As they don't have a winner's mentality, who cares who leads the NDP?

cco wrote:

Pondering wrote:

Trudeau is going to spend this four years keeping his campaign commitments and doing everything he can to burnish the Liberal government as wildly successful. In 2019 their campaign will likely include a daycare plan better than what the NDP offered.

Funny how the same Liberal partisans who have been all over the NDP for the past decade for voting to bring down the Martin government when they were totally! just about to! bring in the child care plan they'd been promising since 1993! are now saying all we have to do is wait until 2019, and we'll have something even! better!, by the year the newborns who would've been included in the original Red Book will be 26.

The Liberals did not have a daycare proposal in this budget. I was very surprised not to see it especially as Mulcair announced his plan so far in advance.

That means it was a strategic decision. The Liberals have been long-term planning since Trudeau won the leadership. They knew the cupboard would be bare. Most of their platform promises are free or very low cost. They decided they could fight the NDP daycare proposal by pointing out how long it would take to roll out, that the provinces had not agreed foot their part of the bill, and that the cupboard is bare therefore the NDP would be unable to deliver while keeping the budget in balance. It worked.

It's possible there will be no daycare plan in 2019 but I strongly suspect that there will be one. It definitely won't happen before 2019 because it wasn't part of the Liberal platform plus they want to have something big to roll-out in 2019.

If the NDP spends the next four years complaining that the Liberals don't have a childcare plan it will only help the Liberals if and when they do pull one out.

One lesson to learn from the past 2 years is that the Trudeau Liberals are politically clever. Coupled with the strong tendency of Canadians to re-elect governments for at least two terms, especially Liberals, it will not be easy to take them down in 2019 or 2023. That doesn't mean they don't have any weaknesses or vulnerabilities but steady picking at them won't work and will likely backfire while they are this popular. Traditional politics won't interrupt the cycle.

The NDP has no choice but to abandon the centrist "Liberal lite" strategy if it wants to move ahead. There are two areas where the Liberals will definitely fail. The environment and income inequality.

The NDP has to fight Bay Street.

The Liberals had a seperate promise on child care and the child benefit. Pondering, you are ignoring this. And childcare is urgent, essential and life-changing enough that it should have made the Throne speech especially as so many much lesser priorities did.

Can the mods please change the name of this thread to Ndp leadership thread?

Plenty of Liberal radio ads about child care. In fact those are the only Liberal radio ads I heard. 

Arthur Cramer wrote:

cco wrote:

Pondering wrote:

Trudeau is going to spend this four years keeping his campaign commitments and doing everything he can to burnish the Liberal government as wildly successful. In 2019 their campaign will likely include a daycare plan better than what the NDP offered.

Funny how the same Liberal partisans who have been all over the NDP for the past decade for voting to bring down the Martin government when they were totally! just about to! bring in the child care plan they'd been promising since 1993! are now saying all we have to do is wait until 2019, and we'll have something even! better!, by the year the newborns who would've been included in the original Red Book will be 26.

SO NAILED IT!!!!!!!!!!!! Libs hoisted on their own petard!!!! Love this comment!

It is an odd statement to make, given the committment in the election to bring in childcare, that we would see a Trudeau zealot promoting the idea that it be the subject of a promise in the next election.

I think if the Liberals with this majority can only promise something in the next election that promise would actually lose them votes. At some point people want the reality more than the promise and wonder why the Liberals are still at the promise stage four years from now.

As well it is interesting to note that the same person who suggests this could be a promise in the next election is criticizing the NDP for questioning why it was not in the throne speech. Perhaps that is the issue -- left out of the throne speech we might indeed see it left out of this mandate and relegated to a promise in 2019. If that is what Liberal/Trudeau zealots are thinking then Mulcair was right to question the degree of committment to a key plank like childcare that was left out of the speech.

Again there is still the refusal by this Trudeau zealot to provide any kind of list of what that was more important than childcare was also left out. She says you can't include everything. So I am asking this again what more important committment than childcare was left out of the Throne Speech?

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Again there is still the refusal by this Trudeau zealot to provide any kind of list of what that was more important than childcare was also left out. She says you can't include everything. So I am asking this again what more important committment than childcare was left out of the Throne Speech?

