10 Easy Steps to Losing An Election: Brought to You by the NDP

NDP: Now is the time to send us $100
Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, June 26, 2008

The NDP has a helpful suggestion on how to spend your $100 climate action cheque.

Give it to them.

In a "Dear Friend" e-mail to supporters, NDP environment critic Shane Simpson urges people to make their "gas tax rebate count" by funneling it to his party.

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This just proves that the NDP are actually as frighteningly clued out as the Liberals. Who in their right mind okayed this grab of the Climate Change “dividend?” Whoever it is should be banished and muzzled. This whole thing begs the question, does the NDP actually want to be elected as the majority party in May 2009? This foolish stunt tells us no, in fact they don’t.

If the NDP brain trust couldn’t figure out this would be leaked and the optics of it when it was, then they are quite simply too stupid to be our next majority government. Because, like the Liberals, it’s these Backroom Silverbacks that are going to be the ones coming up with government policy and direction. If we were a conspiracy minded type, we might actually think the NDP actually wants the party to lose the next election. Although they have a nice leader(certainly a nicer one than the Liberals) Carole James is just not believable as a strong leader and the party continually present confusing, ill advised or half-baked platforms and ideas. Talk to anyone on the street (who isn’t an NDP insider) and they would not be able to say a thing about what the NDP actually stands for anymore, or what better solutions they have to offer. And that’s a PRETTY BIG problem considering they will be involved in an election in less than 18 months.

It’s this insular “inner circle” party thinking that helped kill Sam Sullivan’s career as mayor of Vancouver and that was a humiliating defeat. To recount, the sitting mayor lost the nomination for mayor in the next election of his own party. Talk about a non-confidence vote. He and his insiders on the executive did what they could to smear his opponent, yet, at the end of the day, he still lost. And he lost because he was out of touch with his party and his style of leadership was so exclusive, insular, insulting and full of dirty pool that he couldn’t even win the support of a majority of his membership. As on aside, I really hope the neophytes who were cheerleaders to him learned their lesson over this. Their open and public adoration and support for someone who shot himself and his whole party in the foot (with the public) sends a loud message about their insight and judgment. Be a little more diplomatic, rise above it all folks, or, get your head out of your @$$ if you want to play this game and not look like an idiot and have to do some major butt kissing to the new boss to stay in the game.

I think it’s time for the NDP to take a long, cold, brave look at themselves and where they are heading (into the rocks if they don’t smarten up). They fail to understand they do not own the hearts and minds of voters in BC, even on the left or in the labour movement. BTW, their shill (the BCGEU) has engendered a serious bunch of ill will in the labour community over their foolish actions over the last couple of years so that is something to strongly consider and the labour community as a whole is going to question what the NDP has done for them and since they could be their employer next round of bargaining, things are not as cut & dried as they seem. The stunning lack of clarity about what the party actually stands for and whose interests they actually represent, makes enough of the lefties and more moderate centre folks nervous to make their return to prominence a questionable thing.

Don’t forget, it’s not just the media that helped sink them (fast ferries, Glen Clark, Bingogate) it was also some of the more questionable policy and governance decisions they made that killed their credibility as social democrats. They cut welfare in the late 90’s, started contracting out and continue to support devolution of services from government even in the midst of the mayhem now occurring. For anyone wanting more on some of their history in government see Jim Herring’s 2003 pamphlet “Labour, the NDP and Our Communities” for a fascinating analysis of the NDP in action when in power (Clarion Publishing).

Party insiders tell us that there are also many NDP members (and former members) who are disillusioned and wondering what the hell has happened to “their” party? The primary supposition, which is arguably quite accurate, is that the NDP are actually much more neo-liberal/conservative than they are willing to admit and continue to pander and bandy about that they are democratic socialists, but their actions are anything but. You can fool some of the people… I think it is also the fact that like, the Liberals, the major players rose from the ranks, it's the Peter Principle all over again, only on a bigger scale with no-one to really stop them (except maybe voters).

As a citizen, it would be hard to vote for a party whose confusing response to the Liberals ill-advised and unpopular carbon tax is to “Axe the Tax,” but even though they think it should be axed, they too would tax us? And, since it is going through, why don’t we give the $$$ to the NDP party instead??? If they actually want to get elected, maybe the party leadership will start to get real and look at the chance they are quite likely blowing with confusion, half-assed (or none) ideas and hypocrisy. Right now, all they’re looking like to voters is a bunch of bumbling idiots, and a gentler, perhaps less evil version of the Liberals. And those who have gone up against the party brass can tell you (if they can be found in the bone yard) is they can be every bit as nasty as the Liberals in getting rid of the naysayers, realists and those who have a differing opinion.

September 12, 2007
Whips and chains
Public Eye Online.

November 27, 2005

For Fox sake!

January 16, 2008
New Labour?

Earlier, we reported Canadian Office and Professional Employees communications director Mike Bruce, British Columbia Government and Service Employees Union staff representative Vanessa Geary and BC FORUM organizer/executive assistant Monica Ghosh Malcolm would be running for Vision Vancouver's executive. All of them were elected. And, when you add Canadian Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada national representative Joie Warnock to that list, it means four of the civic party's nine new board members come from the labour movement. Asked about the matter, Vision Vancouver director Mike Magee said, "I'm very pleased with the executive because it not only has labour it has business, it has youth, it has Chinese, it has Indo-Canadian, it has representation from across the city. I think it's a really strong executive. So we welcome labour and we welcome busines. And they're both represented."

May 16, 2008
Share and share alike?

The Vision Vancouver mayoral nomination membership drive may be over. But it didn't come off without a hitch. On April 29, provincial New Democrat president Jeff Fox notified the civic association that many of his members were "concerned that BC NDP membership lists have either directly or indirectly found their way into the hands of the Vision campaign."