Green Party leadership debate on rabble

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Tue, 2020-09-08 20:48

MegB

This Thursday September 10th rabble is co-organizing a Green Party of Canada leadership debate with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute. It's moderated by writer, journalist, activist and rabble.ca founder Judy Rebick. Click here to watch.

What are people's thoughts on what this leadership race could mean? How might a renewed Green Party affect federal policy on climate change, foreign policy, our role in the international arms trade, and other important issues? Are they the party to address the existential threat of a (relative to us) slow-moving mass extinction event and, if so, will they ever be in a position to actually address it?

Oh, and who's the best-looking candidate and who are they wearing?

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Wed, 2020-09-09 00:00

NDPP

Aside from his other positive and progressive positions, anti-imperialist Canadian foreign policy as articulated by Lascaris is about as good as it gets. The challenge will be finding enough like-minds and energetic hands inspired enough to work together to push him across the finish line and into office. Then wait and hope it doesn't all turn to mush afterwards. The Israel lobby, which will be his enemy number one for his pro-Palestinian views, will fight him to the death of course.

Wed, 2020-09-09 09:33

MegB

Agreed NDPP. Lascaris is as good as it gets as far as mainstream electoral politics, where there is otherwise a complete lack of vision and absence of, for lack of a better phrase, moral compass. He knows what it means to be on the right side of history when it comes to Israel and is, I think, up for the fight that will ensue should he be in a position to offer serious opposition to the Israeli apartheid regime. He's very good on domestic policy as well.

Wed, 2020-09-09 09:53

NDPP

I wish him well.

Wed, 2020-09-09 20:28

laine lowe laine lowe's picture

So do I wish him well. It's such a breath of fresh air after so many politicians refuse to put justice above all when it comes to foreign policy.

Thu, 2020-09-10 20:27

Ken Burch

So far, Annamie is presenting as the "I stand for nothing candidate" by passing on all the first questions.

Thu, 2020-09-10 20:52

Ken Burch

Glen Murray could just as easily be a Con candidate, and it looks as though Andrew West is a right-wing Liberal at best. Neither wants the GPC to be different than the old parties.

Thu, 2020-09-10 21:15

Ken Burch

Dmitri Lascaris and Meryam Haddad crushed it tonight. Annamie spent the entire debate saying nothing but that she supported existing GPC policy-meaning that voting for her is voting to keep the party in the same electoral dead zone- or in repeating a meaningless promise to "consult" with GPC members. Glen Murray and Andrew West competed for the title of "Who Is The Next Tony Blair?". Amita Kuttner had some good moments as well.

There would be a major electoral breakthrough for the GPC with Lascaris or Haddad. There'd be none with Paul, West, or Murray.

Fri, 2020-09-11 15:36

melovesproles

Annamie spent the entire debate saying nothing but that she supported existing GPC policy-meaning that voting for her is voting to keep the party in the same electoral dead zone

Agreed. I had a hard time finding out her foreign policy positions before the debate and was trying to keep an open mind but she dodged every important question. Lascaris and Haddad were both consistantly on point.

Sat, 2020-09-12 00:40

#10

eastnoireast

a mixed field, for sure.

dmitri lascaris in a class of his own. on point, calm, not fucking around. quoting elizabeth may (in a good light) to back up a larger point he was making - chess not checkers. best backdrop.

meryam haddad was good - (paraphrased) "i would remind people that u.s. foreign policy under obama was much as it is today". she fidgeted, and her attire combined with the high-contrast lighting made her appear as a performance artist. and what's with the watermelon?

ms paul didn't do it for me, not sure why. i liked the good doctor, though pedantic.

andrew west, i don't trust him. "nato does a lot of humanitarian interventions". ok. next.

amita kuttner, the astrophysicist, is just too out-there for the job. i liked her though.

everyone, even those who thought it necessary to use up debate airtime to praise chrystia freeland, ffs, brings something useful to the table and overall it points to an interesting political party at an interesting point in it's history.

lascaris and paul got into it - a debate almost broke out - over the greens' Palestine policy. friction there.

great move for rabble to do this, but i was disappointed at the slack production values of the whole presentation.

fails: not mastering the tech _before going live / lack of moderator support - tech, printed (not on dissapearing screens) program notes / name confusion for audience - tiny unreadable text / unprofessional, busy backgrounds, instead of say, behind the moderator, "rabble.ca presents the 2020 green party leadership debate on foreign policy."

