NDP Leadership Convention 2017

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Its Official... Pat Stogran, Veteran's Ombudsman (2007-2010) and retired Colonel of the Canadian Forces Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry is in the NDP leadership race.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/video?clipId=1082401

Very interesting; a non-MP, Non-Leap supporter, Pragmatic "don't-call-me-socialist-social democrat-like" already said the previous platform was too expensive and un-realistic... so ok, very pro-PR. Good addition though to the field. Really hope Jagmeet enters soon...

Did Dominic Cardy put Stogran up to this?  

More seriously, I hope Stogran campaigns on separating the provincial NDP parties from the federal party.  The issues are quite different at the two levels and supporting the NDP at one level does not necessarily lead to supporting them at the other level.

I know this is more of an issue for the provincial parties, especially those in provinces where  provincial versions of the Federal Liberal party aren't strong, but it would also help to have this advocated at the federal level.

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Looks like there is another Candidate that has stepped in; Ibrahim Bruno El-Khoury

http://ipolitics.ca/2017/04/06/fifth-candidate-registers-to-enter-ndp-leadership-race-to-replace-mulcair/ - paywall article.

Found a blog as well - http://ibelkhoury.blogspot.com/2015/08/publications.html

Yes!  If he gets the money and the signatures to run this will be the leadership race where a (virtually) complete unknown ran.

1975: Douglas Campbell (challenged David Lewis for the leadership in 1972 or 1973.)
1989: Roger Lagasse
1995: Hershel Hardin (ran for the NDP federally in Delta in 1993 - and in 1997) Did not make the ballot after failing to get the threshold vote in the 'primaries'
2003: Bev Meslo (a 'prominent' member of the NDP 'Socialist Caucus')
2012:Martin Singh - only one of these fringe candidates who did not come in last on the first ballot.

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From 'your daily NDP leadership headlines'
http://us15.campaign-archive2.com/?u=def33e50a178af656ca30e7f2&id=19e8c5ef29

(I subscribe via twitter)

Ex-union leader Sid Ryan not entering NDP race, endorses Niki Ashton
By iPolitics, with subscription on Apr 28, 2017 07:41 am
https://ipolitics.ca/2017/04/27/ex-union-leader-sid-ryan-not-entering-ndp-race-endorses-niki-ashton/

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Can't say that I'm surprised.  Pat Stogran withdraws from leadership race.

Stogran pulls out of NDP leadership race, blaming party insiders
http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2017/06/03/stogran-pulls-out-of-ndp-leadership-race-blaming-party-insiders/#.WTMRl2jyuM9

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Hmm. If Julian dropped out, who would he endorse, if anyone?

I hope he's not dropping out.  There was that journalist from the Toronto Star who was previously quoted in this thread as writing something like "the only two candidates of importance are Charlie Angus and Jagmeet Singh."  (Both of whom happen to be from Ontario.)  I'd hate for a damned Toronto-centric journalist to actually be proven correct.  (Just as I'd hate for a Vancouver-centric journalist to be proven correct.)

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junk poll!

How is this poll conducted?  Does Mainstreet have access to the membership lists?  Because otherwise, if you assume there are 100,000 members of the NDP with say 17.5 million Canadian households, they'd have to call 175 households (assuming a 100% response rate) to find a single NDP member.

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I don't have access to the full article but at the start they explain their method:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Thanks!

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Singh has outraised his competitors combined.

Despite what that poll said, clearly this isn't over until Jagmeet Singhs.  (Sorry)

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For anybody wondering, Ibrahim Bruno El Khoury failed to submit the necessary number of signatures before the deadline.  This same fate befell Walrus Magazine co-founder and editor David Berlin.

"For federal New Democrats, however, July 3 was also the deadline to join the race to replace Tom Mulcair, which means that, barring one or more drop-offs between now and September 17, there will be four names on the ballot presented for the consideration of card-carrying members: Charlie Angus, Niki Ashton, Guy Caron, and Jagmeet Singh.

