NDP Fave Joy Taylor's Take On The Election

89 Year-Young NDP party stalwart Joy Taylor IS BACK! She knew Tommy Douglas. Here are her thoughts on this past election result.

I am an old time CCF/NDP volunteer. Over the years I have canvassed thousands of homes and apartments and I can offer advice to our party as to how we can get back into the race.

We must once again adopt the term socialists. It is not a dirty word It was wrong to ever associate it with the word communist. It defined us as people who care about our fellow man. Bernie Sanders in the U.S. is proud to call himself socialist and is drawing huge crowds of support.

In canvassing I met people in all walks of life, I saw conditions that I could barely believe. I wept over some. In an election I would think that some voters really didn’t care about balancing the budget but were more intent on trying to balance a low salary into every day living. How to exist day to day.

There was a lack of passion in many of the speeches that I heard. The passion seemed to be kept behind on the floor of the House, not on the campaign. We moved to the right, not for aid to the voter but to garner votes. Evidently it was a wrong move.

I am told that I live in the past. The past for me meant a kinder, gentler people who helped one another. No TV to spew out ads of hate and lies. No huge gap between the rich and the poor. Many of our families fed the hungry. There were few homeless people because the people took them in to share their overcrowded homes.

Since Confederation, it seems, Canadian voters move from Liberal to Conservative back to Liberal. Jack Layton brought us close to be the ruling party, but fate intervened. This election showed that we did not reach the voters. Great voices of my party are silenced.

My advice to those that would be the leaders in my beloved party is to speak from the heart. Talk of poverty and hungry kids and how we want a better life for all. No more talk of balancing budgets and things that the ordinary person has no control over. Shout from the rooftops that we are socialists and socialists really do care about people.

Tommy Douglas did it — and it showed.

Joy Taylor, Scarborough

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2015/10/26/tories-...