Sat, 2020-09-12 02:17

#11

Ken Burch

I think I was harder on Murray than I needed to be, having watched the debate again...but I stand by my initial judgment that Andrew West would by far be the worst. He came across as arrogant and entitled...his body language radiated contempt for most of the other candidates in the debate, as if it was a personal affront to him that he hadn't simply been guaranteed the leadership in advance.

A West government would almost certainly find some pretext to militarily invade a non-European country in the name of green values...and he'd probably say the war itself was green so long as they had recycling baskets on the front lines.

Paul is less arrogant than that, but her refusal to give any real answers to any foreign policy questions-in a foreign policy debate- essentially disqualifies her from the job. There is no way she'd be able to get away with doing that in a leaders' debate at a general election, and voters are never going to warm to a candidate whose pitch is "take my word for it-I'm vaguely OK".

Sat, 2020-09-12 10:06

#12

Misfit

I am hoping for West.

Sat, 2020-09-12 14:31

(Reply to #12) #13

eastnoireast

Misfit wrote:

I am hoping for West.

would be good for the ndp. in addition to his fucked policy positions, west's in over his head. he stumbled several times in the debate. not being able to pronounce the magnitski act - but he'd damn well wield it if he was pm!

everyone is in over their head other than dmitri.

some have pretty good grasp of the policy end of things; no one else is working the electablility/ big picture aspect like dmitri. backdrop. succinct answers. standing for something.

not, "we need to elect more greens so we can hold the government to account" as another contestant said. no, you elect more greens so you can eventually form government.

Sat, 2020-09-12 15:54

#14

melovesproles

I am hoping for West.

You don't see any value in there being a leader of a national party to the left of the NDP? I agree that if the only result is to split the vote that this would be less than ideal. But Lascaris seems savvy enough to navigate that and the NDP has ceded that ground on their own. It would be nice to have an actual leftwing voice in Canadian politics.

West was the most cringe but I thought Merner was a close second. I actually thought Murray was the best of the candidates whose politics are significantly different than mine. He went over time a lot but he clearly had done his homework and provided details on his policy ideas (which were a mixed bag). Howard and Kuttner came off as nice people but not ready for prime time. I was most disappointed with Paul. I found her refusal to give answers really condescending. Lacaris was a clear winner and Haddad was a strong number 2.

Sat, 2020-09-12 17:39

#15

Ken Burch

I thought somebody upthread asked about what was up with the watermelon graphic.

I'm guessing that Haddad is using it as a campaign symbol-she had the melon slice placed as a backdrop in her room- that, since she is specifically standing as an "ecosocialist", Haddad is trying to own the slur that "the green tree has red roots"-a slur in which the watermelon has been sometimes used as a substitute visual metaphor.

It's a good joke and a great visual if that is what she is doing.

The one thing Haddad has to be careful of is that Paul's advisors could, if they started seeing Haddad as a real threat, start implying that the watermelon is a racial slur(but I don't know if Canadian audiences would get the reference).

Sat, 2020-09-12 17:48

(Reply to #15) #16

Ken Burch

Misfit wrote:

I am hoping for West.

Care to say why? His strategy...pitch the party as a second home for Conservative voters...is the exact same approach Harris and May have used since 1983....the approach that didn't elect a single Green MP for twenty-eight years and even last year, when a huge breakthrough should have been possible with the Cons running an odious campaign that came from ahead to lose and the Liberal and NDP campaigns both collapsing in the last two weeks, only got the GPC to three seats-one of which they only hold because the NDP blocked Manly from being nominated because he committed truth about the IDF response to the Gaza flotilla.

