Remember the New Politics Initiative, founded back in 2001?
The New Politics Initiative (or NPI) was a faction of Canada’s New Democratic Party. It was generally viewed to be further left then Alexa McDonough’s leadership, but not as far left as the Socialist Caucus.
The NPI folded in 2004, but not before counting such NDP luminaries as Libby Davis, Svend Robinson, and Judy Rebick as members. What of current leader, Jack Layton?
When Jack Layton won the NDP leadership in January 2003, it was taken as a victory by the NPI, with whom Jack Layton had sympathized, but never joined. Key NPI leaders such as Robinson, Davies and Rebick supported Layton’s campaign for leader. During the 2004 federal election, Layton adopted unequivocally left-wing policies; accordingly, since Layton took over the reins of the party, the NPI became less vocal and formally dissolved in early 2004.
Another important NPI figure was Corvin Russell:
So what does Corvin Russell think of Jack Layton, the NPI’s “victory”? Here is Russell’s report from the NDP convention:
Like a jovial, latter-day Lenin, a giant Jack Layton stares at me from a banner hanging over the front doors of the Quebec City Convention Centre, where NDP activists are gathering for their convention. Layton’s image and name are ubiquitous here, at the first biennial party convention in nearly four years. The cover of the convention guide features five photos: four of Layton, and one of a woman holding a “Jack Layton” sign. Above the registration desk, Layton’s name dwarfs the party’s.
The attempt to create a personality cult around Layton is faintly creepy and exhausting. Not least because Layton’s substance and style can’t support the hype. One delegate describes Layton appearing at a meeting of farmers in Saskatchewan wearing a plaid shirt and wranglers. Layton seems to want to fit in and be liked wherever he goes — a dangerous flaw in a politician. What’s missing in Layton is a clear sense of where his bedrock is.
Personality cults? Comparisons to Lenin? Creepy?
Read the whole piece. It depicts a convention that was utterly devoid of grassroots democracy. Instead it was all a party show, starring Jack Layton, put on for a carefully managed press corps.
I wonder just how deep the discontent with Jack Layton runs.
One clue. This piece was published at rabble.ca, the radical website run by former leading NPI figure Judy Rebick.
[Expanded post at Angry in the Great White North]
Being neither a unionized employee nor a government flunkie, I can remember very well what the NDP did for me, (the last time they ran the province of Ontario): not a goddamn thing!
(And I won’t ever forget- that these flakes kept the gliberals in power, when they had the opportunity to help toss those dishonest sleazebags out!)
Jack Layton has a personality?
Cut’Run Rae, brother John Rae, Chretien, Power, Maurice Strong (Uncle Mo, as Rae calls him), and assorted Librano$ have taken over the Liberal Party, now, the Socialist Party of Canada.
Notice the words: “power”, “chilling”, “bagmen”, “the Martin crowd”, etc.
Taliban Jack is wasted.
Here is a sampling of the machinations from the Dan Report.blogspot:
Coutts (mole-spy-agitator) has been placed in the Kennedy camp by Rae. …-
Jim Coutts, Former Appointments Secretary to Prime Minister Pearson and Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Trudeau is running as a delegate in support of Gerard Kennedy in the riding of Trinity-Spadina. This is an obviously strong counter to those who have tagged Kennedy as absent of the experience and intellectual heft needed to handle the job of Prime Minister.
At 18/9/06 2:32 PM, Jason Hickman said…
Daniel, I’m not doubting you, but just out of curiosity, how did you find out about this? If the answer is “confidential sources”, that’s cool, but if there is some public database of who’s running for delegates for which contender in each riding, it would be a really interesting thing to read.
At 18/9/06 2:35 PM, Anonymous said…
Coutts — I remember the voters handing his ass to him on a platter when he ran for office.
At 18/9/06 3:16 PM, Dan McKenzie said…
Super duper uber-confidential sources!! There’s no database that I know of yet but I believe after the super weekend you’ll be able to see exactly who ran for who.
I could be wrong.
At 18/9/06 3:20 PM, Skeena Liberal said…
hey dan,
how did you find out the information…i have been hearing all along that kennedy is not a team builder and this kind of fits in with that theory … i am in the trinity spadina riding…attend the local meeting work tirelessly in the last two campaigns…never meet this jim guy….
