There’s an element of truth there but I think it misses the point. The mere mention of words like “Marxist” and “socialist” sounds to my ear like the kind of fear-mongering that Harper conservatives like to spread about the NDP. The most “socialist” thing the NDP has ever done is introduce Canadians to universal health care.
I doubt that you’ll find any Marxists, or even many “socialists”, among the ranks of the NDP, except as defined by conservatives who think a “socialist” is anyone who doesn’t believe that pure capitalism is the answer to all the problems of mankind. What does tend to happen when a previously marginal party wins an unexpected electoral windfall is the appearance of some small number of incompetents when the throwaway placeholders actually get elected, as happened in one or two cases when the NDP “orange wave” swept Quebec in the last election. But as the official opposition, the NDP can hardly be regarded as marginal any more.
It’s a truism that any ideologues are going to gravitate to the Conservatives or the NDP, because historically centrist Liberals aren’t appealing to ideologues. But I don’t think that’s nearly as important as the fact that the historically prominent parties are the ones that attract the opportunists – and that’s Conservatives and Liberals – and some of the dipshits that were recently ejected from Conservative candidacies is proof enough of that, not to mention the various corruption scandals that have afflicted both mainstream parties.
Whereas it’s always been my considered opinion that the NDP, historically offering far less political opportunism as a small party with limited electability, has attracted the most sincere and well-meaning candidates, not to mention some of the brightest: Bob Rae has become a respected elder statesman, Jack Layton an iconic figure, Tom Mulcair recently polled as the “most trustworthy and competent” of the three leaders, and the party’s founder Tommy Douglas is often judged “the greatest Canadian”. Even though they’re now a mainstream party, I think the historical culture of integrity still prevails.
And I really do like the Wizard of Oz characterizations mentioned by a previous poster: Harper has no heart (cf.- civil rights violations via omnibus bills, trashing the environment, Republican-style hardnosed law’n’ order measures), Trudeau has no brain (cf.- virtually anything that comes out of his mouth), and Mulcair has no courage. What does that last bit mean? I’d say it refers to Mulcair backing off the purist NDP social policies of old in favour of a more moderate centrist approach. And I’d ask: is that so bad?
Sure, and “Hidden agenda” is fear-mongering, too. Everyone fear-mongers about the other side. For every dumb hick in the Tory camp I’ll show you a doofus Marxist in the NDP camp. Neither is a threat to Canadian democracy. The NDP is not going to make us a Communist state the same way the Tories did not start shooting gay people.
Would you like to put actual money on that? Name your price.
I think there is certainly truth to this; an opportunist will attach themselves to a perceived winning team, and the Tories will naturally tend to attract a few right wingers while the Liberals will tend to attract celebrities and rich people with no particular political opinions at all. It’s the nature of where they are on the spectrum.
I just noticed something while watching some of the debate on TV the other night: both Harper and Trudeau have blue eyes while Mulcair has brown eyes. I can’t remember the last time a Canadian Prime Minister did not have blue eyes. Am I crazy? Is this some strange kind of coincidence, or have there been non-blue eyed Prime Ministers in Canada? For what it’s worth, I read that Wildred Laurier had hazel eyes.
It’s the NDP, man. They seem to have a really hard time getting candidates to run even in ridings they are going to win. That’s how you get sitting MP’s who are still in university. It happened that way in several Quebec ridings a few years ago.
They get them in, keep them voting with the party, and let them learn on the job. Very possibly some of them will turn out to be embarrassing doofs ten years from now.
That could well be true, but this person is 32 with two masters degrees, she’s done a lot of learning on the job as vice chair of the local school board, (she’s since quietly stepped down.) I’m leaning toward her just being a liar who thought it was easier to claim ignorance than to admit that her joke was in bad taste.
Threehundredeight (Motto: “Okay, so we’re thirty short”) now has it at
Conservative ~125 seats
Liberal ~112 seats
NDP ~99 seats
Interestingly the raage of possible seats is much smaller for the NDP; they see the NDP’s projection as being the likeliest to actually be close to that midpoint. This makes sense if one goes riding by riding, as there are a lot of tossups between the Tories and Grits.
That said I am skeptical of 308’s projections in a way I am not for, say, Nate Silver’s projections for U.S. elections, simply because polling in our system is way harder. Nobody has ever done a poll specific to my riding (Oakville) so the projection (that it’s a Lib-Con tossup) is just am assumption based on overall polling. It’s probably wrong, though; living here, I suspect the Conservatives are a strong favourite.
308 was very inaccurate in 2011, in ways that frankly are to be expected when you don’t have riding by riding polling; it predicted a musky result with everyone doing okay and parties reverting back to the mean, therefore underestimating Conservative and NDP support and wildly overstating how well the Liberals and Bloc would do.
I am not sure how they have adjusted their methodology since, but if you held a gun to my head I would guess it’s probably overstating Liberal support again.
In any event, though, for the Conservatives it’s 170 seats or bust, and right now by any rational analysis they are not getting it; they’ll fall short and we’ll have a government led by whichever of the other two parties gets the most seats, propped up by the bronze medal winner.
Actually, the Liberals have clearly stated that they will not support a Harper minority. And the NDP have said “not a snowball’s chance in hell” will they support a Harper minority.
So if there is a Harper minority, it will fall in the Throne speech. The GG will then be asked by the party with the 2nd most seats to give it a chance to form government (with the support of the 3rd place). His choice will be to accept this, or to call another election.
I suppose there is another choice; Trudeau has specifically said he would not support Harper in a minority situation. He chose his words carefully. No word on whether or not he’d support a different Conservative party leader…
I am rather amused to see that there will be TEN candidates running in Edmonton Strathcona; eight representing political parties and two independents. Is that a record? Anyone out there in Canuck-land in a riding with 10 or more candidates?
At the time the candidates were selected, nobody expected the NDP to wipe out the BQ. The iffy candidates were in ridings they were not expected to win, but they did. To say that they were expected to clean up all those ridings in Quebec at the time they were selected to run is not a factual statement.
Quebec looks interesting this election, as well. The NDP is losing support in the province, but all three national parties lead the BQ. Quebec is volatile, and could make or break the hopes of any of the four parties.
I miss the Rhinos–they got my vote a few times back in the 80s, just because they never took themselves seriously; and I was sick of how seriously people were taking politics. Kind of like how I feel now.