Even more than Paul, Harris is a vote to "stay the course"- what's the point of staying the course when the course goes nowhere?

And why SHOULDN'T the GPC become an antiwar party? There's no voters out there who favors "humanitarian" military interventions AND real steps to address the climate crisis, and Harris and May repeatedly proved, by their failures, that the "Tory with a composter" voter doesn't exist.

Sat, 2020-09-12 21:16

#17

Misfit

Canada needs one solid and unified voice on the left in order to be meaningful and effective. Either the NDP folds and joins the Greens which is one option or the Green Party folds and merges with the NDP. The problem with the Greens is their eco-capitalist outlook which attracts people like May and West, and no pun intended. Their entire constitution is wrong.

Dimitri is in an uphill battle with the party brass working against him. He was the only candidate that they literally barred from running. He had to appeal to get listed as a party candidate. So really, the Green Party is filled with anti-social Democratic people who appeal to wishy-washy types like Annime Paul, the candidate who is in the lead.

Dimitri is too left-wing for them which should really be raising a lot of alarm bells on this board but somehow aren't. THEY DON'T WANT HIM IN THEIR PARTY!!! He is trying to make it an effective environmental party in line with the environmental parties if other countries in the world. The Canadian Green Party establishment led by Elizabeth May very clearly does not want that.

This makes me wonder if the main reason for the Green Party is just to deliberately dither just to split the left vote and help keep the Liberals in government. Ideologically, this is more like how some of them sound and not just Annime Paul either.

Therefore, I would prefer a unified coalition to draw Demitri Lascaris, and Haddad, and Amita whatever her name is, and maybe the doctor as well to the NDP. There needs to be a major reform of the NDP to return it to its older and stronger social democratic roots. The good reforms that Demitri Lascaris implemented into the Green Party like Palestinian rights need to be reinstated back into the NDP.

The NDP base is more true to these eco-socialist values than some of these Green candidates who claim that they are "not the left and not the right".

In the United States I support Bernie Sanders and AOC et al. Although I strongly agree with the values of this people's party and the old work of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein, I am dead set against splitting the anti-Republican vote to allow the Republicans a free pass back into government.

It is the same thing here. Unite the Right also means divide the left and keep it permanently destabilized and ineffective with a junk ideology eco-libertarian political party masquerading as an answer to the left. Annime Paul had nothing of substance to say about anything during the debate. Her role, it appears, is just to speak as leader and attack the NDP and run it down to help the Liberal Party maintain power just like Elizabeth May did for years. Dimitri looks to be accomplishing little more than putting lipstick on a pig.

So, let West win, and bring Lascaris and Haddad and a few other picks over to the NDP and work on our constitution instead. I would like to see Dimitri as the next leader of the newly revamped NDP.

We don't have to be waffles either. We can call ourselves the New Democratic Pancake Party with Dimitri as our new messiah.

Sat, 2020-09-12 20:53

#18

laine lowe laine lowe's picture

Interesting view, Misfit. I know that I was amazed by the major shift to the right the Greens took under Jim Harris. I always figured that the Green were further on the left on environmental issues than the NDP that was often beholden to their labour support so not as strident on environmental issues. But that thought bubble was burst by Jim Harris who saw environmentalism from a capital driven perspective.

Sat, 2020-09-12 21:22

#19

Misfit

Unite the Right. Divide the Left.

Sun, 2020-09-13 01:19

(Reply to #19) #20

Ken Burch

Misfit wrote:

Canada needs one solid and unified voice on the left in order to be meaningful and effective. Either the NDP folds and joins the Greens which is one option or the Green Party folds and merges with the NDP. The problem with the Greens is their eco-capitalist outlook which attracts people like May and West, and no pun intended. Their entire constitution is wrong.

Dimitri is in an uphill battle with the party brass working against him. He was the only candidate that they literally barred from running. He had to appeal to get listed as a party candidate. So really, the Green Party is filled with anti-social Democratic people who appeal to wishy-washy types like Annime Paul, the candidate who is in the lead.