At 18/9/06 3:35 PM, Independent Voice said…
How does the fact that you’ve never met a Trudeau staffer equal that GK is not a team builder?
Great news about Jim, whoever the source was. Jim represents a golden era of Liberalism and has obviously chosen the candidate he feels can best lead Canada in the direction it needs to go, much like Pearson and Trudeau.
At 18/9/06 5:10 PM, Anonymous said…
Wow. Trudeau Liberalism forever!
At 18/9/06 9:14 PM, Ray Daze said…
You have to hand it to Bob Rae, his team really know what they are doing.
Jim Coutts is a good friend of the Rae family. This is classic Goldenberg-Rae. Make no mistake about it, Coutts has been placed in the Kennedy camp.
Jim Coutts donated $4,400 to the Rae campaign on June 16: http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/RaeContributionReport_20060731.pdf
He then donated a paltry $1,000 to the Kennedy: http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/KennedyContributionReport_20060731.pdf
Guess who has been planted by the Rae team to help convince Kennedy to move to Rae after the first ballot?
Cynical, sad, but true. I hope that Kennedy sees right through this.
At 18/9/06 10:33 PM, Anonymous said…
That’s positively chilling. Here’s a guy that’s new to our party – I mean, not even so much as a lawn sign in the last election, but he was happy to donate to NDP candidates – and he’s getting propped up by a bunch of bagmen trying to restore their grip on the party so unceremoniously torn away by the Martin crowd.
Rae betrayed himself last night with his comment that “ideas don’t really matter” in a leadership race. For him, this seems to be all about power.
NDP? Wot dat?
‘Fascinating stuff, maz2; that tricksy Bob Rae and Power Corps, but…to get back to Jackass Laydown :
I’m glad to know that even people in his own party think he’s “creepy.” He’s like a wind-up doll: He smiles on cue, looks cute on cue, looks serious on cue, looks perturbed on cue, and there’s never a hair out of place. I know he’s hardly got any, but what he does have is meticulously in place, as are his well-turned out suits and spit-and-polish shoes.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was a military man. He’s not a military man, but a militant man: militant about socialism and re-distrubuting my “wealth” (that’s a laugh)–make that my hard-earned income which is hard pressed at the moment to cover all of the bills, with a daughter who has just graduated from university and another one in second year–to a lot of deviants who don’t need to work or contribute in any meaningful way to our society because “Uncle Jack Bin Layton” has handouts for them, on cue, of course: like, whenever they’ve run out of stuff–and that includes illegal drugs.
In the meantime, Jack and Olivia live very well in their double income, no kids (DINK) lifestyle.
Hey, it’s OK not to have kids, but you know what I’ve noticed about a lot of people who don’t have kids? They have no idea what it is to bring up kids, the sacrifice of time and money; they have no idea what things cost, which means that they’re very happy to take away from Peter (hard working parents) to give to Paul (frequently individuals who’ve made very bad choices in their lives and feel that they are entitled to be bailed out every time they get into trouble–a notion Jack and Olivia are only too happy to oblige as it means votes for them).
Personality cult for sure. Politics is actually all about Jack, with Olivia as a prop. It’s clear, with his declaration that our troops need to be withdrawn from Af’stan (either that, or they should only be used for redevelopment and peace work) that he cares nothing for people who are genuinely in need of help and who can’t vote for him.
Jack needs to be kept in the lifestyle that he’s grown accustomed to, which means that he needs to be re-elected over and over again. He puts on a good show, but it’s good to see that even those in his party can see through the look-at-me artifice.
Maz2 those email posts could form the skeleton of a soap opera script.
So Coutts is a Trojan horse in the GK camp, I wonder how GK will feel about that becoming public.
Rae, former Dipper, is deemed to be able to feed the nostalgic longing for the heady Trudeau days that must have been the best days of the lives of the people now trying to recreate that era. Someone exclaimed, “wow, Trudeau Liberalism forever”.
The Liberals are still feeding off past glories. For some strange reason it reminded me of Dominique de Villepin Prime Minister of France who wrote a book about Napoleon with whom he is apparently obsessed. He’s another Trudeau-like utopian living in another era.
