Who are u supporting for NDP Leader, how will u mark your ballot, and why? #8

Uuuggh, just went and looked at the website.  That's a stinker.  Looks like something a local candidate volunteer might have put together 5 years ago for a low budget, no-hoper campaign. 

Sure he can; just freeze it first.

Caissa wrote:

Sure he can; just freeze it first.

No wonder stopping climate change is a key plank in his platform!

Aristotleded24 wrote:

My my my, have we finally come to the realization that Mulcair can't walk on water, despite what the media says? Could this be the beginning of the inevitable disillusionment that will come should Mulcair actually win?

Want to point to one place any of the three babblers mentioning the website (I am assuming that was what Ken was referencing) have once indicated that Mulcair walks on water or any other unlikely surface?  Or did you just pull your foolish remarks from your nether regions?

By the way if you look up I have ranked Mulcair 4th.  Hardly a messiah complex.

Long-time lurker here.  I've appreciated the commentary and thoughts on all the candidates throughout these endless leadership threads, though some of the potshots get a little tiresome 

I voted online today as follows:

1)  Ashton - as a courtesy first placing for what I think is an outstanding and gutsy candidate of my generation.  Expecting that she will slip off after a couple rounds, after which point my vote will shift to Tom.  They are also the two candidates that I most consistently see demonstrating understanding of province/region-specific issues and priorities, whereas some of the others have seemed to deliver some of the same generic messages no matter where and to whom they are speaking throughout the campaign (and I'm thinking specifically of Nash here, who was my #1 when the race started).  Niki to my ears was at first a little strident and the 'new politics' slogan was grating, but in my view, she's the candidate that's demonstrated the most improvement in debate performances and I value her focus on intergenerational inequalities.  I continue to expect great things from her and think this is only just the beginning.

2)  Mulcair - I like Mulcair and appreciate his intellect and there is no question that he is exceptionally articulate in both languages.  I do think we need someone who can take on Harper and fight fire with fire in a debate, and I am unable to picture any of the other leadership candidates doing quite as well at this or at withstanding the greasy attacks of the well-oiled HarperCon attack machine.  I still have some qualms about Mulcair (as with all other candidates) like his position on Palestine and would like to see a more assertive tax policy from him, but I take him on his word on 'moving the centre to us' means what he says it does and I'm not going to bother putting myself in a psychological pretzel trying to think otherwise.  I have been unconvinced by arguments I've heard here and elsewhere that he is not fundamentally a social democrat just like the rest of the candidates, carrying along more or less in Jack's line.  Mulcair's repeated references to the debt, ecological and otherwise, that troubles my generation in particular have scored him another point.  And to me there is also no doubt that he is the best placed candidate to consolidate our historic opportunity in Québec, though I expect Niki, Brian and Peggy would also do well, and I reject the narrative that he is the only candidate able to hold or grow our support in Québec.

3)  Nash - Peggy was my first choice coming into the campaign - I find a lot to like in her policy positions and would trust her at the helm of the leadership.  Nonetheless I have come to find her inconsistent in debates and on the stump - sometimes she is truly motivating and on the ball, and at others she is ponderous and worse yet, vague.  I feel she is also a somewhat Ontario-centric candidate and haven't always been convinced by her grasp of say, rural issues, or West- or Québec-specific issues.  That said, I still have great respect for Peggy and still think she would make an effective leader.

4)  Saganash - I was very disappointed to see Saganash leave the race, and hesitated on whether I should still leave him on my ballot now that he's out of the race.  Finally, my thinking went the same way as UWSofty's above - that he would be the dividing line between candidates I'd be comfortable seeing as leaders and those I wouldn't.

5)  Topp - there is a lot to like about Topp but also a lot that has turned me off - even fairly recently I had him in my top 3, but I've heard too many reports of calls from his campaigns deriding other candidates to think that these are baseless allegations.  I generally appreciate his intellect and policy proposals quite a lot, and appreciate his appearances on babble.  The lack of a seat is a problem.  Generally, I haven't always been convinced that what you see is what you get with Brian - he is after all a strategist.

