Tom Mulcair is Canada's next Prime Minister

The main thing I worry about now is the possibility of Mulcair not getting or being able to connect with English-Canadian political culture. I suppose there's lots of help that that, though, and we'll have to see.

"Uniting progressives under the NDP banner" sounds very similar to "uniting progressives under the big red tent".  We'll see if that strategy works better for the NDP than it did for the Liberals. 

Twitter peeps very discourage about mulcair.
I seen Quebeckers twitter very courage him.

Doug wrote:

The main thing I worry about now is the possibility of Mulcair not getting or being able to connect with English-Canadian political culture. I suppose there's lots of help that that, though, and we'll have to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6niMyWFJza4

Doug wrote:

takeitslowly wrote:

I dont ever read the National Post. I got this link through a facebook posting. Has it been confirmed or proven to be false that Muclair considered joinning the Harper government in exchange for a cabinet post?

 

If they phoned up and offered it, it pretty much had to have been considered even if the response was to laugh.

Harper once thought that a coalition with the separatist Bloc and NDP could save his bacon. He doesn't mention it very often now, though.

I believe that Canadians are basically not conservative party supporters. The true majority of us lean more toward the laurentian consensus than a western Albertan one. And this is surely a time for altering of political landscape in Canada with the Liberal Party in decline. No I really don't think Harper's vision for Canada is what the true majority's is. Harper is a pretender to the throne like Mulroney was. Canadians didn't really vote for this, and I think this will be shown to be true in the next election. Harper is still governing like he has a minority. Politics in Canada are obviously shifting to the left relative to where they were for the last 30 years. Neoliberalism is broken, and Harper is an ideologue without a plan. Unlike it was for Mulroney, Chretien and Martin, the U.S. economy will not save neoliberalism in Canada this time around. Three decades marred by three recessions. It's time for the NDP in Ottawa.

adma wrote:

NorthReport wrote:

Their only possible consolation prize was handed to them by Brian Topp, Mulcair’s bitter rival. Topp refused to concede defeat even when it was all but assured after the third round.

 

Instead, with little hope of winning, Topp spitefully stayed on the ballot to give party members an opportunity to cast an anybody-but-Mulcair protest vote against its next leader.

 

I know Topp's campaign (and Broadbent's sabre-rattling) rubbed some people the wrong way; but to label his "refusal to concede defeat" as "spiteful" seems hyperbolic.  As I see it, the third-ballot result justified a final ballot, even if the endorsements weren't defaulting Topp's way--if nobody crested 45% on the penultimate ballot, and nobody crested 60% on the final ballot, thus is the justification...

It would have been unfair to those who had already voted and were waiting to vote. Perhaps if Tom had gotten 49% then Topp could have thrown in the towel without being unfair in this way, but not at less than 45%. It's hard to know what impact the endorsements had given most voting members had voted in advance, including some of the endorsers. Some of the rhetoric between the third and fourth ballots was unnecessary and perhaps unfortunate, but it was still mathematically possible for Topp to win, and there is no point dwelling on it.

Trudeau went north on canoe trips when on holiday as PM, and at least once came back with a beard. I had a book on canoeing that documented this - Trudeau demonstrated canoeing techniques.

As a huge supporter of Tom and one who feels he is what our party needs I'm very happy with this result. Now, we need to band together behind him to show him he has our support and will be willing to defend him. Fratricide is what the Cons will want and they will be willing to play to the internal divisions within the party "only half the party voted for him....the party is divided in it's support....how can Canada want a leader even the party didn't like....blah blah blah". We need to be ready to counter these when the first ad comes out, which surely will be any day now.

I'm encouraged when I read that the NDP will be launching ads as soon as Monday to set the tone for Tom across the country. Good, set the stage before the Cons get a chance.

HA! Ha! Ha!

Bill Davis wrote:

 

Tom has one chance to form government, otherwise he is out the door after 2015. I have a distinct feeling we may see Cullen as the next leader, but it is too far off to really tell.

Quote:

Lavigne is gone, huh? Did he give any reasons?

Brad quit because he hates Tom.

 

Some in the mainstream media are swooning over what they feel will be the eventual elimination of social democratic principles from the NDP by Mulcair.  Herre's one such article by Ibbitson.  Time will tell if their predictions come true.

Bill Davis wrote:

Quote:

Nathan would have been a disaster by merging with the liberals. That would have been way worse than any likely move Tom will make.

As much as I dislike the co-op plan, it drives me nuts when people promote blatant mistruths about it. Cullen was not at all proposing a merger and catagorically rejected any move to merge the parties.