(Two 11th-hour hopefuls, Montreal consultant Ibrahim Bruno El-Khoury and Walrus magazine co-founder David Berlin, filed their initial paperwork with Elections Canada but failed to collect the requisite signatures to finalize their nominations in time to make the cut. Veteran BC MP Peter Julian announced three days after the deadline that he would drop out of the race.)"

http://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/the-next-ontario/the-federal-ndp-leadership-is-up-for-grabs-and-no-one-seems-to-care--but-that-could-soon-change

So, you're stuck with Guy Caron, Niki Ashton, Charlie Angus or Jagmeet Singh.  Personally, I heartily endorse Guy Caron.

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Helene Laverdiere endorses Jagmeet Singh.
http://nationalpost.com/g00/news/politics/ndp-leadership-hopeful-jagmeet-singh-to-receive-first-quebec-caucus-endorsement/wcm/7f154404-f6d6-452d-b2b5-00a2436e2053?i10c.referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FgLqej2e8qK

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It Looks like Jagmeet has another MP endorsement now, BC's Jenny Kwan, I can't see if this is official or not though? I only have the link from Jagmeet's team so...

http://www.jagmeetsingh.ca/join_jenny

National Post quoted it, seems official.

It was reported in the B.C media that she mentioned her endorsement as part of her speech on immigration.

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Those numbers tell a lot, and frankly align with what I was sensing.  Angus is not the Bernie candidate.  He is the candidate of old (probably white) folks.  Jagmeet is the candidate of younger, millennial, voters.  Look at that 18-34 number for Singh, in the 60s.  That's approaching Bernie levels among young voters.  

I'm not 100% sure that Charlie Angus' Brampton comment was 'dog whistle politics' but having seen the Vancouver debate I think he clearly lacks subtlety in his approach.  His comments about "my friend Guy has good ideas" were such an obvious attempt at second ballot support as to be laughable. Also, while his comment about 'the only time the NDP contacts you is when engaging in fundraising' is hard to dispute his 'we need to democratize the party' was so vague as to be meaningless.

I would have expected better from an artist and writer.

I also didn't hear from him much of his vaunted 'working person's economics' and politics.

I thought the only time he was really animated was when indigenous issues were brought up and I think he's done some excellent work on fighting for indigenous and other isolated northern communities.

To be totally honest, I'm not really sure why he's running.

These are his planks on party democratization:
http://www.charlieangusndp.ca/party_renewal

Not much there that isn't done already I don't think.

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If/when Jagmeet Singh wins, does anybody think there will be pressure on him to run in Outremont if Thomas Mulcair steps down?

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Crossposting Nantel on losing faith in the party and federalism, saying he might leave and sit as an indie. Hébert says he might run for the PQ next year and Ouellet for his seat.

Some of Angus' colleagues aren't yuge fans of his management style as caucus chair.

Re: Angus.  It wasn't stated in the article, but does anybody agree with me that he seems to have a both a barely concealed angry side and a barely concealed nasty side to him?

He strikes me as the kind of calm and smiling person who is one step away from just exploding.

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Bloc leader Martine Ouellet suggests Jagmeet Singh is too religious for Quebec

Kind of weird to see Singh attacked like Stockwell Day. Stay classy Bloc.

It's very interesting to see the Bloc attack Singh over his religion because he wears a turban, but you don't hear a peep from the about Andrew Scheer's religion even though Scheer is an ultra religious catholic who opposes gay rights and is anti-abortion...but I guess as long as Scheer doesn't put anything in his head, no one cares about his religion

Bingo! The likes of Scheer and Trost are huge zealots, constantly throwing their religion in people faces demanding puritan christian policies, but don't wear anything overtly religious.
Singh and lets extend this to current cabinet ministers Navdeep Bains and Harjit Sajjan (both Sikh) have not ever tried to use their Sikh believes to oppress or even forced their beliefs on others (from my knowledge but THAT would have made news), BUT hey they look different so bring the hate on.

I could certainly be wrong, but my guess is actually that the Quebec separatists didn't pay any attention to the Conservative leadership race.

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Bingo! The likes of Scheer and Trost are huge zealots, constantly throwing their religion in people faces demanding puritan christian policies, but don't wear anything overtly religious.

At worst, maybe, Scheer'd be a stalking horse for the Trost/Lemieux contingent.  But on the whole, through past speakerdom et al, I think he might know well enough to be (or at least appear) reasonably pragmatic as leader--or at least, closer in operation to Rona Ambrose than to Trost/Lemieux.  (But keep in mind that "closer to" can still mean "to the right of".)