The more I see in action these old baby boomer utopian characters, the more I come to realize that because they aren’t capitalists they are living a fictional life believing they are aristocrats and we’re the peasants. Both the Liberals and the Dipper party machinery cannot see the changing global demographics combined with competition coming down the pipe, they are really in a state of denial about the changing world around them. They are almost delusional. Iggy is probably the exception on Foreign Policy but as an academic he’s probably a Dipper at heart on fiscal. Combined, the 2 parties are indeed the Socialist Party of Canada – scary.
Interesting – my guess is that Layton is after the Quebec vote, which is why he’s now anti-Afghanistan. And pro-Darfur, which is easy to be ‘pro’, since Sudan won’t let anyone in anyway.
I repeat my usual rant about what a constitutional mess this country is in, with its bilingualist requirement, and the fact that Qubec has a locked in 75 seats in the House – which means that any gov’t must ‘take Quebec’ or lose. And, Quebec, as a ‘kept province’, with no international obligations, no feeling of collaboration with the ‘anglophone world – which includes the ROC, the US, the UK, Australia etc, no financial obligations for the ROC supports it – lives in a fictional make-believe world of a welfare state, unionism, and won’t lift a finger to enable industrial dev’t in the ROC.
How can Canada’s larger needs, larger than the isolationist selfish gaze of Quebec – be met when you have such a disastrous requirement that you have to show you are in favour of the welfare centralist state..just to get in power to help the rest of Canada?
I’m beginning to suspect the Liberals will choose Rae – esp. if the Power Corp are supporting him. He’ll move Canada right back into the Fictional Cave of backwardness, kept alive only by our telling ourselves how wonderful we are and how evil the US is…
Canada is in a serious phase in its life; it is at a crossroads. We took the wrong road with Trudeau and his disastrous Charter; we are now offered a chance to take the right road. But, brainwashed people don’t like change; they act like lemmings. The hope is – the West – which was ignored a generation ago. The West is the key to taking the right road.
The NPI ended in acromony, incrimination, accusation and finger-pointing. When Libby and Svend announced their intention to support Jack, many at the last NPI meeting in Ottawa were “outraged”. Some questioned why they were not consulted by Libby and Svend. So much for individual freedom.
But wonder how much they really influenced the party. Not much perhaps, but you’d think Jack would be their closest alternative.
Ever wondered why the NDP and “fellow travellers” like the Council of Canadians, David Orchard, and others have never got it together? Anyone ever involved in left politics can answer that easily. Their sectarianism and quest for absolute ideological purity inevitably leads to (a la the Life of Brian) splitting.
Also, the envy laden politics, where Layton is portrayed as some superficial rock-star in the eyes of the strict, humourless left, is not new. I think Reg Whittaker or Laxer had similar comments.
Nonetheless, this article, although imbued with this radical perspective (ie: the “right-winger” Stoffer comment), does reveal some interesting points. If the NDP had allowed the full-monty of left wing ranting at its convention, it would have provided for some entertaining viewing, and reduced the NDP to a circus.
Agree with you, ET, the West is the hope for Canada. Unfortunately the “right road” may lead out of confederation.
Nomdenet..You are correct about the failures of the Left to see the incoming tide from the East..however,i do think that they have started to alienate their traditional stongholds of power,and are sacrificing their base to pander to muslims.
I find it very curious that the NDP would break with labour,a pillar for decades for them and grovel before the muslim voter block.
One can only think that they hope to see massive,unchecked immigration from eastern countries to allow them to come to power (the libs as well..)
It is a double edged sword,we allow them in to take the jobs and/or collect benefits, while the rest of the ones who stayed home participate in their nations massive pushes on the world economy.
Either way, we as Canadians lose, hindered by our own myopic politicians who worship at the alter of the ethnic voter to the utter stagnation of our economy.
We had better be prepared for these challenges on our terms ,rather than let Canadian Quislings like Layton or whomever the liberals choose do it for us….
BATB,
Sorry to ruin your rant but Layton has 2 kids.
Kursk, I think we’re saying the same thing, but just to be clear, I have no problem with immigration or diversity. I do have a problem with multiculturalism, which ghettoizes as in French car-b-q’s.
