NDP Leadership Convention 2017

[DL]

Didn't you also say that when I pointed out that Linda McQuaig learned French in Paris in the mid 1970s that she had forgotten all of it.  Ruth Ellen Brosseau taking French immersion in elementary school would have been about 15 years prior.  It's entirely possible she had similarly forgotten all of it.

Yes but after having been "accidentally elected" REB had 4.5 years in which to focus 100% on being the MP for a totally francophone riding and immerse herself in the language...and realistically since Berthier-Maskinonge is 99% French - every time she set foot in her riding it was an immersion exercise. But as an MP she just needs to talk to constituents about how to apply for a passport and have the odd meeting with a local mayor. She doesnt have to do a two hour debate in prime time in French with other party leaders who are native speakers of French or be grilled by national media on the latest controversies. She was able to take years learning French away from any national scrutiny.

Whoever becomes the next federal NDP leader is going to have to hit the ground running immediately. It would be an 18-hour a day job even for someone who was perfectly bilingual from the start...so where would the time be for CRASH French lessons? And the expectation is that a candidate to lead a national party is perfectly bilingual the day the day declare their candidacy...not "gee my French is REALLY rusty, but I promise that if you make me your leader I'll take some Berlitz courses in time for the 2019 election"

[DL]

I have to wonder that if the Official Languages Act had not been passed in the early 70s if so much emphasis would be placed on a leader's knowledge of French.

Was it like this prior to 1972?

I have to wonder whether if the Official Language Act had not been passed Quebec would even still be a part of Canada

[DL]

Is the talk about Naomi Klein semi-serious or should it just be ignored?

First of all she speaks no French so IGNORE

[DL]

Ashton is good, I remember her being backed by the Socialist Caucus and is on the left wing but could win.

I thought it was odd though how she gave her Convention speech last time in Spanish and Greek, in addition to English and French. It just served to make it more jumbled than it needed to be.

She certainly did not solicit the support of those Socialist Caucus lunatics...and was probably embarrassed to get their endorsement. I wonder what she would have to say about the "Leap Manifesto" given that she represents a totally primary resource extraction based riding in northern Manitoba

[DL]

I have to say I find Cullen's dance of the seven veils a bit bizarre. Back in the winter he said he would not run and supported Mulcair sticking around. Then after the party voted to dump Mulcair, he said he was revisiting his decision not to run.

Then the party announced that the new leader wouldnt be chosen until fall of 2017 - which to me takes the heat off anyone being expected to throw their hat in the ring for quite a while.

Then Cullen said he would make an announcement about whether he would run or not "very soon" but sounded like he was leaning towards not running...and it would make sense that if he was NOT going to run he would say so right away so that other people thinking of running would know that he was out of the equation. Then this week he gives an interview to the Star where he sounds like he is leaning towards running after all and that he will announce a decision as soon as next week!

But i find it hard to believe that he would announce he was running in June 2016 for a contest that doesnt even officially start until July 2nd and that will last until Oct. 2017. There is no upside to announcing that far in advance and lots of downside in that you can alsmost get overexposed.

Any theories?

[DL]

I think Ashton is a bit of a twit and will embarrass herself if she runs again...Boulerice is a credible candidate and there are rumours about Jagmeet Singh and supposedly Peter Julian and Guy Caron want to run as well.

Cullen says he will not be neutral and plans to back a candidate for the leadership - so one wonders if he is actively recruiting someone to run

[DL]

If Gary Doer was younger, he'd be a good fit for right now.

He also speaks no French

[DL]

There will be an Ontarian provincial candidate... DiNovo.

I think she's part/closely linked of the NDP Socialist Caucus, but not their official candidate.

I'm not sure how much they would like her when they learn that she calls herself a Zionist and is very pro-Israel...she also speaks ZERO French but promises to take a few Berlitz courses if she wins...whihc she won't

[DL]

One could imagine anyone in the Quebec caucus could switch, I suppose. Maybe Linda Duncan, considering she's in Alberta?

With Rachel Notley in provincial power, I doubt Duncan's going anywhere.

Also Linda Duncan is a very staunch environmentalist who has been a bit ambivalent about Leap herself. She probably agrees with much of it. Actually about 95% of the Leap Manifesto is "motherhood" stuff that any left of Centre person would agree with. The only part that is controversial is the explicit opposition. To new pipelines

[DL]

What are Ashton's chances of actually winning?

She is a very weak candidate...even if someone from the left of the party were to win - it would not be her. BTW: I have yet to hear anything from her on Leap - and keep in mind that she is from a mining and forestry based riding in northern Manitoba and she is against gun control

[DL]

It remains to be seen what ideological differences there will be between the candidates. I'm not sure what makes anyone think Nikki Ashton is on the left when she opposes gun control and has avoided saying anything about the Leap Manifesto since her riding is all about resource extraction.

I'm not saying he would make a good leader, but I would say that Peter Julian is very much on the left of the party is about 100 times smarter and more credible than a dingbat like Niki Ashton

[DL]

When the Tories had votes to kill the gun registry in 2010 Niki Ashton supported it...she had no choice since her riding is in northern Manitoba where almost everyone has a gun and hunts etc...

