Welcome to B.C., Premier Notley, or, does the NDP have a death wish?

there's a child care and living poverty crisis across BC but people suffering from upper class mentality vote against their own best interest.

..what i believe these days is that there is a need for a new and different economy. one that isn't just profit driven. i am really not sure that the bc ndp are up to the task but at least they are talking about it.

Time to Replace Out-of-Touch Government, John Horgan Says

quote:

Related to the economy, could you tell me about what you were doing in Italy last summer?

I was invited by Vancity Credit Union to participate in a tour of Bologna, which is the centre of the co-operative movement in Europe, certainly in Italy.... It was just an opportunity to look at alternative ways of stimulating economic activity that were not necessarily always profit driven, but profit sharing in the case of co-operatives.

What I came back with, energized, was looking at the housing crisis in British Columbia, that co-operative housing has been a key part of the puzzle in B.C. over the decades, but has not seen much activity over the past couple of terms of federal and provincial governments, and I would like to see that reinvigorated.

Are there other places the co-operative model could be well applied in B.C.?

In some of the site visits we went to, seniors’ care was one where you had the workers, the social workers, the care aides, the therapists, occupational therapists — all [as] part and parcel of the operation. You had administrators making sure the facility was resourced and the people that participated in the delivery of the services were invested in the outcomes. That made them happier employees because they were able to make suggestions amongst themselves on how they could improve the delivery of the services, and then they went about doing it.... Everybody was participating in the decision-making. That model really appealed to me.

Geoff wrote:

NorthReport wrote:

Accessible pool of voters for Liberals nearly 20 points higher than for the Conservatives or NDP (December 9, 2016) says Nanos this morning. My one surprise is that they even mention the NDP any more. 

The good news is that the election isn't until 2019, so the Nanos poll is meaningless. However, if one insists on paying attention to them, at least wait until the NDP elects a new leader. At that point the polls might reveal something interesting about how the NDP is faring with the public (altrhough I wouldn't bet the bank on it).

North Report is still singing a one-note song. Just these days it is a different note than it used to be.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

quizzical wrote:

there's a child care and living poverty crisis across BC but people suffering from upper class mentality vote against their own best interest.

All that said, I was not fond of the suburbanite comment in the link.

i kinda found it outdated too but the mental state and premise contained are real.

i was looking for a labelling term to encompass wth is going on with people and their failing to take care of their best interests and vote against themselves. a good example is voting for billionaires who've driven the world into chaos to change things.

if we can't name it we can't change it.

quizzical wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

quizzical wrote:

there's a child care and living poverty crisis across BC but people suffering from upper class mentality vote against their own best interest.

All that said, I was not fond of the suburbanite comment in the link.

i kinda found it outdated too but the mental state and premise contained are real.

i was looking for a labelling term to encompass wth is going on with people and their failing to take care of their best interests and vote against themselves. a good example is voting for billionaires who've driven the world into chaos to change things.

if we can't name it we can't change it.

I see the problem.

Certainly, it is true that the right (and so-called centre) only govern by getting others either not to vote at all or to vote for policies that hurt them.

The Liberals in particular work hard to get people to vote for them by articulating the problem and making promises but delivering policies that maintain the problem rather than fix it. This is the reason, I think, why those left of centre frequently detest Liberals more than Conservatives -- it is often how I feel. Conservatives at least don't pretend to offer progressive policies and so do not take votes they ahve no intention of honouring.

Recently many people saw the NDP as unrecognizable and opted to support the Liberals, forgetting their bait and switch nature. This is where we are now, waiting for the population to recognize that they have been had. Again.

This is why, even as frustrated as I have been I vote NDP in the hope of an improvement becuase I have no hope that the Liberals will change. They are essentially in the way of any progress. This is a familiar pattern.

The NDP (or some replacement if needed) must offer and fight for truly life-changing policies. Too often the party backs this vision rhetorically but offers little of imediate and significant substance. In the last election it actually offered quite a lot (allbeit over too long a period) but did not have the leader truly defend and fight for this vision.

In the end the NDP cannot make mistakes as it is the only one that has the potential to actually make a difference -- in my view. It is also held often to a higher standard.

More voter awareness of track records and better analysis of proposals would lead to more voter awareness and fewer votes against the person's interest.

quizzical wrote:

the NDP offered life changing programs and policies for example a national day care stategy.

now 1 year after the election families with young children many of whom most likely voted for Trudeau are having child care difficulties and taking to the news about how they have to enlist their parents to step in. they say costs have gone up like 17%. where the hell is their disconnect?

and now we've got a Chinese business here in BC looking to buy a chain of long term care facilities. so we've got governments subsidizing long term care franchises with health care dollars??????

next up in BC is the new loan first time home buyers can take out to use as a down payment on a home worth up to 750,000.00. wth?

I agree they offered these. In fact it was frustrating to see how several strong life-changing policies were in the NDP program, but they failed to truly campaign on them. This I blamed the leader for. The party itself had crafted a very good and worthy list of policies, not a perfect schedule of implementation (could have been more ambitious) but the leader spoke little of these during his speeches. He would mention them but spend the bulk of his time on other things. As well the attacks on the Liberals were often incompetent -- spent on less important things. The leader never truly challenged the Liberals on their middle class tax cut which has been nothing more than a transfer to the top ten percent coming from both the top 1 percent and the entire rest of the spectrum. The Liberal family tax breaks were much less meaningful than the childcare proposals from the NDP but Mulcair only presented this contrast in a fashion I felt was uninspired and inept. Mulcair was not saddled with a bad plan. He had a good one and bungled the campaign. This is why I turned against him.

I want the next leader to engage these important life changing policies with authenticity, passion, undeniable committment and the confidence to place them at the front of the campaign.

I still believe that the NDP platform of the last election was a potential winner. I am not certain that Mulcair felt that way. The only major way it would have been better would have been to have a more ambitious implementation.

Generally, despite some clashes, I think you and I agree on the bulk of the NDP initiatives. However, I point to the difference between the focus of the platform and the focus of the leader's campaign which was what most Canadians saw of the platform. I think it is unfair to say that Canadians rejected the NDP platform as I think they never really got to know it. That is on the leader in my view.