I think a lot will too depend on the polls and how vulnerable the Liberals are.  If the Liberals are fairly popular in 2019 and look like they will win no matter what, he might take more of a right wing tack to motivate the base to show up, but if the Liberals appear vulnerable he will probably want to take a more centrist tack to try either reduce them to a minority or win outright.  I find parties when they no they are going to lose focus more on their base while if they think they can win or gain seats then go after the swing voters.  While some may point to Trudeau running to the left of the NDP last federal election his platform was centre-left not hard left and generally in line with what voters wanted.

I'd be surprised if this was the case because it seems to me that the Conservatives have put themselves so much in a bubble that they genuinely believe that the issues that they demagogue that have appeal to their 30-33% base of Canadians are issues that all Canadians are concerned about.

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Quite predictably, Star endorses Singh.

Very good article; sums up why I support Singh over the other candidates.

Here are the 20 Sikh-iest ridings in Canada, along with their results from the 2015 federal election.

Electoral District	Prov	SIKH%	LIB%	CONS%	NDP%	GRN%	OTH%
Surrey--Newton	BC	45.1	56.0	15.7	26.1	2.2
Brampton East	ON	34.0	52.3	23.5	23.0	1.1
Surrey Centre	BC	23.8	45.1	19.8	30.1	3.5	1.6
Brampton North	ON	21.7	48.4	33.0	16.5	1.9	0.2
Brampton South	ON	19.9	52.1	35.0	10.7	2.2
Fleetwood--Port Kells	BC	19.4	46.9	29.3	21.5	2.4
Mission--Matsqui--Fraser Canyon	BC	17.4	37.2	34.9	20.5	5.1	2.2
Brampton West	ON	15.3	55.9	30.1	12.4	1.6
Calgary Skyview	AB	15.1	45.9	39.8	8.0	1.9	4.5
Abbotsford	BC	14.3	32.8	48.3	13.7	5.0	0.2
Vancouver South	BC	12.5	48.8	33.9	14.0	2.6	0.8
Edmonton Mill Woods	AB	12.4	41.2	41.1	12.8	2.2	2.7
Delta	BC	11.4	49.1	32.8	14.9	3.2
Mississauga--Malton	ON	10.9	59.1	26.4	12.3	1.7	0.5
Brampton Centre	ON	9.6	48.6	33.7	15.1	2.1	0.4
Etobicoke North	ON	8.5	62.4	23.0	12.4	1.2	0.9
Cloverdale--Langley City	BC	8.4	45.5	34.8	15.7	4.1
Steveston--Richmond East	BC	6.0	45.1	38.5	12.1	3.7	0.6
Winnipeg North	MB	5.6	68.9	15.3	13.4	2.4
New Westminster--Burnaby	BC	5.6	29.0	20.0	43.5	4.7	2.9

Well, the top three on that list should easily swing to the NDP in 2019 with Singh as leader. The next four or five would be targets as well.

In Surrey, I don't think Liberal M.P Sukh Dhaliwal will go down without a fight, he has an enormous campaign organization.  Also, don't forget that the Sikh community is divided between the Fundamentalist Sikhs who tend to support the Conservatives, but also support right leaning Sikhs like Sukh Dhaliwal and the Moderate Sikhs who tend to be New Democrats (and left leaning Liberals.)

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Bingo! The likes of Scheer and Trost are huge zealots, constantly throwing their religion in people faces demanding puritan christian policies, but don't wear anything overtly religious.

At worst, maybe, Scheer'd be a stalking horse for the Trost/Lemieux contingent.  But on the whole, through past speakerdom et al, I think he might know well enough to be (or at least appear) reasonably pragmatic as leader--or at least, closer in operation to Rona Ambrose than to Trost/Lemieux.  (But keep in mind that "closer to" can still mean "to the right of".)

I think a lot will too depend on the polls and how vulnerable the Liberals are.  If the Liberals are fairly popular in 2019 and look like they will win no matter what, he might take more of a right wing tack to motivate the base to show up, but if the Liberals appear vulnerable he will probably want to take a more centrist tack to try either reduce them to a minority or win outright.  I find parties when they no they are going to lose focus more on their base while if they think they can win or gain seats then go after the swing voters.  While some may point to Trudeau running to the left of the NDP last federal election his platform was centre-left not hard left and generally in line with what voters wanted.

