You could have just ended by saying that “he got the boot because of the election disappointment”. The rest of it is rather spurious speculation and needless invective. The thing about the Leap Manifesto is that it’s not significantly different from the Liberals’ own position on climate change and serves only to distinguish all federal parties from the Conservatives, whose position under Harper was pretty much climate denialism and AFAIK they have yet to clarify anything different. What the NDP needs to be careful of is not making environmentalism either a singular distinguishing issue or an extremist one.
I haven’t read the whole thing, but I have to say that the Leap Manifesto seems a bit out there to me. I wonder how Canada would pay for such a thing or implement some of the things it’s calling for, especially after they gut their plans for further exploitation of oil and gas as this seems to be calling for. Though if, as you say, the Liberal party is pushing for the same things I guess we shall find out, no?
The Liberal party isn’t necessarily for exactly the same thing – the thing about this “manifesto” is that the devil is in the details of how it translates to actual policy. The parallel with Liberal policy is that the present Liberal government takes mitigation of climate change seriously and that will inform policies on things like future pipelines, as well as considerations of other environmental effects of building and operating such pipelines. Whereas the manifesto (which I admit I haven’t read either, just the news reports about it) seems to say “no new pipelines” as a blanket principle. The NDP needs to be careful not to marginalize themselves. (For example if projections show a certain amount of continuing oil consumption in eastern Canada for the lifespan of a pipeline, then a west-to-east pipeline might make a lot more sense than buying the same oil from the Middle East.)
Well FWIW the Alberta NDP is pissed. They’ve been trying to play nice with the oil and gas industry and all of a sudden the federal party comes along and says they’re going to shut the whole industry down. Oilpatch workers who are losing their livelihoods don’t care if the initials NDP refer to the federal or provincial party, they only care that they aren’t going to have jobs. Anything branded NDP is toxic to Albertans now and damage control will only go so far.
Getting out of the fossil fuel game is a great ideal to aspire to but there’s a lot of money involved in it and no one becomes more popular by taking away the livelihood of a person, much less an entire province. Alberta has seen its first NDP government and now by virtue of this, its last.
Brossard (if I remember correctly) is a real beacon of light in the HoC. Agree with her or not, she really pulled it together and would make a good example for how MPs should represent and communicate with their constituents.
Regarding how the Leap Manifesto could be afforded, this document (PDF) does expand on some options. It’s not been fully costed out, but it points to the Alternative Federal Budget as a broader look at what could be done to raise money. In full disclosure, I haven’t looked through the full 2016 AFB so I couldn’t comment on how feasible some of the options would be to implement.
The following is what it says about pipelines:
It does seem pretty unequivocal about not building new pipelines, but you’re right in saying it really all depends on how it translates to policy. It’s really more of an aspirational document than one which would be followed to the T.
That being said, as this article suggests, it may be worth assessing how many of these new pipelines will be needed in the future, or whether these projects will be able to pay themselves off anyways.
But…but…Trump would theaten to sue Canada and promise to build a wall on the border and make us pay for it. Isn’t that a shitstorm?
It would certainly lower the estimation of the prime minister and the country he represents in the eyes of other world leaders. He’d be a black sheep at world gatherings and would lessen Canada’s influence. That’s no small thing. But enough of a hypothetical that will never happen. Thank goodness.
The point was that he expected the prime minister to be mean to Trump in the middle of an election campaign (I know, when isn’t the U.S. in the middle of a campaign?). It displayed a serious lack of appreciation for the finer points of the position. That isn’t why he was dumped but whatever the reason is, it was the latest in a series of bad judgments, and the party is better off without him at the helm. I feel sorry for him because his heart was obviously in the right place, but his mind wasn’t.
Yep. After the recent convention, I don’t think a majority of Albertans are looking kindly on the NDP, whether it’s the federal or provincial party.
I’ve recently seen an SUV driving around town with the following on its back window:
NATIONAL
DICKHEAD
PARTY
Looks like the honeymoon is over.
Based on media reports of what was going on in the corridors, I don’t think that’s accurate. Mulcair’s response to the Leap Manifesto seems to have had a major impact on the vote, because he managed to get both sides mad at him. He only gave lukewarm support to it, so the ones pressing for Leap didn’t want to support him; the fact that he gave any support to it created a voting bloc of over 400 Alberta delegates who voted against him.
The Leap is going to splt the party.
Back in the 70s, the NDP federally was opposed to any uranium mining. The NDP in Saskatchewan favoured it under Alan Blakeney. His point was simple: “I can’t be against a major economic development source.”
That’s going to play out in the same way here, only much more vigourously, because oil is Alberta’s heartbeat.
He announced he was supporting Mulcair in the review vote, and that he does not want the job.
It’s actually a really interesting comparison between idealists, who likely won’t ever see power, and pragmatists, who are actually trying to manage things in the real world.
A not so subtle opinion from Gil McGowan, Alberta Federation of Labour president:
“These downtown Toronto political dilettantes come to Alberta and track their garbage across our front lawn”. There was also an interesting interview with him on Power and Politics.
That’s not inconsistent with what I said. Had the election results not fallen so disappointingly short of expectations, there would not have been a leadership vote in the first place. That is the crux of the matter.
But it’s true that Mulcair should have shown some backbone and rejected this nonsense out of hand. Yes, we need to do more about climate change, but you don’t come to Alberta and cheerfully inform everyone that the central pillar of your new platform is to put them all out of business.
