2012 NDP leadership convention

[MaxQue]

Excellent news. Central Canada means I will probably be able to go (although having a convention in Vancouver didn't stop me this year). Maybe I will be able to meet Holmes!

Who decides who goes to the Conventions?

Technically the ridings, but I'm sure you could just show up at the convention and they'll randomly assign you a riding to represent.

Well, I don't have time to go there anyways. I'll focus on the campus association.

If it's in Montreal, you have no excuse!

I have the excuse than Outremont riding will be full of delegates already. And if all the members of Montreal goes, that will be a mess.

Even if I can pretend than I'm Abitibian and not from Montreal.

Who cares. Show up to the convention, and request to participate. You may represent Wild Rose or Cardigan or Selkirk-Interlake or Parry Sound-Muskoka. It doesn't matter...

Seems illogical, but it worked like that last time. Well, I don't see why I should speculate on a event which may be far away from Montreal in months.

[MaxQue]

It seems like Canadians use area codes to identify places much more than Americans do.

It is very Canadian, yes, even if what Earl is false. I would think about it if it was in 450, too.
514 and 450 are used in Québec speech. 514 is Montreal, 450 is the suburbs and the exurbs.

There is also 418 (Quebec City and Eastern Quebec) and 819 (the rest. Ugly mess covering Western Quebec, Outaouais, Mauricie, Bois-Francs and Eastern Townships.)

[MaxQue]

Nycole Turmel explained than the reason for no labour vote is than 2006 Convention decided to wrote "One Member, One Vote" in the Constitution, which meant than the will of members was no labour vote in leadership races.

To continue on that, the public servants union did a press release where they explained than this was a false debate, as unions backed the 2006 modification and than they didn't wanted to have role in votes by another way than through their members.

They are also not happy than than Mulcair said than unions were as important than ecological groups in the NDP. They saw in what Topp proposed (keeping union vote) "an obvious move to court union vote".

[MaxQue]

Rules should be annouced at 2:30PM.

According to the twitter account of the Radio-Canada political affairs TV program called "Les Coulisses du Pouvoir", co-hosted by Radio-Canada journalist which is in charge of Parliament Hill, Charlie Angus won't run.

[MaxQue]

Toronto, on March 24.

Next policy convention will be in 2013, in Quebec province, through, from what I understood.

15 000$ entry fee, spending limit of 500 000$.

The race will open to members before some day in February I can't remember.

[MaxQue]

Toronto, on March 24.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

ooh that's the weekend of the Toronto Comic-Con though. I could just go Sunday but all the good stuff happens on Saturday. Hmm! I don't know what to do.

Worse than Sophie's Choice!!
I'm very excited that i should be able to attend now that i know its in TO! but i wonder why TO? over say Montreal or even ottawa?

Well, it was Jack Layton's city and it is well-linked to the rest of Canada
And what means "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"?

[MaxQue]

I don't think a "labour" reference is an "OMG moment"--look, she's NDP, she is what she is.  "Labour" just isn't that much of a critical dirty word in Canadian terms.  "Socialist" might be.  But not "labour".

Indeed. People disliking associations with labour weren't likely to vote for NDP anyways.

[MaxQue]

Wanting to vote for a particular candidate for party leader is, perhaps, not the greatest reason to join a political party.

That's the main reason anyone joins parties in Canada (that and nomination contests)

It's interesting how different our two political cultures are. Over here, signing up members for this purpose would be called branch stacking and is heavily frowned-upon (and often criticised in the media and by people whose opponents have signed up many new members).

To give you an idea, there was 72,000 members in PQ in 2004, 155,000 in 2005 and 74,000 in 2006. (source:quebecpolitique.com). There was a leadership race in 2005.

[MaxQue]

Breaking News: Topp is an A$$hole. According to Power & Politics. Live.

Can I ask why?

[MaxQue]

I might have been wrong... Romeo Saganash has a speech booked in Val d'Or on Friday (according to the twitterverse)

Well, Val-d'Or is the main city of his riding.
It is my hometown, too.

[MaxQue]

On frontrunners: When has an NDP race ever been ugly and personal?

Never, and I hope it will stay like that, but, ambitions will be harsher since stakes are higher.

[MaxQue]

According to "L'Actualité", Saganash won't run and he will endorse Topp.

Ugh.

[MaxQue]

Why should Saganash run? You think a man who rose to prominence in Indian tribal politics is going to win you those Saskatchewan seats?

The problem is he endorsing Topp.

[MaxQue]

Per P&P, Mulcair apparently has strong support in Sasketchewan and the Atlantic provinces. Topp still the frontrunner IMO.

Also: Is there any chance Topp might run in TO-Danforth when the by-election is called?