It's a Guinness Book of Records thing, I think.  The Liberals failed to bring in child care, despite promising it back in '93, for three majority government terms in a row, and now the zealot wants them to go for #4.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Again there is still the refusal by this Trudeau zealot to provide any kind of list of what that was more important than childcare was also left out. She says you can't include everything. So I am asking this again what more important committment than childcare was left out of the Throne Speech?

It's a Guinness Book of Records thing, I think.  The Liberals failed to bring in child care, despite promising it back in '93, for three majority government terms in a row, and now the zealot wants them to go for #4.

Is there a record for the most times a party has brought the same promise without it ever taking place?

If there is I would be surprised if it isn't the Liberals.

Mulcair was unable to tie Trudeau to old liberal sins during the election and he tried to every chance he got.

Trudeau will be judged on his history alone in 2019. If he has a strong record of following through then people will believe him and no whining about the Liberals never keeping their promises will work even if he doesn't keep 100% of his commitments.

To answer your question Sean, I don't think anything more important than childcare was left out of the Throne Speech. I think the ministerial mandate letters are a more significant indication of priorties in terms of what he wants to achieve first than the speech from the Throne. That still doesn't cover all the meetings type promises he made but the 88 page platform does exist for that.

The throne speech is a ceremonial tradition with no legal obligation. Not saying something within it is not an indication that whatever it is won't get done. Mulcair's criticism that he didn't mention childcare in it is no more significant than criticizing him for not mentioning ISIL in the speech. Both comments are just negative background noise, petty criticisms without substance intended to play to the base.

All I have said is that it is a petty complaint therefore it just projects negativity.

That is a really minor criticism to send people into such a tizzy of accusations of zealotry. So much so that it implies zealotry on your part.

If I were a troll you guys would be so easy to crank-up.

Pondering wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Again there is still the refusal by this Trudeau zealot to provide any kind of list of what that was more important than childcare was also left out. She says you can't include everything. So I am asking this again what more important committment than childcare was left out of the Throne Speech?

It's a Guinness Book of Records thing, I think.  The Liberals failed to bring in child care, despite promising it back in '93, for three majority government terms in a row, and now the zealot wants them to go for #4.

Is there a record for the most times a party has brought the same promise without it ever taking place?

If there is I would be surprised if it isn't the Liberals.

Mulcair was unable to tie Trudeau to old liberal sins during the election and he tried to every chance he got.

Trudeau will be judged on his history alone in 2019. If he has a strong record of following through then people will believe him and no whining about the Liberals never keeping their promises will work even if he doesn't keep 100% of his commitments.

To answer your question Sean, I don't think anything more important than childcare was left out of the Throne Speech. I think the ministerial mandate letters are a more significant indication of priorties in terms of what he wants to achieve first than the speech from the Throne. That still doesn't cover all the meetings type promises he made but the 88 page platform does exist for that.

The throne speech is a ceremonial tradition with no legal obligation. Not saying something within it is not an indication that whatever it is won't get done. Mulcair's criticism that he didn't mention childcare in it is no more significant than criticizing him for not mentioning ISIL in the speech. Both comments are just negative background noise, petty criticisms without substance intended to play to the base.

All I have said is that it is a petty complaint therefore it just projects negativity.

That is a really minor criticism to send people into such a tizzy of accusations of zealotry. So much so that it implies zealotry on your part.

If I were a troll you guys would be so easy to crank-up.

I clearly don't have to respond since Quizzical said it so well.

But I will just underline the degree of importance is so great that any criticism that it was left out cannot, by definition, be considered petty.

You could argue that the Liberals might do it anyway, even if they did not have it in the speech. But instead, you ahve suggested it might be a promise for 2019 and that the Liberals may only have had it as a political but not real promise to hold back the NDP.

Shame on you.

If you measure and crow about winding us up -- I suspect that does make you a troll -- by definition.

For someone who thinks the throne speech doesn't matter, Pondering, you sure are worked up about the incredible importance and awfulness of Mulcair's response to the throne speech! 

swallow wrote:

For someone who thinks the throne speech doesn't matter, Pondering, you sure are worked up about the incredible importance and awfulness of Mulcair's response to the throne speech! 