Agreed. Climate change policy is a political minefield and has to be approached with a strong sense of pragmatism and balanced with economic realities. The last thing the NDP needs is to become known as the party that understands neither. These Toronto politicians sound like the same David Miller style socialist naifs who created the conservative backlash that propelled Rob Ford into power.
He’s right. When you consider that labour has always been one of the NDP’s strongest allies, it shows what an incredible boneheaded move they made.
Alberta NDP members have already started talking about splitting from the federal party.
I really strongly disagree, and when they pick a new leader you’ll see why they’d have been much better off with Mulcair at the helm. I have a horrible feeling they’re going to pick an idiot, like Avi Lewis, rather than a good, sanity-talking candidate like Brian Topp because if they wanted that they wouldn’t have gotten rid of Mulcair in the first place. I’m not saying Mulcair doesn’t bear some responsibility for losing his job, because he does. If you want to lead a federal party you have to know how to guard your back. But he was stabbed in the back, make no mistake about it, by a faction who are planning to push the NDP further to the fringes.
Northern Piper is not kidding; the party is at risk of being badly fractured.
Look, I’m no global warming denier, but the Leap Manifesto is stupid. It’s not aspirational; it’s stupid. It’s 1200 words of second-year-political-science-major mumbo-jumbo that looks like it was formatted by the guy who does “The Oatmeal” and contains not a trace of common sense, economic reality, or good editing. The NDP’s most powerful actual politician, Rachel Motley, just used up most of her political capital coming up with a REAL carbon management plan and selling it to a skeptical public in part on the promise that it was a good compromise the environmental activist would accept, and her own party just said, in essence, “Fuck you, we’re seriously considering adopting something anyone who’s lived outside of a 15-minute bike ride from Toronto City Hall would think is comically idiotic.”
Tom Mulcair may not have done a great job in the 2015 election but he’s a genuine statesman and a politician of unimpeachable integrity. I actually think he’d make a good Prime Minister because he’s planted firmly in reality.
RickJay, honestly, I wasn’t aware of the party shenanigans going on. I saw Mulcair only through the lens of the mistakes he made in the election and then his incomprehensible comment about Trump, both of which, IMHO, disqualify him as leader. But if the party is being taken over by the drum circle crowd and picks a leader from their ranks, I agree that it will be worse off.
I haven’t read the Leap Manifesto but if what I hear about it is true, I’m sticking my fork in the federal NDP. Just the fact that Rachel Notley doesn’t like it is enough for me to reject it. It’s hard to believe the party could throw away the good favour she gained for it.
I guess there’s always a risk in non-centrist parties of being taken over by the more extremist elements, as the NDP almost was once before by the Waffle group. The Republican Party in the U.S. would be another example. For whatever reason, once in a while the inmates are put in charge of the asylum.
I agree. If this fairly represents where the NDP is going – and I’m not yet convinced that it is – they’re committing political suicide, or at least seriously marginalizing themselves to a degree that must be causing the other parties to crack open the celebratory champagne. They can still save themselves with a competent leader who will implement sane policy, but if this is what they really believe they may as well appoint ex-Toronto mayor and lunatic idealist David Miller as their new leader, the guy whose idea of political leadership is to write lyrical essays about pretty flowers and everyone being nice to each other.
It really irks me what this is doing to Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP. She led the party to a historic win, the people put their trust in her, and she’s been competently shepherding them through difficult times of low oil prices and growing awareness of climate change. Then these Toronto lunatics roar into town and announce that the NDP’s central strategy will be to drive everyone in Alberta out of business. The CBC described Notley as “spitting mad” and that’s probably an understatement.
The Leap factions seems fairly large. With a NDP leadership review pushed out from 1 year to 2 they’ll have lots of time to establish themselves. Unfortunately that means a NDP which wont come out against the manifesto and so Notley will have that albatross to deal with while considering a reelection in the 2018-19 timeframe.
Not being a Dipper, I don’t have a horse in their race, but Cullen is my MP. He’s well liked in the riding and has held it strongly since 2004. He has elements of Ruth Ellen Brossaeu story in the sense that one legend in town was that on election day in 2004 his only income was as the local house sitter, then the next day he was making six-figures as an MP.
That said, I find him to be a bit of an activist and I’m not sure if he’d really broaden the NDP’s appeal. Not sure what will though, really.
The NDP’s decision, too, has to be considered against this rather pertinent fact:
**The Liberals are going to win the next election. **
If that seems a bold prediction, it really isn’t, because in Canada, new governments always get re-elected. We’ve been doing this since 1867 and a new government has never been kicked out of office except in three special cases; the governments of Alexander Mackenzie, R.B. Bennet and Joe Clark, who in all cases briefly replaced the government of the guy who came back and promptly won the next election.* Stephen Harper is not planning a comeback. Canadians, at least federally, prefer not to switch governments much.
What the Dippers and Tories need to do is pick the person they think will win in 2023, not 2019.
- = The 1925 King-Byng Affair; I’m not counting the Meighen “Government” as a government for this purpose.
Considering that Trudeau’s favorable rating is still in the stratosphere and the other two major parties don’t even have leaders at the moment, that doesn’t seem like a particularly risky prediction!
I don’t see what that has to do with the NDP’s decision, though. Building political support is a perpetual ongoing process. Too bad that what they’ve done so far has been so boneheaded that they’ve lost a lot more than they’ve gained.