It would be hard to run in a by-election and a leadership race at the same time.

[MaxQue]

Saganash is RUNNING!

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Quebec+Romeo+Saganash+running+leader+post/5413799/story.html

Thank god, its fantastic news that we have another candidate and someone as new and exciting to people... is this not the first time a First Nations person has run for leader of any party?

It will be hard for me to not support the local guy.

EDIT: I add than this should help to quickly build membership in my area. First time than someone from Abitibi runs in a leadership race (on federal and provincial levels) since the 70's (Social Credit).

[MaxQue]

I think that the number of NDP members in Quebec is actually somewhat higher than 1,650. That number was from a couple of months ago and I've heard that quite a few memberships came in over the summer. It may be closer to 3,000 by now.

Riding associations are preparing membership drives, from what I know.
Not than it is surprising.

[MaxQue]

Personally, I feel that both Leslie and Ashton would be shocked that you're discussing them in such horny-nerdy-boy terms.

From what I know, women are used to guys talking about them in that way.

I suppose then they both have a very old guy which is losing his sanity and is saying anything passing by his head without control, as a constituent, too.

[MaxQue]

Maybe I was too quick to say Mulcair wouldn't fall victim to Brison Syndrome. Not ideologically but in every other sense. We respect you, we want you where you are, we like your ideas... but we'll never elect you leader.

To be fair the Quebec Liberals are really a federalist party so I don't think you can call someone a turncoat for supporting it.  After all it has some Conservatives too.  Charest was a former PC leader and Lawrence Cannon was also a Quebec Liberal.  With no provincial NDP, what party was Mulcair suppose to support anyways?

I think his weakness is has a hot temper and I don't find him as likeable as Jack Layton.  Paul Dewar seems like a decent choice and being from Ottawa, what better to place to connect with both English Canada and Quebec when you consider he is bilingual and his riding overlooks the Ottawa River.  I don't know a lot about Nathan Cullen, but he seems like a principled decent guy.  I wonder if he will get any flack over his vote on the gun registry which he opposes.  Mind you his riding is quite rural and the population is overwhelmingly against it there.  I should add although not an NDP supporter myself, I think their policy of allowing a free vote on the gun registry is the most sensible as the divide seems more of a rural vs. urban rather than left vs. right.  The one notable exception is Quebec where the registry is popular throughout the province.

Provincial Liberal is no problem. Henri-François Gautrin, which was formely the leader of NDP-Québec is a Liberal MNA since years (Verdun).

And the gun registry ISN'T popular throughout the province. Rural areas (Abitibi, Beauce, etc...) don't like it.

[MaxQue]

Yeah, Dewar's French is basically non-existent. For leadership purposes, Harper's is the bare minimum.

  What is Harper's French like anyways, it sounds fine to me, but consideirng my French is really bad (Je Parle en peu de Francais, mais moi Francais est tres mauvais) I cannot tell whether he speaks horrible French or speaks it fluently.  I will admit that this probably the biggest disadvantage for anybody from the West as due to lack of exposure French is not widely spoken in the West.  Heck even here in Toronto which is only 5 hours from Montreal, not many speak French.

Well, Peter Julian is bilingual, I heard.

[MaxQue]

Dunno- they have unilingual Anglos in Francophone ridings and vice-versa. My MP is one of the latter.

Which riding are you in for curiousity.  Most of the unilingual Anglos I suspect were the paper candidates who won unexpectedly such as Ruth Ellen Brosseau.  I am in Trinity-Spadina myself.

From what I understand and remember, he is in the other case. Anglo ridings with an unilingual Francophone MP.

[MaxQue]

Now waiting on Nash and Ashton.

Mulcair: More private than public, but he's too much of a culture shock for the NDP regardless. Put it this way, he's a hell of a lot more civil than Coderre.

Well, we are not gonna use Coderre for comparisons, right?
He is a bit extreme.

[MaxQue]

I'm surprised.

Mulcair got the support of people outside Quebec.

The new leader of NDP-New Brunswick and Lorne Nystrom, which ran in 2003.

In other news, I just discovered than Saganash was endorsed last month by the other MP for Abitibi (Abitibi-Témiscamingue).

[MaxQue]

He has 33 MP's. If I can find out which ones I'll map it.

33 people out of over 80,000 members.

33 persons which have a weight in their riding associations (to be created for some, true).

[MaxQue]

No, they don't matter in their ridings.

They matter in the media.

Who are Mulcair's people again? :}

The leader of the NBNDP and Lorne Nystrom.

[MaxQue]

Nystrom backing a Quebecer is interesting from a historical perspective, to say the least.

Care to say more?
I don't really know Nystrom, I'm too young and the coverage of NDP in Quebec before Layton was inexistant.