[DL]

Sid Ryan would be a ludicrous candidate for the leadership:

a. he speaks no French whatsoever
b. he is personally toxic and widely viewed as having bankrupted the Ontario Federation of Labour and is now embroiled in law suits with them.
c. In the last Ontario election he championed strategic voting and all but told people to vote Liberal
d. He is 64 years old now, meaning he would be 67 by the next federal election and 70 by the 2022 Ontario election!

I could conceivably see him running for the Ontario NDP leadership after the next election (not that he would have any chance there either) since at least at the Ontario level, his unilingualism wouldn't be such a liability...and he has spent most of his life working on issues at the provincial as opposed to federal level

[DL]

The Labour movement in Quebec had a big "Catholic worker" movement within it...the CNTU OR CSN used to be explicitly a catholic union...and yet you never hear of any "pro-life" movement within the left in Quebec either

[DL]

I hear that Peter Julian won't run...but it increasingly sounds like Charlie Angus will run and so will Finance critic Guy Caron. I suspect that when all the dust settles these will be the people running for leader:

Charlie Angus
Jagmeet Singh
Guy Caron
Nikki Ashton

...and they may be it

[DL]

Caron's English is better than Angus's French

[DL]

I saw youtube clip of Charlie Angus speaking French and it was painful...his accent was so awful that listening to him was like listening to fingernails scratching a blackboard...sorry but this will not cut it. Its a pity because he has a lot to offer otherwise.

Charlie Angus = GONG

[DL]

I saw youtube clip of Charlie Angus speaking French and it was painful...his accent was so awful that listening to him was like listening to fingernails scratching a blackboard...sorry but this will not cut it. Its a pity because he has a lot to offer otherwise.

Charlie Angus = GONG

He represents a Francophone riding in Ontario, and they didn't seem to have an issue with it.

I mean, if you can call a 30% French riding "Francophone".

Franco-ontarians almost all speak English fluently since they live and work in an English speaking province. They tend to regard french ability among their politicians as a "nice to have" not a "have to have". Voters in Quebec are much much more demanding

[DL]

If we want to go down that road - its not as if "Jewish" is such a simple category either. There are orthodox Jews, ultra-orthodox Jews (i.e. Hassidim), Conservative Jews (as in the denomination not the party), Reform Jews, Reconstructionists...not to mention people like me who are culturally Jewish but totally atheist....and that doesnt even include the Ashkenazi/Sephardim divide.

[DL]

I get being culturally Jewish or culturally Catholic, but what does it mean to be a "cultural United Churcher"?

I think it means being a generic WASP

[DL]

Again not even so much as a perfunctory "bonjour" in French. GONG

[DL]

Just posted this in the CPC leadership thread...

Its worth noting that there is a four month lag between when the Conservatives pick their leader and when the NDP pick theirs. Both parties have prospective candidates for the leadership with varying degrees of bilingual ability.

Scenario A: Let's say the Tories pick a unilingual anglo as leader such as O'Leary or Leitch or Raitt...or one of the others who speaks some French but its very laboured. Does that cause the NDP to take the attitude of "well if the Tories can have a leader who speaks no French, maybe we can also get away with a leader whose French is not that good (i.e. Angus)? OR does the NDP take the attitude of "by picking a leader who speaks no French, the Tories are essentially vacating Quebec and that gives the NDP the chance to be the only viable alternative to Trudeau in 2019 - so maybe we should pick someone like Guy Caron as leader who is a francophone Quebecer"

Scenario B: What if the Tories pick a Quebecer such as Bernier (or Blaney) as leader? Does the NDP then figure "we can't be the only party without a leader who speaks perfect French o we better go for Guy Caron" OR does the NDP take the more "realpolitik" view that both the Liberals and the Tories are led by Quebecers and on top of that the new Tory leader speaks English with a heavy French accent and is likely to be a hard sell in English Canada. maybe the NDP can get do well in the rest of Canada by being the only party led by an anglophone who is not from Quebec and we need to bait and switch as far as Quebec is concerned?

[DL]

Yes but will quebecers warm to Charlie Angus if his French is not good at all? I hear very mixed accounts of his French but what little I've heard is on a par with Lisa Raitt which is awful

[DL]

Having support from some Quebec MPs is not going to cut. Just like tere is no way Quebecers are suddenly going to vote for a CPC led by totally unilingual Kevin O'Leary or Lisa Raitt just because a couple of Quebec Tory Mps endorse him.

We now have a very "presidentialized" system in Canada. If (to use an example) Charlie Angus is the next leader of the NDP, he is the one who is going to have to make a good impression 100% in French alone on the panel on Tous le monde en parle. He will also have to do talk radio and TV interviews totally in French and field questions and he will have to make a good impression in a two hour leaders debate that will be totally in French in the next election. You cannot send in a stand-in for these things. only the actual leader will do. I think you are delusional if you think that the NDP could have a leader who cant speak French and send another Quebec MP as an understudy and not expect to be laughed off the stage.

I agree that we should nt expect the next leader to take the NDP back to 50 seats in Quebec. BUT, right now the NDP has 16 seats in Quebec. That is more than in any other province and is 1/3 of the whole federal caucus. A new leader who is fluent in French and who has a personal story that connects to Quebec could have a good chance of holding those 16 seats. A new leader who is a unilingual anglophone would be viewed as an insult to Quebec and the NDP would almost certainly lose all 16 seats. Period.

[DL]

I actually think Jagmeet Singh is the man of the future for the NDP and his French is better than Angus 's