I'm not at all worked up about it. I think the people that are worked up are the ones attacking me over it as if I just accused Mulcair of being the devil incarnate because I don't agree that this was a tactically good move on the part of Mulcair.

I just heard Mulcair in Question Period challenging Trudeau on environmental reviews on the existing pipelines but Trudeau dodged it easily because the question was too wordy.

quizzical wrote:

he dodged it easily ecause those were the words he was taught to say before he went to his first question period.

and i find it interesting you are proud of him dodging instead of  his answering like a true leader and agent for change.

I'm not proud of it. I'm not expressing moral approval.

Politics as it exists today is not an avenue to the radical changes that we need.

That you would refer to him as a "true leader and agent for change" to me is expecting too much from a mainstream politician.

He is the best the Liberals could come up with and it appears that was plenty good enough to beat the competition. Whether or not you win a race doesn't depend on how fast you can run, it depends on how fast your competition can run. Trudeau won by default. All of Harper's wins were by default.

Trudeau is effective and a "good" leader in terms of he achieved his party's goal, to defeat Harper and Mulcair.

I also think he will be an extremely successful "status quo" PM who may end up rivaling his father as the most popular Canadian politicians ever.

He will not make a significant impact on climate change or income inequality. I think he believes in himself and his values and that they reflect mainstream thinking. That is why he will be successful. If you think being successful is the definition of being a good leader than yes, I agree he is good from that perspective. I think skillful is the better term.

In my opinion if Trudeau believed that we have to shut down the oil sands for the sake of his children's future he would do it. It isn't a matter of character defect it is a matter of accepting conventional thinking.

For years and years we were told peak oil was coming, we were going to run out of oil so we should conserve and look for other sources of power. The price would only go up. Nobody is talking about peak oil anymore. People almost have a magical thinking faith-based belief in the ability of science to produce solutions.

While climate change activists are condemning the pipelines and the oil sands based on climate change that is not the primary opposition "on the ground".  The battle against the pipelines is succeeding because the communities along them are afraid of disasters that could devastate their land making it worthless for decades to come.

Harper being gone is a huge change and Trudeau is a big improvement but he is no messiah. But then, neither is Mulcair or the NDP. Public daycare is not a panacea for income inequality. It's a tweak when what we need is a reset. It's better than nothing but it's a mainstream solution not daringly progressive. Better environmental reviews for pipelines are great but ultimately they have to be stopped.

The Liberals and the NDP presented their leaders and platforms. For better or worse voters chose Trudeau and his platform. Trudeau didn't trick them into electing him and Mulcair didn't present a particularly more progressive alternative yet posters act like the NDP would have made such a huge difference that it's practically a crime Trudeau was elected.

Even now the complaints of the NDP are minor in comparision to climate change and income inequality. Most seem perfectly content that Mulcair was only supporting better pipeline reviews and saying nothing about the oil sands having to wind down. Even now the complaints are more along the line of complaining about his silencing of critics of Israel as if that matters in comparison to the destruction of the planet. The Sherbrooke Declaration is supposedly this principled stand for democracy that must be stood up for even if it isn't popular with anyone because that's the principle it's important to live or die on. That's the policy you can't give up for political expediency but weak criticism of CETA and TPP is okay to accept based on political expediency.

And oh yeah, Trudeau not mentioning childcare in the throne speech is shocking. There was no mention of poverty, homelessness or mental health care in the speech either but I guess those aren't NDP priorities.

Pondering wrote:

Then it is down to a matter of opinion. I saw nothing wrong in Trudeau's response.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2680040156

I'm perturbed that he didn't agree to pass something like the Climate Change Accountability Act, which he could have agreed to in the first question.  The Liberals under Dion did support this bill, so Trudeau now not supporting enacting a bill like it shows how much more right-wing the Liberals have become under him.

