Too many NDP candidates?

I saw this idea thrown around on a CBC panel and it is common sentiment displayed by the numourous conbot trolls on CBC comment threads.

But I don't see it.

One arguement is that it didn't work very well for the Liberals. But then again- I don't think much would have worked for the Liberals at that points and I think their problems extended well beyond having 8 leadership candidates.

But I was reviewing the 2006 Liberal candidates and fully six of then were (or became) Toronto-area MPs (Hall-Findlay, Volpe, Rae, Ignatieff, Dryden, and Kennedy). The only other two was a Montreal academic (Dion) and Brison the NS MP who was the only rural MP.

My point is that this was part of the Liberal Party's problem- they were far too focused on getting support from urban/acdemic/business elite in Toronto rather then trying to build support across Canada.

The eight (soon to be nine with Ashton) NDP candidates are very representative of the geographic and social diversity across this country.

There is good representation of rural Canada among the leadership candidates:
Saganash- North Quebec
Cullen- Northwestern BC
Ashton (probably)- Northern Manitoba
Singh- Nova Scotia
Chisholm- MP of a NS urban riding with rural portions.

There is also strong urban representation from the media preceived frontrunners:
Topp- Toronto (Peggy Nash is his MP)
Nash- Toronto
Muclair- Montreal
Dewar- Ottawa

Vancouver is left out but not for the lack of a strong candidate in Peter Julian.

The other quirk of the race is the language skills of the candidates- other then the unilingual Chisholm or perhaps Dewar, the contenders are quite gifted in that department.

There are seven fleuently biliinugal candidates.

Two trilinguals: Peggy Nash (English, French, Spanish), and Nathan Cullen (English French, Spanish).

Two quadlinguals: Romeo Saganash (English, French, Spanish, Cree), and Niki Ashton (English, French, Spanish, Greek- though reportedly she is working on her Cree).

That must be some sort of record in Canada.

Lorne Gunter- Partisan Hack

Not that this is news to anyone.

In the post-Jack Layton era, why is anyone surprised that the NDP is reverting
to form, drifting away from Layton’s centrist stratagems and back to its old
faculty-club radicalism? Already the contenders for the party leadership include
one candidate who has pledged to run on a high-tax platform, another who is
opposed to the biggest economic project in the country’s near future and a third
who is essentially acting as a surrogate for the Bloc Quebecois.

Apparently Layton is a centrist now that he's dead- not that being a centrist means that you are in Gunter's good books.

Brian Topp is a high-tax candidate now because he realizes decreasing state revenue streams is suicidal in today's economy. If someone hadn't reduced GST for short term political gain then the current federal deficit would be far less.

Thomas Mulcair, an anglophone and former English-rights lawyer, is now a scary separatist because he supports all of Jack Layton Quebec politics but he does so from Montreal with a French surname (spooky). It would be more respectable to Gunter's sensibilities if his name was Thomas Jones from Toronto.

But what struck me most was Gunter's complete and utter lack of understanding when it came to Peggy Nash and her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline:

If nothing else, this latter stance shows just how far the NDP has moved
from its old role as a voice of private-sector unions to its new iteration
as a trumpet for ivory-tower, environmental and public-sector activists. Unions
for the Pipefitters, Operating Engineers, Laborers and
Teamsters all want Keystone to go ahead. They understand that building
a continent-long pipeline would create tens of thousands of well-paying jobs for
tradepersons, skilled workers, labourers and truckers. But among the new caste
of democratic socialists, environmentalism trumps union-job creation. Theory
over substance. You might think a former CAW contract negotiator might see
through that, but apparently not.

Gunter is very hazy on unions and seems unaware that international borders heavily influence union policies. He points to union support from four major US-based unions who argue for the huge job creation potential IN THE USA. Sure Conservatives go to bat for American corporations all the time but except New Democrats to prioritize Canadian unions.

Nash is probably more concerned about the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union OF CANADA(CEP) or the ALBERTA Federation of Labour. The fact of the matter is that the pipeline will export tens of thousand of Canadian jobs and tie our bitumen market to a declining empire with a flat demand for crude.

Peggy Nash is simply agreeing with former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed and now she is a crazy leftist?

Andrew Nikiforuk has covered this in excellent detail.

Personally, Nash is the most appealing and as a bonus she favours Alberta's oil workers over American corporations. Gunter and the beloved National Putz doesn't like that but I don't think she's counting on their vote.

About time...

Of course experts have been saying this for forty years.

BC is probably one of the provinces which is most liberal on drug policy (i.e. Insite) so I could see this pro-legalization stance taken up across the political landscape. But for any actual change, it is the federal government's jurisdiction so it will have to wait until 2015.

Personally, since support for marijuana distribution is so widespread, I believe that the NDP should make a larger emphasis on this issue. The vast majority of conservatives (esp. working class ones) that I know, realized that marijuana prohibition makes little sense.

Giving it another shot

I figure it's time to get back the saddle in terms of blogging. There is going to be lots to talk about from NDP perspective for the next little while.

I expect to focus on forestry/forest industry and BC/Canadian Politics this time around. There appears to be a lack of forestry workers voices on the blogosphere. That's probably because we work 50-80 hours a week whenever we aren't laid off on pogee. But I'll give it a shot.