I shared the frustration with how Nathan's plan was sometimes misunderstood. Also, whatever the demerits of the plan, I wish that Nathan had got the message out more successfully that he was committed to consulting the party and that he would drop the plan if the party was strongly against it. I don't know if the latter problem was due to poor communication by his campaign, or poor listening on the part of others. I think that Nathan's positive style and commitment to democratic reform might have been better recognized as qualities of leadership that are more fundamental (and sometimes get more progressive results) than any particular policy proposal. I wonder how many people ranked him very low on their ballots only because they didn't like his cooperation plan.

Bill Davis wrote:

Quote:

Nathan would have been a disaster by merging with the liberals. That would have been way worse than any likely move Tom will make.

As much as I dislike the co-op plan, it drives me nuts when people promote blatant mistruths about it. Cullen was not at all proposing a merger and catagorically rejected any move to merge the parties.

Tom has one chance to form government, otherwise he is out the door after 2015. I have a distinct feeling we may see Cullen as the next leader, but it is too far off to really tell.

Quote:

Lavigne is gone, huh? Did he give any reasons?

Brad quit because he hates Tom.

 

You broke my irony meter between these two comments.  Now I have to go get a new one tomorrow morning.

NorthReport wrote:

 

When Thomas Mulcair runs into Western public opinion there will be blood

 

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/03/25/john-ivison-when-thomas-m...

When he runs into Alberta opinion, maybe, but the West as a whole is hardly monolithic on these questions. 

ravenj wrote:

I totally agree with JeffWells and like that description "Layton Continuum". Moderation of language & tuning was constant after Layton's first federal election, and I will like to see that continuing.

I trust that Mulcair will hold on to progressive principles and then find the best arguments to get people to vote for these principles. He has government experience, and he will put the parliament wing of the party in shape as a government-in-waiting.  Indeed he had said during the press conference that he knows Canadians want to see good public administration from the NDP.  This needs more than playing paddy-cake in the caucus, and I am sure some egos may be bruised (because Mulcair isn't Layton). 

I am very excited about the next three years!

 

 

I have always felt Mulcair was along the "Layton continuum" and am likewise very excited for the next three years. Mulcair is going to do great things for the party and with grassroots support from activists we can cover his back.

Here's a question: What does Mulcair need to do as far as policy to win Saskatchewan and Manitoba? I assume it would take a different tact to win Sask/Man then it would to win Alberta. Thoughts?

Lorne was a big part of his campaign though. I believe he was actually a campaign chair, if I'm correct. But I agree that the get a sense of what Saskitobans you need to get on the ground and talk to them. Make little sense to attempt to impose a will over them based on the opinions and ideas of people who have no popular support in these places.

But we have to acknowledge the ability for the CPC to rally supporters against ANY form of gun law, regardless of how benign it might be. I think perhaps some light needs to pass between this issue and the public mind until after the election when, unfortunately, the loss the the registry will prove through stats to have been a detriment to the public. With proof the public will hopefully come around.

I'd say the registry is a dead issue, and probably best left that way. Let the Liberals bring it up, seeing as they did such a great job of it last time.

Not a policy issue, but re-drawing some electoral maps here in Saskatchewan would be a good first start.

Ryan1812 wrote:

But we have to acknowledge the ability for the CPC to rally supporters against ANY form of gun law, regardless of how benign it might be. I think perhaps some light needs to pass between this issue and the public mind until after the election when, unfortunately, the loss the the registry will prove through stats to have been a detriment to the public. With proof the public will hopefully come around.

For those who can look at evidence rationally. Attribution can be difficult though, there can always be multiple factors which have to be considered.

Policywonk wrote:

Life, the universe, everything wrote:

Sineed wrote:

According to the CBC this morning, Canada hasn't had a bearded Prime Minister since 1873. 

 

Guess massive sideburns don't count

 

You must be referring to Tupper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CharlesTupper1873.jpg

He was less shaggy by the time he became PM:

Boom Boom wrote:

Trudeau was opposition leader when he grew that.

He was, however, the first long-haired pm since Wilfrid Laurier.

Actually, Kim Campbell's hairstyle as pm would have been considered "short", by gender standards.

And, for the record, my only personal interest in this was in hair history...not in any assertion of hair-as-symbol of male power..

Agree that the polarity of pasts drawn between Topp and Mulcair was very overdrawn.

But that doesnt mean that there was not a credible and observable substantial difference on direction for the NDP going forward. Not that it matters much now even if this could be 'sorted out'.

Stockholm wrote:

He could start by NOT pledging to restore the Liberal long gun registry...and he could also make sure that he pays as little attention as possible to any "advice" from dinosaurs and failures like Lorne Nystrom and Dwayne Lingenfelter.

EXACTLY!