Likewise for the second question.  He could have answered yes, the Liberals intend to include assessments of greenhouse gas impacts in ongoing evironmental assessments of things like pipelines.  But he didn't.  Instead he stammered and meandered almost nonsensically.  It's worrying.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Again Pondering has put in so much volume so tangled with much of it incoherent that the effort to refute the inconsistencies, contradictions and sheer garbage would take so much more effort than these posts are worth. That is the MO here. So not spending an hour to go line by line through the latest crap should not be taken as agreement with any of it.

I dunno.  I didn't see anything incoherent or inconsistent in what Pondering said.  She clearly said that she saw "nothing wrong in Trudeau's response", whereas I clearly said I found Trudeau's response disturbing and more right-wing than what the Liberals were just a few years back (when they agreed with the NDP's Climate Change Accountability Act).  Two differing opinions, but that's what this place is about. Sharing different viewpoints.  It's all good.

Why she is not disappointed about his answer like I am I don't know, but I've never really understood right-wingers that well anyway.  So even if she were to explain why she feels it's okay for the Libs now to not support the idea of enacting a climate change accountability act, I likely wouldn't get it anyway.  I just accept that right-wingers are less into climate regulation than NDPers like me.

mark_alfred wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Again Pondering has put in so much volume so tangled with much of it incoherent that the effort to refute the inconsistencies, contradictions and sheer garbage would take so much more effort than these posts are worth. That is the MO here. So not spending an hour to go line by line through the latest crap should not be taken as agreement with any of it.

I dunno.  I didn't see anything incoherent or inconsistent in what Pondering said.  She clearly said that she saw "nothing wrong in Trudeau's response", whereas I clearly said I found Trudeau's response disturbing and more right-wing than what the Liberals were just a few years back (when they agreed with the NDP's Climate Change Accountability Act).  Two differing opinions, but that's what this place is about. Sharing different viewpoints.  It's all good.

Why she is not disappointed about his answer like I am I don't know, but I've never really understood right-wingers that well anyway.  So even if she were to explain why she feels it's okay for the Libs now to not support the idea of enacting a climate change accountability act, I likely wouldn't get it anyway.  I just accept that right-wingers are less into climate regulation than NDPers like me.

I am talking about effectiveness in question period not moral right and wrong. I saw nothing wrong in Trudeau's response from the perspective of question period performance.

The question was tactically weak but I will address that in the thread you started on these particular questions but I will say this much. If you want a simple answer ask a simple question.

mark_alfred wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Again Pondering has put in so much volume so tangled with much of it incoherent that the effort to refute the inconsistencies, contradictions and sheer garbage would take so much more effort than these posts are worth. That is the MO here. So not spending an hour to go line by line through the latest crap should not be taken as agreement with any of it.

I dunno.  I didn't see anything incoherent or inconsistent in what Pondering said.  She clearly said that she saw "nothing wrong in Trudeau's response", whereas I clearly said I found Trudeau's response disturbing and more right-wing than what the Liberals were just a few years back (when they agreed with the NDP's Climate Change Accountability Act).  Two differing opinions, but that's what this place is about. Sharing different viewpoints.  It's all good.

Why she is not disappointed about his answer like I am I don't know, but I've never really understood right-wingers that well anyway.  So even if she were to explain why she feels it's okay for the Libs now to not support the idea of enacting a climate change accountability act, I likely wouldn't get it anyway.  I just accept that right-wingers are less into climate regulation than NDPers like me.

The lack of coherence is mostly in her statements about the promise being for political reasons, that she could see them re-offering "a better plan in 2019" in her explanations defending childcare not being in the speech. Then saying that it means nothing, that it is petty to attack the speech. She has also stated that lots of things have been left out of the speech but when pressed could not come up with anything this important. It is important yet a reminder form Mulcair asking why it was not mentioned is being petty -- even though she imagines in the same breath that it might not be kept but later that it will be. Pondering has been all over the road on this for the last couple weeks.

The only consistancy is the usual: a defence of the Messiah no matter how many contradictions are required to keep it up.

This is just part of it -- there are more wierd statements and the whole post is not worth the time and energy to deconstruct.

She is all over the road with alternate defenses that contradict each other.

