1. Nationalize all industries dealing with natural resources and place them under the control of the people of Canada?
2. Will you seize all former Crown Corporations and place them back under control of the people of Canada?
3. Will you ensure that no foreign government and business interests are never allowed to takeover Canada industries or companies?
4. Will you disband the Canadian Armed Forces? As a peaceful nation there is no need for a military force in Canada.
5. Will you force any industries in Canada to cease product of any material, equipment, products used in military applications?
6. Will you sure that any countries that Canada has bombed or invade (Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya) over the last 20 years are paid for the damages the Canada military/Government illegally inflicted on this peace nations.
Mr. Dewar, under your watch as Foreign Affairs critic, Canada joined in the bombing mission in Libya. I wrote a letter expressing strong disagreement with this course of action, yet I received a response which sounded more as if it was prepared to deflect any criticism from the party membership as opposed to dealing with my actual concerns about the mission. I remember fondly when the NDP stood unflinchingly against the war in Iraq in 2003, but when I saw the NDP support the bombing of Libya, my faith in the foreign policy capabilities of the NDP was shattered. I honestly cannot distinguish from the foreign policy of the NDP compared to the Conservatives, and I don't have confidence that the NDP would be as adamantly against the Iraq invasion if it was happening today. What steps are you willing to take to restore confidence in the NDP of people who wish for a less militaristic foreign policy?
Mr Dewar, if the NDP continues to support the bombing of oil-rich sovereign nations and otherwise geostrategically significant countries for the U.S.-led Atlantic Alliance, then I have to ask will the NDP be seeking campaign donations from British Petroleum, Exxon-Imperial and Conoco in the near future?
Mr. Dewar, I just wanted to thank you for this:
Paul Dewar releases a statement calling on Vic Toews to resign.
Over the past week, the Minister of Public Safety has failed his ministerial responsibilities.
First he introduced Bill C-30 which undermines Canadians' online privacy. Then he accused Canadians who raised privacy concerns of supporting child pornography. Today we learned that he had not even reviewed the most intrusive provisions of the bill before introducing it in the House of Commons.
Canadians expect better. I call on Mr. Toews to step down as Minister of Public Safety.
The buck stops with the Prime Minister. He must hold his cabinet members to account.
Bump!
Just a reminder to get your questions in for Paul - he'll be joining us live Monday evening.
My question for Paul Dewar: I've been unlcear about something for awhile now. Back when Charlie Angus gave you his endorsement, you said that "... I asked Charlie to serve as my deputy leader, focused on building our party from the ground up, riding by riding, neighbourhood by neighbourhood in every corner of this country,". Does this mean that Charlie Angus is your deputy leader just for your campaign, or that, should you be elected Leader, you would make him your deputy leader, or one of your deputy leaders?If it is the later, why decide on who will be your deputy leader so early? Shouldn't the NDP caucus play a role in that?
Mr. Dewar,
If Gerry Schwartz (Onex) contributed $500 to your campaign, would you return the money?
Mr. Dewar, will you call on the other Opposition parties as well as the NDP in making sure the "RoboCall Fraud Scandal" is fully investigated? I think this an outrageous abuse of the sytsem and just feeds into the cynicism around politics in Canada.
ETA: Never mind - I see the NDP has sent off a letter to Elections Canada on this subject.
Just a reminder -- you have one more day to submit questions for Paul Dewar to answer on February 27th 5pm PST 8pm EST
In the wake of the robo-call scandal, in a time of increased use of closure and 'in camera' meetings, my questions for you are: Will we see a policy plank in your campaign directed at making our democratic system more democratic? Will you provide stronger oversight mechanisms? Will you shift power from the PMO and give it back to cabinet ministers and backbenchers? How? What will you do to encourage more grassroots democracy? What will they do to move power away from party offices, and into the hands of party activists and ordinary canadians? Will you advance the policies of Open Source Governance?
On behalf of Murray Dobbin:
1) The NDP rightly gets credit for Medicare and other social programs and on
your agenda are things like child care, Pharmacare and home care. The NDP
has called for decreases in tuition fees and you have called for a permanent
infrastructure fund. Yet you have said almost nothing about where you will
find the revenue for these things and the Harper government has gutted
federal revenue though massive tax cuts. Will you increase taxes on wealthy
Canadians and restore corporate taxes to more reasonable level?
2) You have said you want to rebuild the party from the ground up, "riding
by riding, neighbourhood by neighbourhood". Does that mean that you want to
change the party from its current election machine model to a movement model
- as was called for in the past by the New Politics Initiative?
3) Economic policy will dominate the political debate in the next few years
at least. You have said you want to train people for the jobs of tomorrow
but the private sector is sitting on over $700 billion in cash and not
investing any of it. So the questions arises - what are the jobs of tomorrow
and where will they come from - the private sector or the public sector?
4) Canada's foreign policy has taken a sharp right turn under Stephen
Harper, particularly in the Middle East and especially regarding Israel and
the Palestinians. The Palestinians have refused to return to the negotiating
table unless Israel stops expanding settlements in the West Bank. In your
view is that a reasonable position and would the NDP support it?