Dimitri is too left-wing for them which should really be raising a lot of alarm bells on this board but somehow aren't. THEY DON'T WANT HIM IN THEIR PARTY!!! He is trying to make it an effective environmental party in line with the environmental parties if other countries in the world. The Canadian Green Party establishment led by Elizabeth May very clearly does not want that.

This makes me wonder if the main reason for the Green Party is just to deliberately dither just to split the left vote and help keep the Liberals in government. Ideologically, this is more like how some of them sound and not just Annime Paul either.

Therefore, I would prefer a unified coalition to draw Demitri Lascaris, and Haddad, and Amita whatever her name is, and maybe the doctor as well to the NDP. There needs to be a major reform of the NDP to return it to its older and stronger social democratic roots. The good reforms that Demitri Lascaris implemented into the Green Party like Palestinian rights need to be reinstated back into the NDP.

The NDP base is more true to these eco-socialist values than some of these Green candidates who claim that they are "not the left and not the right".

In the United States I support Bernie Sanders and AOC et al. Although I strongly agree with the values of this people's party and the old work of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein, I am dead set against splitting the anti-Republican vote to allow the Republicans a free pass back into government.

It is the same thing here. Unite the Right also means divide the left and keep it permanently destabilized and ineffective with a junk ideology eco-libertarian political party masquerading as an answer to the left. Annime Paul had nothing of substance to say about anything during the debate. Her role, it appears, is just to speak as leader and attack the NDP and run it down to help the Liberal Party maintain power just like Elizabeth May did for years. Dimitri looks to be accomplishing little more than putting lipstick on a pig.

So, let West win, and bring Lascaris and Haddad and a few other picks over to the NDP and work on our constitution instead. I would like to see Dimitri as the next leader of the newly revamped NDP.

We don't have to be waffles either. We can call ourselves the New Democratic Pancake Party with Dimitri as our new messiah.

Thank you for that response. It took a direction I totally did not expect.

How about calling this new thing...The Canada Party?

Sun, 2020-09-13 13:53

#21

Misfit

Actually no. It is the right wing parties that take on general all encompassing nationalistic names when they get too unpopular and have to form new parties.

The Saskatchewan PC's had to rebrand themselves. They reorganized as The Saskatchewan Party as though social democrats who oppose their policies are somehow less Saskatchewan than they are.

The Alberta far right splintered to form the Wild Rose Party. The wild rose is their provincial flower.

The People's Party of Canada sounds like a nice party that represents the people of Canada and cares about their welfare. Well, that is true if you are a white, able bodied racist who is concerned only about yourself.

I think that a name which is more descriptive about the ideology is more appropriate. Leave the nationalistic and patriotic party naming to the far right. That is about all they are capable of doing well.

Sun, 2020-09-13 13:46

#22

Michael Moriarity

I completely agree with misfit on this one. Thumbs down on the Canada Party. The Eco-Socialist Party perhaps, ESP for short.

Sun, 2020-09-13 13:55

#23

Misfit

Or Green on Business or GOB for short.

Sun, 2020-09-13 14:05

#24

Misfit

Or the All Green Energy Party or AGE. We welcome all baby boomers too.

Sun, 2020-09-13 15:04

(Reply to #24) #25

Ken Burch

Misfit wrote:

Actually no. It is the right wing parties that take on general all encompassing nationalistic names when they get too unpopular and have to form new parties.

The Saskatchewan PC's had to rebrand themselves. They reorganized as The Saskatchewan Party as though social democrats who oppose their policies are somehow less Saskatchewan than they are.

The Alberta far right splintered to form the Wild Rose Party. The wild rose is their provincial flower.

The People's Party of Canada sounds like a nice party that represents the people of Canada and cares about their welfare. Well, that is true if you are a white, able bodied racist who is concerned only about yourself.

I think that a name which is more descriptive about the ideology is more appropriate. Leave the nationalistic and patriotic party naming to the far right. That is about all they are capable of doing well.