6)  Cullen - it was a toss-up who would be 6th, but in the end I picked Nathan with his bozo cooperation idea over Dewar's atrocious French.  Nathan has a lot of charisma, and although so do some of the other candidates, his is the warm, funny, unaffected, common touch charisma that most resembles Jack's.  I suspect he will do better on the ballots than I might originally have thought.

7)  Dewar - Paul is affable and has good ideas, and to give him credit his French HAS improved over the leadership campaign, but I think electing a unilingual anglophone leader is a huge slap in the face to Québec, and I really can't grasp at what Laverdière & co were on to in choosing to endorse him.  Much as I think highly of Charlie Angus, I also think picking another Ontarian anglophone male as deputy leader was a huge blunder.

8)  Singh - to me this almost self-explanatory, Singh's really aggresive tack in the last debate was off-putting but I suspect it was in part a language issue.  I'd be happy to have him join us as an MP - although the business rhetoric is annoying, I'm sure we'd benefit in having an MP who is so repeatedly, consistently, singlemindedly an advocate of pharmacare

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Thomas Mulcair talks a great deal about engaging young people. Here is a little tid-bit that says everything you need to know about how he really feels.

I was at a Mulcair event here in Winnipeg, as were other babblers, and can attest that their descriptions did take place as they said it did. One of the questions Mulcair was asked at this event concerned the issue of people with post-secondary education who have difficulty finding work that would put their skills to good use. He shrugged off this question, denied that it was even a problem (said that people with professional designations generally can find work, which does not apply to many, if not most, post-secondary edication programs), and suggested that it was not the responsibility of the State to help people find work. Check out his website, there's almost nothing specific about access to post-secondary education and youth unemployment. He also stood by while Charest reduced accessibilty for post-secondary education in Quebec.

No, Thomas Mulcair is simply not progressive. There's a reason he was comfortable in Charest's Cabinet for so long, and that reason had nothing to do with being a federalist.

I attended a Mulcair townhall gathering in Winnipeg with my older teenage son who was the only teenager present in the room.  At one point, Mulcair pointed to my son as he referenced young people his age and older who's futures were very dicey in today's economic times.  He included references to the high tuition debt that young people are forced to take on, prohibitive costs of being able to afford homes as well as how full time manufacturing jobs with pensions are slowly being eroded out of the economy.  He clearly and explicitly stated that the future of this generation concerns him.

CanadaApple wrote:

Some people have mentioned they're not getting their voting packages yet. I got mine last week. I just hope that everyone who didn't get their ballot yet either get's it by monday, or can vote online.

I was hoping to vote in real time during the convention, but things have come up that may not allow me to do that. I'm still undecided, but depending on how things go, I may just vote online in advanced. Is their a deadline for that?

Also about the Mulcair/Youth Issue, the debate this sunday will deal with issues facing Newcomers to Canada and Canadian Youth, so that may be the cahnce for us to see more about this.

The really stupid part is to be able to vote online you need the package, it has the info to vote. If they just emailed that part there'd be no problem for most people. I still don't have mine and I'm getting unhappy about it.

Brachina wrote:

The really stupid part is to be able to vote online you need the package, it has the info to vote. If they just emailed that part there'd be no problem for most people. I still don't have mine and I'm getting unhappy about it.

Good point, I never thought of that myself. Perhaps if you don't get your's soon, you could just ask to send them the information via e-mail? Not sure if they would, but you never know...

if you don't have your ballot you can call federal office and speak to a gentleman named Todd, who will confirm your data based on what they have on file.

Then, if you send him an email at [email protected] they will send you your voting details by email.

