NDP #17

Looks like the NDP are going to be going full bore this summer kicking off their summer campaign with a rally next Wednesday, June 17 in Ottawa. It will be live streamed.

Delighted to hear this because contrary to all the naysayers, the NDP if they desire to form a majority government have certainly not peaked. Far from it. Although presently polling in the low thirties, the NDP will need to boost their popular support by approximately another 10% to receive a majority government. The NDP now does have the momentum though and they are trending North in the polls so anything is possible, including majority government.

Mulcair says NDP will restore tax credit for investments in union-sponsored firms

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mulcair-says-ndp-will-restore-tax-credit-...

I wasn't sure where to post this, hoping for some opinions on it. I see there is some sort of kerfuffle between LeadNow and The Real Vote. I don't know what to think of it nor whether it would have any impact on the upcoming election for TM. If this has been discussed somewhere, sorry couldn't find it. There is also a petition from the Real Vote, I will post both the Left Chapter's 'opinion' and the petition link. 

http://theleftchapter.blogspot.ca/2015/06/unintended-consequences-attack...

https://www.therealvote.ca/

NDP is way behind the times here, and story is, they had every opportunity to buy the VAN database the Liberals bought the exclusive Canadian rights too. The NDP should have spent some time in the US looking at how the Democrats run campaigns before they decided not to buy this kind of software. link

This is going to be an expensive organizational disadvantage to make up and they will not have the time to do it before the 2015 election. Basically, the party has to hope that this disadvantage is made irrelevant by other processes on/in the campaign.

Tom Mulcair's 'government in waiting' rattles Liberals and Tories

NDP surge in polls puts a scare into federal rivals

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tom-mulcair-s-government-in-waiting-ratt...

Mulcair in QP today  

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stephen-harper-seizes-on-tom-mulcair-s-c...

Are Liberals Afraid to Talk About C-51?

In case you were busy boycotting Tim Horton’s or engaging in some other act of patriotism, Bill C-51, the new anti-terror legislation that will give more power to law enforcement and CSIS, passed in the Senate 44-28.

While the NDP have gained support by opposing bill C-51 outright, Federal Liberals are supporting the Conservative’s highly divisive counterterrorism bill, despite promising to amend it after forming government. They also don’t want the government to make “political hay out of an issue,” as Mr. Trudeau said, whatever that might mean.

With C-51 frequenting both hyperbolic news headlines and the Centre Block Circus otherwise known as Question Period, nuance and reason are naturally hard to come by when discussing C-51. Additionally, when juxtaposed with the Conservative support for the bill and the NDP opposition to the bill, the Liberal stance of “support even though we dislike it and will probably change it” can easily, and justifiably, confuse. To clarify the Liberal position on Bill C-51, the investigative team here at The True North Times got investigative.

We e-mailed Liberal MPs to better understand their position with respect to C-51 and to discover how they felt about the proposed legislation. After all, while the Conservatives and NDP have been using strong and extreme rhetoric in public statements about the bill, it seems as though the Liberals are pretending it doesn’t exist. The NDP are talking about the end of democracy while the Liberals point to their new tax plan, so we wanted to get a sense of where Liberal MPs stood. The internal diversity of a political party becomes particularly relevant when that party takes a great deal of criticism over their complicated stance. Sorry, Chris Alexander, based on all accepted definitions of the word “controversial”, C-51 is indeed that.

Overall, responses were underwhelming and lazy with a small dose of irritating. The bright side was that a decent number of MPs actually responded. Participation medals don’t quite cut it though. Justin Trudeau and Liberal Critic for Public Safety Wayne Easter responded with similar but not identical write-ups outlining the Liberal position and the problems with Bill C-51.

Disappointingly, a number of MPs—Geoff Regan, Scott Brison, Rodger Cuzner, and Chrystia Freeland—referred our inquiry to Wayne Easter and provided no original thought on the matter. Freeland’s Twitter account is oddly void of C-51 recently, but is truly a great resource for news on Ukraine. The conclusion could be drawn that there is more freedom for MPs to sound off about a major post-Cold War conflict with global implications than respond to voters regarding a domestic counterterror bill. MPs Carolyn Bennet, Hedy Fry, and Lawrence McCauly were equally uninterested in originality, but did kindly copy Wayne Easter’s message rather than direct us to his office. It’s almost like they were all scared to talk about the bill, even though they opposed it a few months ago.

http://www.truenorthtimes.ca/2015/06/15/liberals-afraid-talk-c-51/

Quite the contrast to the sadly performing Liberals mentioned above.