I'd be surprised if this was the case because it seems to me that the Conservatives have put themselves so much in a bubble that they genuinely believe that the issues that they demagogue that have appeal to their 30-33% base of Canadians are issues that all Canadians are concerned about.

True a lot are in that category although all parties do run focus groups and internal polls and tend to go based on those.  If you look since the house returned, the focus from the Tories is on tax changes not Omar Khadr settlement or border jumpers and I suspect their internal numbers showed those were vote losing.  Now yes internal numbers can be deceptive, I believe part of the reason many in the Harper government thought they would win again is they not only underestimated Justin Trudeau, they assumed voter turnout would be the same or lower as if voter turnout was only 61% like 2011 vs. 69% like in 2015 the election would have been a lot closer, otherwise the new voters who showed up overwhelmingly went Liberal and I think much like the polls underestimated Labour in Britain they underestimated the surge in turnout amongst younger voters.

That is not to say I actually think the Tories are likely to win in 2019, I don't think they are.  Just that all parties want to win so they usually tend to only push as far as they think they can.

 As for the NDP leadership race I also doubt whomever is chosen will become next PM, but could certainly reduce the Liberals to a minority and thus pull them leftward like was the case under Pearson and Trudeau 1972-1974.  Always a possibility of a surprise like we saw in Alberta but with Trudeau being a progressive leaning liberal seems unlikely.  There actually is a lot more room on the right to pick up votes, but the Tories seem to have a tendency to ignore this group or when they do reach out like Patrick Brown in Ontario has, the more ideological elements threaten to leave the party.

1.I think you mean David Lewis and Pierre Trudeau from 1972-1974.

2.The early polls showed that the Khadr payout was much more unpopular than these tax changes ever were.  I would still expect the Conservatives to raise/demagogue the Khadr issue in this session of Parliament, so I wouldn't read too much in to that they haven't brought it up yet.

This Khadr thing for Conservatives isn't all that much different from these small business tax changes.  In the case of Khadr, the Conservatives clearly looked at the topline polling numbers and the letters to the editor from people who were the most OUTRAGED! over the Khadr settlement and never noticed the polling that showed that, while Canadians were unhappy with the payout, outside of the usual 30-33% Canadian suspects, most Canadians had much more nuanced views over it.

Not really a surprise the polling data of electoral preferences really showed no changes after that.

In the case of these small business tax changes, I think this is a bit more complicated in terms of electoral effects, but mostly around the margins.  I would certainly expect that the Liberals will lose the votes from some small business owners who will pay greater tax as a result of these tax changes (or are in a genuine position to expect to be effected by these changes), and I would expect that most of those 2015 Liberal voters are medical doctors or dentists, but...

A.The campaign against these tax changes from the small business community has been built on a series of outright lies and falsehoods, and the Conservatives have repeated some of the outright lies and falsehoods in the House of Commons.  We are finally seeing a push-back to this dishonest campaign from some smaller lawyer and doctors organizations.

B.While the Conservatives themselves have been mostly careful to stay away from some of the over the top rhetoric from these business organizations, a quick look at twitter and facebook suggests there is some push-back and resentment from working class non business owning Canadians to the suggestion that 'business owners take all the risks' and that their workers have 'no risks' in being just wage earning employees.  Given the amount of effort that Prime Minister Stephen Harper put into wooing the workers who live 'paycheck to paycheck' (for instance, Harper's one major tax cut was the 2% reduction in the GST), I would certainly expect that the Conservatives risk losing some of this working class base as the Conservatives choose to defend a group of people who have insulted them, even though the Conservatives have not used that rhetoric themselves.

 

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Very good article; sums up why I support Singh over the other candidates.

I think this editorial is a good summation of the NDP itself and the leadership race.  From the way I see it (not mentioned in this editorial), the NDP essentially is a coalition of four groups: academics, unions, organized social activists and disorganized social activists.

There is obviously considerable cross over in terms of candidate appeals, but essentially the academics support Guy Caron, the unions support Charlie Angus, the organized social activists support Jagmeet Singh and the disorganized social activists support Niki Ashton.

It's not necessarily a surprise then that the policy proposals of Caron, Angus and Singh would be quite similar while their styles and issue emphasis would be different while Niki Ashton would be a (much) further left agitator.