A large part of the problem is that too many students pursue post-secondary studies in fields for which there is not a lot of demand.  If one's goal is to learn for its own sake, then by all means one should pursue university studies in whatever field interests them.  If one's goal is to find a reasonably paid, rewarding job, then that person should probably choose to study at a college, complete a professional degree or pick up a trade.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Panna wrote:

I attended a Mulcair townhall gathering in Winnipeg with my older teenage son who was the only teenager present in the room.  At one point, Mulcair pointed to my son as he referenced young people his age and older who's futures were very dicey in today's economic times.  He included references to the high tuition debt that young people are forced to take on, prohibitive costs of being able to afford homes as well as how full time manufacturing jobs with pensions are slowly being eroded out of the economy.  He clearly and explicitly stated that the future of this generation concerns him.

I sincerely hope that should your son choose to attend post-secondary education that he has better luck applying those skills on the job market than is the case for so many people under 35. As I said, I don't expect Mulcair to flat-out say, "no, it's perfectly acceptable that young people should be worse off financially than their parents," but when the rubber hits the road, nothing Mulcair said convinces me that he gets this issue.

As for high student debt? Check out his history as a part of Charest's government while Charest was attacking post-secondary students. His history is there for all to see, I'm not making that up. His actions as part of the Charest government speak louder than all the speeches he could give.

...and how would you have like him to have responded regarding jobs for educated, degree holders?

As an aside, my son doesn't have the 'smarts' nor the inclination to attend university.  He's looking for a blue collar job - more than likely physical labour.

Edited to add:

I looked up the positions that Mulcair held in the Charest governement which was Minister of Sustainable Development.  Holding this position, how was he able to influence decisions based on education?

Also, I am unable to see the logic of your argument or am missing a vital piece of information on what Charest did to post - secondary students as Quebec appears to have the lowest tuition costs in all of Canada.  This doesn't appear bad to me.

Aristotle24 brought up some other very good points via PM.  It is not my place to post them publicly, but perhaps he would care to add them to this heinously drifting, but very interesting thread.

And Panna, I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties your son has experienced.  Does he have plans to get into the trades?

Winston wrote:

This is a bit of a post I sent to Aristotle24 via PM that I think is pertinent to put forward for general discussion (I hope you don't mind, Aristotle).

It is my view (and, I suspect, Mulcair's too) that a country having plenty of unemployed young people with BA's and BSc's is a symptom of a system that churns out too many BA's and BSc's. I think it is unconscionable that we expect students to pay the tuition fees they have to pay for a skill set that does not prepare them for meaningful employment in the economy.

Far better to have a system such as they have in many European countries (especially in Northern Europe), where not only are tuitions free but where students are provided a stipend to live on while they study.

The trade-off of course in systems such as these is that far fewer individuals graduate with non-professional BA's and BSc's. With limited resources, these governments are very fastidious about allocating them where they are "most required." These social democratic governments make determinations as to what their economies require and direct their resources there - if the economy requires 5000 engineers, 2000 accountants, 1000 nurses and 200 sociologists, that is how many spaces will be made available to students.

In these countries, there is also a tendency to stream students into the skilled trades rather than necessarily to universities. People are generally trained to the level which they require in order to practice what they have studied. In other words, those who end up studying geography or mathematics at the undergraduate level in Europe are far more likely to be the sort who end up continuing their studies at the graduate level, which is the level of education required to be employed in these fields, than they are in North America.

We do have a disease in our economy due to our levels of youth unemployment, but its cause is not simply just that there are not enough jobs - a large part of the problem is that we continue to provide our young people the wrong sets of skills to succeed in the labour market. In most countries, a social-democratic solution involves improving the equitable access to education and skills training, but often at the expense of choice.

That is an unacceptable trade off. Universities are meant to be places of learning, not just education factories. If a person dreams of a pacticular type of degree its not the government's place to decide its unavialable, because it doesn't fit thier plans. If they wish to play favourites fine, but removing choice and programs interferes for to much with academic freedom and I would appose such very hard.

What we need if far greater resources for pure research. Knowledge is an ends in itself and its gives a society meaning beyond simple animal survival.