We need to go back to what used to be called a melting pot or better still called Canadian. Liberals?Dippers have avoided that to buy immigrant votes and to play the anti-American sneer card. It’s a form of racism to not insist on assimilation; otherwise we’re creating barriers. That’s the hypocrisy of the left.
Let’s define Canadians more precisely and if anyone wants to immigrate here then we must set out clearly the Canada that they will be assimilating to. For example, key values such as the separation of church and state, the equality of woman, tolerance of other religions (as long as they are tolerant religions).
As you said – “ be prepared for challenges on our terms”.
“Sorry to ruin your rant but Layton has 2 kids.”
Goats?
That Jack Layton is getting so much coverage over this is truly an epic tale of Shakespearian accounting:
“full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Why does anyone, blogsters, media and we drones even pay attention to this malarky?
Ah, there, I’ve done it also… wasted my time on this absolute irrelevancy.
Cheers!
Leto
Sort of off topic,but has anyone else ever been on rabble. I lasted three posts before being told my opinions contributed nothing.I made the grevious error of pointing out that “socialist” was the third S of the U.S.S.R. Just wondering. If you are bored,I would recommend wandering over for a hoot.
Oh yes… Lord Layton of the Leftards…..
Nuff said…..
Syncro
1. The Cult of the Personality in a progressive organization like the NDP?* How could that possibly happen?
2. “nomdenet”:
“[K]ey values such as the separation of church and state, the equality of woman, tolerance of other religions…”
Um, whatever Canadians might feel about the separation of church and state, it is not a Canadian civic concept; it’s a US one. Before we demand that new immigrant accept Canadian values, we should be sure we’ve mastered them ourselves. I believe they have historically boiled down to Peace, Order and Good Government.
3. “[H]as anyone else ever been on rabble[?]”
Ah, rabble-babble.
Just to register for it means working you way through an endless list of no-nos and regulations – all designed to ensure only “progressive” minded people ever post anything. Personally, I go to rabble.ca for one reason only: its (utterly unintentional) humour. Rabblites occupy a strange, alternate universe unconcerned with what’s really going on in the world.
Honestly – Rick Salutin and Duncan Cameron – these two guys are hilarious!
During the Glen Clark era in BC I saw a mock-up BC license plate in a car’s rear window:
NDP-NFG
How strange to believe that any first world western nation should have to defend against Marxist politics or economics. How much proof do the idiots need that that guava leads to disaster?
Oh, forgot my asterisk:
The NDP.*
* Canada’s Official Enemy Party TM.
nomdenet:
Look what has gone public.
Small Dead Animals had the information from the websites before the MSM. Does the MSM read blogs? You betcha.
The blogosphere is a potent force. The MSM is now following the lead of the blogosphere. Go, blogs.
Globe-Mail says:
“The donations, made to two NDP candidates in the election of last Jan. 23 and to two other NDP candidates in the 2004 election, surfaced yesterday on the websites of Liberal supporters.”
…-
RAE FINANCIALLY SUPPORTED NDP CANDATES AS RECENTLY AS 2006
RaeBob Rae, the man who many Liberals believe will lead their party into the next election, donated money to the New Democratic Party as recently as January. …-
national newswatch
nomdenet:
Look what has gone public.
Small Dead Animals had the information from the websites before the MSM. Does the MSM read blogs? You betcha.
The blogosphere is a potent force. The MSM is now following the lead of the blogosphere. Go, blogs.
Globe-Mail says:
“The donations, made to two NDP candidates in the election of last Jan. 23 and to two other NDP candidates in the 2004 election, surfaced yesterday on the websites of Liberal supporters.”
…-
RAE FINANCIALLY SUPPORTED NDP CANDATES AS RECENTLY AS 2006
RaeBob Rae, the man who many Liberals believe will lead their party into the next election, donated money to the New Democratic Party as recently as January. …-
national newswatch
JJM agree, we practice the separation of church/mosque and state but let’s make it very clear and formalize it so that there is no misunderstanding. If immigrants want a Mullah in charge of their government they should not immigrate here. Taliban Jack will need to come out in the open- is he for this or against it.
Let’s have a pledge of allegiance in schools every morning that makes it clear how Canadian culture works – for example make it clear that Canadian men and woman are treated equally. Again , if soemone’s religion opposes that, they should not live in Canada.