Tom Mulcair to pledge an NDP government would 'champion' manufacturing sector on world stage

http://www.canada.com/News/canada/Mulcair+pledge+government+would+champi...

Watchdog alleges Conservatives pressed for speedy gun registry deletion

Canada’s information watchdog has signalled she’ll take the Conservative government to court over the deletion of long-gun data.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/06/15/watchdog-alleges-conservat...

National Post Radio: "Conservatives and Liberals more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs".  

Ottawa columnist John Ivison speaks about how Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper are reacting to polls showing an unexpected pre-election surge for the NDP

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/conservatives-and-liberals-mor...

Here we go again.  

Our beautiful pristine West Coast is slowly disintegrating before our very eyes. 

Fuel spill in Vancouver's False Creek triggers cleanup

Officials have yet to confirm if the spill was from a boat

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fuel-spill-in-vancouver-s...

Let right-wing Tweedledum Harper and Tweedledee Trudeau have their freak-outs.

In the meantime Jamey Heath has an excellent article in today's National Post

Flailbait

http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.ca/2015/06/flailbait.html

NDP's broadening appeal should put Tories on edge

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/broadening-appeal-of-ndp-sh...

onlinediscountanvils your starting to come off creepy in reguards to NR and reqouting that. Its like your stalking him.

Rafe: What Tom Mulcair must do to become Prime Minister

http://commonsensecanadian.ca/rafe-what-tom-mulcair-must-do-to-become-pr...

Andrew Mitrovika has an article on ipolitics about Mulcair's foreign. Policy

The author means the one this thread is named after.

Tories should fear a coalition, but not that one

Coalition. The very mention of the word is enough to send Conservative voters screaming to the ballot box, desperate to prevent the country’s progressive hordes from uniting should the Tories fall to minority government status in October. Just as the spectre of a coalition with separatists proved a motivating force for the Conservatives in the 2011 vote, the possibility of a coalition with socialists presents itself as a useful bogeyman for 2015.

Except that might not be the union the Tories should fear. In an interesting piece in the Hill Times, polling analyst Eric Grenier discusses the rise of a coalition not of parties, but of voters, similar to the east-west alliances which propelled both Conservative and Liberal governments into power in previous elections. According to Grenier, the NDP is building a coalition of voter bases in British Columbia, Quebec, and urban centres in Ontario and the West – and that coalition could be enough to secure the keys to 24 Sussex Drive.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/07/06/tories-should-fear-the-coalition-but-not-...

mark_alfred wrote:

Tom Mulcair will be giving a speech to AFN General Assembly in Montreal at some point (either today or tomorrow or Thursday).  I don't know if he's going to release any policy or not though.

Trudeau's policy of closing the funding gap is a good one. Mulcair would look smart to say in this case that this is one policy the Liberals have that the NDP would agree to. The NDP should shred any bad Liberal policy but be able to accept the odd good one. If I were him I'd probably say good idea-- you have taken so many of our policies we'll take this one back.

I don't know how many others are like me but I look at Aboriginal policy before I vote. It is the one issue that could get me to think twice.

All that said I do have this credibility issue with the Liberal party. I have to say on this one I do think they are sincere. If between them the NDP and Liberals have a majority let this be one of the first policies.

Mulcair did say he would arrange for a missing women's inquiry

Noah Richler   

NDP to repair Canada’s damaged relations with aboriginal peoples

http://www.canadianprogressiveworld.com/2015/07/08/ndp-to-repair-canadas...

The NDP vision for sustainable development

An NDP government will ensure that reviews are meaningful and account for a project’s impact on our climate and respect our new international obligation to reduce greenhouse gases.

https://www.hilltimes.com/opinion/policy-briefing/2015/07/13/the-ndp-vis...

Brian Appel @BJSparkles

After a decade of Red corruption, we were 'treated' to a decade of Blue corruption. It's time for #RealChange #TM4PM https://twitter.com/NDP_HQ/status/620690695238516737 …

On CBC there was this Conservative commentator who was miffed about the above online ad.  Good stuff.