I read the education/first job comments with interest, because they reminded me of own experience 40+ years ago. I've been hearing and speech impaired since birth, so it was even more difficult for me than for other young people in the late 1960s and early 1970s out looking for their first job in a very tough job market, fresh out of college and university. However, the Trudeau government had just started up two very important and expensive job programs: Opportunities For Youth, and the Local Initiatives Program. I was actually too old by then for OFY, so instead I out of the blue got a call from Cam Mackie to come and see him for a good administrative position at LIP, which I accepted. How he got my number remains a mystery to this day. I quit my job after almost three years because I just could not stand working for what were essentially ethically-challenged Ministers of Manpower and Immigration at the time: first Bryce Mackesey, then Otto Lang, and finally Robert Andras. I think each one of these left the department under a bit of a cloud - these wre the bad old days of ethically-challenged ministers in the Trudeau cabinet. I met Trudeau and Jean Chretien a few times, by the way. Those two programs, OFY and LIP, were the start of Canada getting into very serious debt under the Liberals - I bet most people have forgotten that. Those two make-work programs put a hell of a lot of people to work, though.

It could well be that some persons have not been doing as much as they should have forseen the need to do.

But "canned" is an over the top reaction to how people are performing with what is a one off situation.

The party is not set up to do a lot of membership services. The normal demand for it is but a small fraction of what is required now. And my hunch is that the demands are on the order of several times over the experience from 2003... and of a hugely different qualitative nature as well.

If they are way behind, rest assured they know it and will have already moved into crisis mode to get more people working on it. This seems to be more the rule than the exception in leadership races. As many as there are, with communications technology constantly opening options, and the rules always changing- every one of them is a one off... between parties, as well as the experience within a party.

Panna wrote:

...and how would you have like him to have responded regarding jobs for educated, degree holders?

By at least acknowledging that it is a problem and not brushing me off the way he did. Truth be told, I can't remember the answers most of the other candidates gave, but he was the only one who actually brushed me off.

Panna wrote:

Also, I am unable to see the logic of your argument or am missing a vital piece of information on what Charest did to post - secondary students as Quebec appears to have the lowest tuition costs in all of Canada.  This doesn't appear bad to me.

Quebec having the lowest tuition rates was in place well before Charest was elected. And Charest actually moved to cut financial aid to students quite early in his term.

Panna wrote:

I looked up the positions that Mulcair held in the Charest governement which was Minister of Sustainable Development.  Holding this position, how was he able to influence decisions based on education?

Mulcair was in Charest's Cabinet, the Cabinet as a whole signs off on these things, so Mulcair is guilty by association.

Panna wrote:

Do you think that the issue of high unemployment for students has more to do with the overall economic slump and once it has picked  up, employment across the board will pick up?

I'm not convinced that things will necessarily turn around for the better any time soon. Working people have seen their living standards decline since the 1980s, when it was pretty common to pay off a mortgage on a house in a few years while adding children to your family. How many people do you know who could realistically pull off something like that today. Add to the fact that income inequality has never been this high since 1929, and we all know what happened. I have even heard some people estimate unemployment in the US to be closer to Depression-era levels than what the official figures would suggest. As for the unemployment situation specifically, student unemployment is at the highest levels since record keeping began. So consider the vast pool of unemployed students, plus the fact that employers will be skeptical of hiring people who have been out of the job market for so long as their skills would have declined, and the economy would have to turn around a great deal to take up that capacity. Compounding this is the fact that baby boomers are sticking around in the workplace longer, thus tying up jobs that could go to younger people.

Panna wrote:

I understand your comment about 'guilty by association' but can I also ask if Mulcair has redeemed himself by resigning from the Charest government over the proposed re-development of the park?

It's not just post-secondary education, but Charest's government is very right wing and very unpopular in Quebec, [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F73mSyeL3j0]to the point of being a musical inspiration.[/url] How should I square the fact that Mulcair stood by while the other stuff was happening?