While we’re at it, let’s put property rights into the Charter. It’s time the rights of the individual were not secondary to the collective.
In other words let’s start cleaning up the socialist albatross that we have hanging over us.
Judy Rebick? Rabble?
Yep, that’s a fit.
Red Star, aka Toronto Star, is the official organ/mouthpiece for the Socialist Party of Canada. It’s motto was: Better Red than Dead (H/T Lethter Mike Pearson).
Red Star’s motto now is: Better a dhimmi than Dead. (H/T Taliban Jack/Cut’N Run Rae.)
Ole Maudey Barlow, aka Aunty-American, trots out her screed.
As said by Anonymous above: “At 18/9/06 5:10 PM, Anonymous said…
Wow. Trudeau Liberalism forever.”
He is mocking the socialists: It’s hilarious. …-
Getting closer to Uncle Sam
Public kept in dark as business leads talks about North American integration, By Maude Barlow
via voy forums
E-Jack-U-Layton. Yuck.
Alex, I am aware that Jack Layton has two kids from a former marriage, but I’m not clear that he was a hands-on father (he and Olivia have been together for a very long time). His understanding (sic) of the complexities and financial challenges of bringing up children today is clearly lacking, so whether or not he has kids would seem to be a moot point–or, at the very least, speaks very badly of how little he learned from the experience.
I was talking specifically of Layton’s relationship with Olivia Chow. My “rant,” as you put it, was specifically around politicians who think their thoughts and solutions to very real problems families are facing these days are superior to those of us in the trenches, who are doing the hands-on job of bringing up the next generation, often under very trying circumstances.
Up until the CPC’s giving funds directly to parents to spend as they see fit for their family, the (Librano) government, with the NDP breathing down their neck, was grabbing tax dollars as fast as parents were making them, and allowing tax write-offs only for parents who agreed to let the State take care of their children.
THAT’S my beef with Jack and Olivia. Slurping from the public trough, while suggesting assinine and unworkable policies around child care, which would bankrupt the country and NOT serve the best interests of either children or their parents.
All the Laydowns need to do is to look at the results of state-funded day care in Communist countries and in Israeli Kibbutzes: an increase in young people’s deviant behaviours later in life, difficulties in committing to relationships, etc., not “the more we get together” Utopia that Jack and Olivia fantasize about.
Maz2 , good catch, I didn’t see the Trudeau reference as “mocking”.
Glad to see the MSM is watching the Blogs – maybe we’re becoming inter-dependent for news.
From my observasion, Layton’s only “policy” is shameless self promotion and to reconstruct dipper policies to attract more of the fringe moonbat cult rather than fit somewhere within reach of left wing liberals…he’s doing both very badly BTW. Layton has nothing to relate to the wider Canadian public, Champaign commies seldom do….he will always be relegated to “cult leader” as long as he avoids shaking the looney left loose from his party and driving them back to the ranks of the marxist leninist party (where they fit ideologically) and remaking NDP as a functional labor party (which is sorely needed as a proper voice in this nation) Legitimate private sector labor ( both unionized and non union) has no voice in parliament. The liberals have embraced only the public sector labor lobby by simply buying it off in quiet agreements… but the working class who still belong to private labor unions ( yes this is a conservative that thinks private labor unions serve a purpose) need a party to carry labor issues forward to government.
The fact the moonbat dippers and Taliban Jack have abandoned legitimate private sector labor, or more likely labor has abandoned the Dips, is a statement that the foamy moonbat element that now contols the party is so far left that they can’t even relate to blue collar labor.
WML – what class struggle are you watching? I don’t see one. Do you mean the one where a GM worker makes $80,000 a year with Viagra benefits? The CAW workers that become landlords in Oshawa with their savings and they sure don’t want David Peterson’s rent control back?
I don’t think that the employees at RIM think of themselves as “labour”.
I think we’re well into an era where all employees need to think of themselves as essentially self-employed and selling their skills to the highest bidder. If they get upset with their employer, they change jobs, they don’t “organize”. If they can’t change jobs, then it’s probably because they should be getting some more skills – everyone should be in perpetual skill learning mode.
From the employer side, the successful will create an attractive work place where employee grievances are aired and addressed, employers that don’t do that will fail.