I hear what you are saying. My point was mainly that it would be a way to steal the "we love our country and YOU DON'T!" canard from the right.

How about the Transformation Party?

Sun, 2020-09-13 22:12

#26

eastnoireast

the gpc and ndp are different parties with vastly different histories, thrusts, and to a degree, supporters.

FPTP is the problem; let's acknowledge and fix that instead of limiting voices and morphing our political hopes to a broken and archaic structure.

both the gpc and the ndp beaurocracies are walled off in their ivory towers of disconnect,

the gpc beaurocracy is much easier to storm from the left - there's just less of it, for one thing.

and, there's a demonstratively good candidates running for leadership !

i'm not sure what the parameters of joing the gpc, and voting, say, for dmitri, but the numbers required to sweep him in, and back him once elected, might be interestingly low.

elizabeth may signed up a whole bunch of new members, overpowered the old gaurd of the times, got elected leader, became the new old gaurd.

time's ripe, the "left" has an opportunity here.

Sun, 2020-09-13 23:13

(Reply to #26) #27

NDPP

[quote=eastnoireast]

the gpc beaurocracy is much easier to storm from the left - there's just less of it, for one thing.

and, there's a demonstratively good candidates running for leadership !

i'm not sure what the parameters of joing the gpc, and voting, say, for dmitri, but the numbers required to sweep him in, and back him once elected, might be interestingly low.

time's ripe, the "left" has an opportunity here.

[quote=NDPP]

I agree. That's how grassroots UK lifted Corbyn up and into power. (Alas he pissed it all away trying to make nice to Blairites, Zios and EU neoliberals.) A massive sign up who vote for DL's Green Party leadership could be the shortest and easiest way to a new and genuinely progressive Canadian party to meet the critical historic changes the time requires of us.

Mon, 2020-09-14 04:29

#28

Left Turn

Misfit wrote:
So, let West win, and bring Lascaris and Haddad and a few other picks over to the NDP and work on our constitution instead. I would like to see Dimitri as the next leader of the newly revamped NDP.

While I'd be very happy to have Dmitri Lascaris as NDP leader, I think the NDP bureaucracy would be so against him that they would block him from running. Note that Dmitri Lascaris has made far more strident pro-Palestinian comments during this leadership race than the comments that got Paul Manly turfed as an NDP candidate.

Like it or not, the Greens are going to pick a new leader, and that leader is going to have a voice on the national stage. I would prefer that person to be someone like Lascaris, who has views more similar to my own; rather than someone like West, whose views I oppose.

eastnoireast wrote:

elizabeth may signed up a whole bunch of new members, overpowered the old gaurd of the times, got elected leader, became the new old gaurd.

time's ripe, the "left" has an opportunity here.

Correction. The left "had" an opportunity. Deadline to join the Green Party to vote in the leadership contest was September 3. I joined on that day. Hopefully I will get to vote.

I saw quite a few leftists on Facebook and Twitter encouraging people to join the Green Party to vote for Dmitri Lascaris (plus a couple supporting Meryam Haddad). The number of people I saw promoting a vote for Dmitri Lascaris seemed to increase in the run up to September 3. We'll see on October 3 how much of an impact this has.

By all accounts Annamie Paul is the front runner. She seems like she appeals to the sort of people who like Elizabeth May. I reckon she'd be about as good as useless as leader, given how vague she seems to be in terms of her policy positions.

Mon, 2020-09-14 15:06

#29

Misfit

Somebody on a an NDP Facebook discussion group referred to Annime Paul as being non-specific with her answers and representing the more right wing interests of the party in the debate and was told by another poster that those remarks were racist and that people are critical of her because she is black. I'm just saying this for you to be careful.

The original poster pointed out that she was commenting in an NDP group and not a Green Party group. It didn't matter. There is a perception by some that people are supportive of Dimitri because he is white. Referring to Annamie Paul as being useless might not help with this perception.