Panna wrote:

While I know you feel very strongly about what you consider the mishandling of your questions to Mulcair, is there anything that you do like about him and his other policies?

Policywise, not so much. I'm impressed with the amount of work he's done in building the party in Quebec, and I'm quite presently surprised at the effort he's making to connect with Western Canadian NDPers, as he knows that being tagged "Quebec's candidate" would be the kiss of death for any politician west of Kenora.

Panna wrote:

Or does everything hinge on his involvement with the Charest governement and his interaction with you at the meeting in which you asked your question.

His past as part of Charest's government is quite concerning to say the least, along with his mistreatment of Libby Davies when she was caught on video making remarks about the Middle East.* Obviously his answer to the question referenced in my post did not help matters.

Panna wrote:

I would like to add that I am from Alberta where I endured Ralph Klein's cuts for years and years.  Coming from that perspective, Quebec, even with Charests proposed cuts, looks absolutely heavenly.

Our tuition freeze in Manitoba was lifted, but we do hear that from time to time, so certainly I understand the perspective.

Thank you for asking about my concerns in a respectful manner.

*This was well-covered on babble, but basically: a videotape of Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies making remarks about Israel having occupied parts of the Middle East since 1948 made national TV, and Libby was roundly villified by the press and the other parties. Mulcair, who self-identifies as being a stron supporter of Israel, publicly denounced Libby. For me, it's not a matter of one person being right and the other being wrong on that issue, it's the fact that he publicly undermined a caucus colleague, which to me is unacceptable behaviour.

If I ever receive my ballot, I will mark it like this:

1. Cullen

2. Nash

3. Mulcair

4. Topp

5. Ashton

6. Dewar

7. Singh

It's been a race to the bottom for Ashton, Dewar and Singh, but I think that's how they've ended up settling.

The only people saying that Mulcair negotiated to join the Conservatives as a partisan politician are the Conservatives themselves. There is no proof apart from the Conservatives saying so.

Mulcair has clearly said that he was approached to consider two civil service jobs in the environment field. When he declined to commit himself to the Conservative position on Kyoto the negotiations fell apart. Period. 

This is perhaps the 10th time this situation has been misrepresnted on Babble.

It is remarkable that good leftists who would not believe the Conservtives if they said the sun rose in the east are so eager to accept their self-serving slanders against Mulcair.

Dewar
Singh
Mulcair
Cullen
Topp
Nash
Ashton

RevolutionPlease wrote:

 It's not self-serving, it's widespread. Your candidate is flawed.

How is slagging any and all members of the NDP not patently self-serving for Conservatives, thankfully most of the other candidates have avoided repeating their bile.  The speed with which some here were ready to accept the rumor mongering of anonymous CPC insiders is a bit troubling.

jimp wrote:

Let me get this straight I'm supposed to vote for Cullen because he wants the backroom boys to decide whether a riding votes for a Liberal or a NDP.

I don't like Cullen's plan at all, but that's not what it is. He doesn't want any "backroom boys" involved at all; he wants the whole of the membership to decide at meetings in particular Conservative-held ridings.

RevolutionPlease wrote:

nicky wrote:

The only people saying that Mulcair negotiated to join the Conservatives as a partisan politician are the Conservatives themselves. There is no proof apart from the Conservatives saying so.

Mulcair has clearly said that he was approached to consider two civil service jobs in the environment field. When he declined to commit himself to the Conservative position on Kyoto the negotiations fell apart. Period. 

This is perhaps the 10th time this situation has been misrepresnted on Babble.

It is remarkable that good leftists who would not believe the Conservtives if they said the sun rose in the east are so eager to accept their self-serving slanders against Mulcair.

It's not self-serving, it's widespread. Your candidate is flawed.

All of the candidates are flawed.

1 - Cullen

2 - Topp

3 - Mulcair

4 - Nash

5 - Ashton

6 - Dewar

7 - Singh