Nathan Cullen proposes "coalition lite"
With Nathan Cullen contesting the leadership of the NDP, it's as fair a question to answer as for any other candidate:
What, precisely, does Cullen have to offer?
As it turns out, the answer is "very little". To date, Cullen's offering in the leadership campaign is "beat Harper", and not much else. To whit, Cullen is recommending that the NDP run "joint candidates" to defeat Conservative candidates.0
Is it coalition lite? Or merger lite?
It doesn't seem to matter to Cullen. To him, it's the prefect way to pander to a wider variety of left-wing voters.
"I believe now is the time to respond to the call from people of all walks of life, who hate that Stephen Harper can change our country for the worse with support of less than four in 10 voters," Cullen declared. "For me, the greater cause is that the wedge politics of the Stephen Harper government are killing us. ... We need to find a way to speak past the narrow political interests of parties from time to time."
A very real question must persist over whether or not those same people liked it when Jean Chretien was able to govern Canada with the support of less than four in ten voters. It also seems necessary to remember that it was that same Chretien government that slashed healthcare and education funding.
Yet the NDP -- whose bread-and-butter issue is healthcare -- never pulled out all the stops to team with their fellow opposition parties to put a stop to that in 1997. Very curious.
Non-ironies aside, this is an idea that only could have come from the NDP at a time when they're ahead of the Liberal Party, both in seat count and in popular support. In this sense, Cullen is very opportunistic with an idea he very clearly hasn't thought through.
For example, with whose caucus would a joint candidate sit? The Liberal Caucus? The Green Party Caucus? The NDP caucus? As an independent?
The only way an idea like this can be said to even remotely work would be within a formal coalition -- and Canadians have already shown what they think of that. Even if Cullen hasn't learned his lesson in this regard, his fellow leadership candidates seem to -- they've all given the idea their staunch disapproval.
This, along with the detail that joint candidates would require participation from another party. The Liberal Party is practically guaranteed to refuse.
Cullen will almost certainly remain undeterred.
"I have no problem going up against Stephen Harper one on one," Cullen declared. "This just makes it a slam dunk."
Not many Conservatives would worry much about a Stephen Harper/Nathan Cullen match-up in a federal election. Cullen's half-baked ideas are nothing to worry about.
Showing posts with label iNDPcision '11. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iNDPcision '11. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Brian Topp & the NDP: Not On Your Side
Topp-led NDP would do what's good for them, not what's good for Canada
Anyone who pays even passing attention to the NDP has noticed it: their penchant for divisive politics.
They delight in drawing sides among Canadians, then telliing as many as possible that the NDP is on their side, and that their political opponents are not.
Yet if you live in the provinces of BC, Alberta or Ontario, the NDP is unequivocally not on your side... or at least they won't be, if Brian Topp -- so far the only declared candidate for the NDP leadership -- gets his way.
Topp has already declared that the NDP will staunchly oppose any additional seats in Parliament for Alberta, BC or Ontario unless Quebec recieves a proportionate increase of its own. This despite the fact that Quebec is already disproportionately represented on a scale greater than anywhere else in the world.
Topp's justification for sticking the 61% of Canadians that are underrepresented in Parliament is rather bizarre: because Parliament recognized Quebec as a distinct society within Canada, it's entitled to be overrepresented.
“The national legislature … has recognized the province of Quebec as a nation within the country, a resolution that was supported by all parties, and this is an occasion where it’s time to think about what that resolution means,” Topp declared.
It isn't hard to figure out what that motion means. It doesn't require extensive reflection. It may mean that Quebec is distinct within Canada, but it doesn't mean that it's above the rest of Canada.
Sadly, many of the NDP's hardcore supporters will back Topp's opposition to equitable democracy in Canada even thought it's vastly democratic. They even manage to offer some supremely dumb reasons: some will even declare that in opposing the addition of more seats in Parliament, they're fighting in favour of small government (not realizing that there's a difference between Parliament and the government).
Some oppose the addition of these seats believing that too many of them -- particularly in Alberta -- will fall to the Tories. For these people, their motivation is crassly partisan.
In Brian Topp's case, he's merely shamelessly pandering to Quebec at the expense of the rest of Canada. After all, it wasn't BC, Alberta or Ontario that delivered a mass of new seats to the NDP in the last election. It was Quebec.
In pandering to Quebec, the NDP is only doing what's good for itself. The NDP's merely doing what the NDP does best: putting itself first, and Canada second.
Anyone who pays even passing attention to the NDP has noticed it: their penchant for divisive politics.
They delight in drawing sides among Canadians, then telliing as many as possible that the NDP is on their side, and that their political opponents are not.
Yet if you live in the provinces of BC, Alberta or Ontario, the NDP is unequivocally not on your side... or at least they won't be, if Brian Topp -- so far the only declared candidate for the NDP leadership -- gets his way.
Topp has already declared that the NDP will staunchly oppose any additional seats in Parliament for Alberta, BC or Ontario unless Quebec recieves a proportionate increase of its own. This despite the fact that Quebec is already disproportionately represented on a scale greater than anywhere else in the world.
Topp's justification for sticking the 61% of Canadians that are underrepresented in Parliament is rather bizarre: because Parliament recognized Quebec as a distinct society within Canada, it's entitled to be overrepresented.
“The national legislature … has recognized the province of Quebec as a nation within the country, a resolution that was supported by all parties, and this is an occasion where it’s time to think about what that resolution means,” Topp declared.
It isn't hard to figure out what that motion means. It doesn't require extensive reflection. It may mean that Quebec is distinct within Canada, but it doesn't mean that it's above the rest of Canada.
Sadly, many of the NDP's hardcore supporters will back Topp's opposition to equitable democracy in Canada even thought it's vastly democratic. They even manage to offer some supremely dumb reasons: some will even declare that in opposing the addition of more seats in Parliament, they're fighting in favour of small government (not realizing that there's a difference between Parliament and the government).
Some oppose the addition of these seats believing that too many of them -- particularly in Alberta -- will fall to the Tories. For these people, their motivation is crassly partisan.
In Brian Topp's case, he's merely shamelessly pandering to Quebec at the expense of the rest of Canada. After all, it wasn't BC, Alberta or Ontario that delivered a mass of new seats to the NDP in the last election. It was Quebec.
In pandering to Quebec, the NDP is only doing what's good for itself. The NDP's merely doing what the NDP does best: putting itself first, and Canada second.
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