Mon, 2020-09-14 15:11

(Reply to #29) #30

Ken Burch

Left Turn wrote:

Misfit wrote:
So, let West win, and bring Lascaris and Haddad and a few other picks over to the NDP and work on our constitution instead. I would like to see Dimitri as the next leader of the newly revamped NDP.

While I'd be very happy to have Dmitri Lascaris as NDP leader, I think the NDP bureaucracy would be so against him that they would block him from running. Note that Dmitri Lascaris has made far more strident pro-Palestinian comments during this leadership race than the comments that got Paul Manly turfed as an NDP candidate.

Like it or not, the Greens are going to pick a new leader, and that leader is going to have a voice on the national stage. I would prefer that person to be someone like Lascaris, who has views more similar to my own; rather than someone like West, whose views I oppose.

eastnoireast wrote:

elizabeth may signed up a whole bunch of new members, overpowered the old gaurd of the times, got elected leader, became the new old gaurd.

time's ripe, the "left" has an opportunity here.

Correction. The left "had" an opportunity. Deadline to join the Green Party to vote in the leadership contest was September 3. I joined on that day. Hopefully I will get to vote.

I saw quite a few leftists on Facebook and Twitter encouraging people to join the Green Party to vote for Dmitri Lascaris (plus a couple supporting Meryam Haddad). The number of people I saw promoting a vote for Dmitri Lascaris seemed to increase in the run up to September 3. We'll see on October 3 how much of an impact this has.

By all accounts Annamie Paul is the front runner. She seems like she appeals to the sort of people who like Elizabeth May. I reckon she'd be about as good as useless as leader, given how vague she seems to be in terms of her policy positions.

Well, Lascaris is on the ballot, so they couldn't actually bar him from running...but the people who would have barred him if they could will be the ones who announce who "won".

The "stay the course" argument is even MORE bizarre when it comes from GPC insiders- the ones who are pushing for Paul because even they realized that West, the candidate they would obviously have preferred, comes across as too arrogant and dismissive to ever be accepted as leader by the GPC rank-and-file- than it is from the NDP insiders who insisted that Mulcair simply HAD to be replaced by Singh.

The NDP insiders could at least argue that a "stay the course" approach would be what was most likely to hold their traditional 15%-19% of the vote and their typical 20 to 30 seats.

The GPC stayed the course throughout Harris and never won a seat. It stayed the course under May and, for most of era managed only to win a seat for May herself and then break through to a grand total of three in May's swan song.

What, exactly, do the party insiders think they're preserving by fighting like hell to prevent any change?

Mon, 2020-09-14 20:33

(Reply to #30) #31

kropotkin1951

Michael Moriarity wrote:

I completely agree with misfit on this one. Thumbs down on the Canada Party. The Eco-Socialist Party perhaps, ESP for short.

I belong to a party with that name but support my federal NDP MP because he is the real deal when it comes to fighting for his community and our shared values. The BC Eco-Socialists will be getting my vote not either the BC NDP or the BC Greens. If Horgan cancelled Site G and Coastal gas I might reconsider but the party has been captured by the oil and gas industry since the days of Premier Dan Miller. It was when Miller was Minister of Energy that BC got into the gas industry with major incentives for drilling.

After winning re-election in 1996, he continued in his role as deputy premier under Clark until 1999, and variously served as Minister of Municipal Affairs (June 1996–January 1997), Minister of Employment and Investment (January 1997–February 1998) and Minister of Energy and Mines and Minister Responsible for Northern Development (1998–2000).[3][4][5]

An uncontroversial and moderate politician, Miller was elected interim leader of the BC NDP by an emergency meeting of the provincial caucus following the sudden resignation of Premier Clark on August 21, 1999.[6] He was sworn in as premier on August 25, and continued in his roles of Minister of Energy and Mines and Minister Responsible for Northern Development.[7] During his brief premiership, Miller's chief of staff was John Horgan, who would become premier in 2017. He was replaced as premier when Ujjal Dosanjh became party leader in February 2000,[3] and he did not run for re-election in the 2001 election.