The thing from this quote that sticks out for me is Boulerice using the phrase "Canada and Quebec" as though they were 2 separate countries. It doesn't bother me, but it seems a bit unwise for one who may hope to lead a (Canadian) national party some day.

mark_alfred wrote:

Pondering wrote:

And oh yeah, Trudeau not mentioning childcare in the throne speech is shocking. There was no mention of poverty, homelessness or mental health care in the speech either but I guess those aren't NDP priorities.

Good observation.  I checked the Hansard, and found the following:

Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP) wrote:

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech and thank him for it.    

Throne speeches are always an interesting read because of all the things they include. They are also interesting because of the things they leave out. The new Liberal government's throne speech left a few things out, including three words, two concepts: “social housing” and “poverty”. The only mention of poverty in the Liberal government's throne speech had to do with fighting poverty abroad, as though poor people here in Canada and Quebec had suddenly disappeared.    

Can my colleague give us some specifics about the plan to help poor families in Quebec and British Columbia and across Canada?

Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal (Surrey—Newton, Lib.) wrote:

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for his second day in the House and for putting this question forward.    

I am certain that the member is very well aware that this government is going to put $125 billion in infrastructure, green infrastructure, and that a certain amount of dollars is reserved for social housing.     

When it comes to poverty, this government is going to help middle-class families and also bring in child care benefits for families that need these the most, which will help poverty disappear. I am as committed as the member on the other side to bringing everyone to prosperity.

A thing that drives me crazy about the Liberals is the lack of a break down on how much they're going to spend on specific items.  They have this one figure for infrastructure that they've grouped almost everything into.  So when someone asks them about something like social housing, they cite this figure rather than saying how much exactly they're planning to spend on social housing.  So much for their commitment to "openness".

At least Dhaliwal in his response attempts to address the issue, even if the answer he gives is lacking. Can't say the same thing about his leader.

DaveW wrote:

Michael Moriarity wrote:

The thing from this quote that sticks out for me is Boulerice using the phrase "Canada and Quebec" as though they were 2 separate countries. It doesn't bother me, but it seems a bit unwise for one who may hope to lead a (Canadian) national party some day.

get used to it,

it is simply political reality and standard vocabulary for a downtown Montreal leftish official

"Get used to it", sounds like a really bad strategy for a national party to adopt. It is not the best way to convince voters in BC to vote NDP. With that kind of language the NDP might win back some seats in Quebec in 2019 but that language is very problematic outside of Quebec and Ontario.  The NDP with a leader who speaks in those terms could lose most of its seats in Western Canada. The NPD could become a left version of the Creditistes, a Western protest party that lingers on in Quebec for a few elections longer than where it originally sprang from.

Stockholm wrote:

FWIW, in the highly hypothetical scenario where Boulerice was leader of the NDP - you can be sure he would take a crash course on how to reinvent himself as a national Canadian leader and to expunge his speeches of any vestigial references to Quebec as if it were not part of Canada. In fact if Bouelrice became leader he would likely wrap himself in canadian flags and pose beside beavers building dams and mounties...

You can't take back what is said so that ship sailed.

montrealer58 wrote:

You HAD better get used to our nationality and citizenship here in Quebec. It has been recognised by the Canadian House of Commons.

Canada as a concept includes Quebec -- at least for now. And this does not negate Quebec as a nation so you really do not ahve a strong point there. The BQ used this construction to state that Canada does not include Quebec but that is a problematic point to make for a federalist party.

If the construction "Canada and Quebec" can't ever be used, you will exclude roughly 100% of francophone Quebecers as potential leaders of the NDP. Tom Mulcair has used the phrase, and no one objected. (eg "It seems to me that Canada and Quebec deserve better than wedge politics, the politics of division.")

The House resolution is that Quebec is a nation within a united Canada. You know, a federalism. Quebec came before Canada.

montrealer58 wrote:

The House resolution is that Quebec is a nation within a united Canada. You know, a federalism. Quebec came before Canada.

Just so you get a basic about constitutional law. A House and/or Senate resolution does not and cannot supercede the constitution. The constitution makes Quebec one of ten provinces in our federation. Any change to that would need unanimity of the provinces

Quebec came before Canada and Acadia came before Quebec. So what was your point again.  I think that the nations of Acadia, Quebec and Canada are all great.