Seems to me that the real “JACK ASS “has stepped forward
They’re neither new, nor do they want democracy. So what’s with the name? They should just call themselves the socialist party and get on with it.
The ubiquitous, disembodied Jack Layton head, it’s everywhere. Supporters should get a bobbing version they can put in the back window of their cars. How about painting the head on ping pong balls? Golf balls? I know, the military can paint the head on bombs launched at the Taliban.
Crossing the floor: Cut’n Run Rae is also Crossing the Floor Rae.
Irony is alive: Emerson is joined by Crossing the Floor Rae. LOL….
Has Cut’Run Rae abandoned Taliban Jack/NDP? Has Taliban Jack divorced Olivia?
Will Taliban Jack/Rae wear red on Parliament Hill tomorrow in support of Canada’s troops? …-
Bob Rae Supports NDP and Taliban Jack
Excerpt:
“Ms. Mathyssen said she was under the impression that Mr. Rae donated to her campaign in January because he wanted more NDP MPs in the House of Commons.
“For him to say he believes in NDP candidates and is willing to support them, to switch and go to another party is absolutely unbelievable, unspeakable,” she said.”
http://www.voy.com/178771/37386.html
It’s official: The word from Ted, he of the 3 heads, Cerberus. Cerberus barks only once, though: “Crooked”.
Cut’Run Rae is the official candidate of AdScam Chretien-Maurice Strong-Power-Desmarais-Gagliano- Librano$, et al for the leadership of the Socialist Party of Canada*. …-
Cerberus said…
Burlivespie:
I think the point being made here is not that the old Chretien-Power Corp. team is running Rae’s campaign, but that Coutts is part of that, is supporting Rae but is running as a delegate for Kennedy. That’s a little crooked.
Crooked ain’t good for the Liberal Party, in case you didn’t pay attention in the last election.
danreportblog
*Once known as the Liberal Party of Canada.
I’m not certain one could describe Judy Rebick as a “figure”.
Isn’t she more of an enormous, ill-defined, amorphous blob that spends its time eating, shitting and negotiating the *power-structures*…..or something?
Check her out……from behind…as she stands… hands on hips….lookin’ back at ya.
She’s no Betty Grable.
She’s a “Judy Grable”!
Jack Layton?
Leader of the Now Dhimmicratic Patsies of the Caliphate.
I’ve known Jack for years and I’m amazed how deeply I dislike this guy. As New Dems get to know him better they will undoubtedly feel the same way.
To know him is….to want to bury him!
Everything about smarmy Jack Layton is not likeable. What really bothered me about him was during the election campaign, he was talking about some elderly lady waiting for an operation or something or other, and he kept saying “God bless her” over and over again. And I thought to myself, since when does God mean anything to you, Jack?
And his defense of Svend Robinson was just sickening.
Hey, having Jack in there is the best thing that could be. We wouldn’t actually want anyone with any wherewithall in his position. He’s like the dumb little brother tagging along but not really doing much as the smarter older brother runs around intimidating the all the other kids.
The Socialist Party of Canada has the approval of the Eggheads: Unite The Left.
Iggy + Taliban Jack + Cut’N Run Rae: The Troika Government of Canada. …-
The Star | Form coalition cabinet with NDP*
At the beginning of the current Liberal leadership race, Michael Ignatieff said that the party should position itself in the centre left. If by this he means that the Liberals should be on the progressive side of the Conservatives, and on the moderate side of the NDP, I think he is correct — but perhaps not for the usual reasons.
Author:
*Hugh Thorburn is an emeritus professor of political studies at Queen’s University in Kingston.
Librano$$ are alive and corrupting Librano$$
VOLPE CAMPAIGN ACCUSED OF BUYING MEMBERSHIPS
The Liberal association in Montreal’s Papineau riding filed a complaint after they surveyed new members recruited by Mr. Volpe’s campaign and found a significant number said that they had not paid their own membership fees, according to riding president Luc Cousineau. …-
national newswatch
And he is buying memberships for dead people. He is having a press conference tomorrow and we wonder will he resign. Would any of the rest really want his support. I don’t think so. Hope he goes to Rae, another reason to vote for Rae, and give Harper a huge majority aka Brians.