Tue, 2020-09-15 08:00

#32

Left Turn

[comment removed]

Tue, 2020-09-15 08:22

#33

Left Turn

Misfit wrote:
There is a perception by some that people are supportive of Dimitri because he is white. Referring to Annamie Paul as being useless might not help with this perception.

I'm not a supporter of identity politics. I'm not going to support a candidate just because of their identity.

I'm supporting Dmitri because of his genuinely left policy positions, not because he is white. I'd support him even if he were black. I'm also putting Meryam Haddad and Amitta Kutner down as 2nd and 3rd place choices respectively, and they are both women of colour candidates.

The issue with Annamie Paul is that she has not staked out much in the way of policy positions on any issues, and what policy she staked out is clearly in support of continuing the status quo as it has been under Elizabeth May, which I do not support. Her race has nothing to do with it, and I only mentioned her at all because of her front-runner status.

Tue, 2020-09-15 14:53

(Reply to #33) #34

Ken Burch

Left Turn wrote:

Misfit wrote:
There is a perception by some that people are supportive of Dimitri because he is white. Referring to Annamie Paul as being useless might not help with this perception.

I'm not a supporter of identity politics. I'm not going to support a candidate just because of their identity.

I'm supporting Dmitri because of his genuinely left policy positions, not because he is white. I'd support him even if he were black. I'm also putting Meryam Haddad and Amitta Kutner down as 2nd and 3rd place choices respectively, and they are both women of colour candidates.

The issue with Annamie Paul is that she has not staked out much in the way of policy positions on any issues, and what policy she staked out is clearly in support of continuing the status quo as it has been under Elizabeth May, which I do not support. Her race has nothing to do with it, and I only mentioned her at all because of her front-runner status.

Paul is being pushed by the GPC insiders as the "it HAS to be her, and you just have our word for it because our way won us THREE WHOLE SEATS!" candidate.

Seems like another party tried that a few years ago. We all remember how well THAT worked.

Tue, 2020-09-15 15:28

#35

melovesproles

Yeah, in the Paikin debate, I though Paul came off a lot better. She was genuinely passionate about discrimination and police brutality. I was considering ranking her mid ballot but I wanted to know more about her foreign policy. Instead of using this debate to communicate what she stands for, she smugly refused to say anything except that every foreign policy issue is complicated and that she is well-qualified to navigate that complexity. That's not just disappointing because she failed to express any progressive principles; it's talking down to Canadians and terrible retail politics. The Greens will be in trouble if they pick another leader who uses the party's platform to project that they are smarter than most Canadians.

Wed, 2020-09-16 01:48

#36

Misfit

LT, I wasn't saying that your opinions were racist. I tried to pinpoint the source so that I could link it to show you but I think that the discussion has since been deleted. I spent the better part of the day trying to track it down.

The person who claimed that criticism of Annamie Paul of being non-specific was racist said that Paul is just as specific and detailed in presenting arguments as Dimitri is. What I was expressing is that the perception of racist bias against Paul already exists.

I too was disappointed that she was non-specific about pretty much everything on the international debate. I also was very impressed with Demitri on everything he talked about.

I was just warning you and everyone else that some perceive these criticisms of Annamie Paul as being racist.

Demitri may be the most articulate person who speaks on point with what we all hope for in a leader. However I cannot stress enough that the Green Party of Canada is a centre right party that attracts mainly centre and right wing candidates. Haddad, Lascsris, and Kutner may be progressives but the base of the NDP has always been social democratic in focus. I still think it is much easier and wiser to force the NDP back to the left and re-adopt their old traditional positions than it is to change the Green Party of Canada into something that it really doesn't want to be.

I don't want Annamie Paul to win. I did not appreciate her redefining what the NDP is and has historically stood for. Hundreds of thousands of very high quality human rights activists and community support workers have called the NDP their home. I don't appreciate her erasing and trivializing the hard work and dedication that these people have made to improve the lives of all Canadians everywhere.

If or when I find that link I will post it. I should have marked it down when I saw it.

Your grass roots base for the NDP are social democrats. I cannot say the same thing for the Green Party.