A silence fell over the convention floor at Edmonton’s Shaw Conference Centre as delegates realized that not only had Mulcair not attained a respectable level of support, he hadn’t even reached the 50-per-cent threshold
Related! After a warm embrace, NDP delegates stab Rachel Notley in the back
Interesting that the NDP convention is mostly being conducted in French. I guess it’s basically been taken over by the bloq.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. Let the special Olympics commence.
Very much a good-news bad-news thing for conservatives. The federal NDP have just exiled themselves into the political wilderness. That’s a good thing. However, there will be lots of disgruntled NDP supporters who are going to drift to the Liberals, particularly given Shiny Pony’s new left-of-centre gloss. That’s the bad news.
For all the Albertans here, the good news is that Notley has just about guaranteed that she’s a one-term wonder. The bad news is you can probably expect lots of visits by naifs like Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein to try to talk local NDP constituencies into backing LEAP.
Because you can’t tell the players without a program: Here is an excellent, and highly amusing, summary of the various factions at the convention.
From socialists to good-old-boys: A taxonomy of the NDP’s Edmonton factions
Freaking Marxists!
They’re here! The NDP convention has actual, real-life Marxists who think capitalism’s days are numbered and that if we try communism one more time it probably won’t have nearly as many gulags. Known as Fightback, delegates politely ignored them as they stood at doorways engaging in the rather capitalistic practice of selling their journal for $2 (solidarity price: $5).
Maybe there is a Ray of hope for Mulcair, if he becomes a liberal!
Well its a first step. They got the LEAP Manifesto on the agenda and it was given life, not defeated. So now the process to full adoption begins.
If Mrs Notley were still in government opposition she would be promoting the Manifesto but fate finds her in the awkward position of having to pretend she doesn’t like it.
The left always eat their own. It’s their only redeeming quality.
As long as NOT-ley has as her top advisors, who live outside of Alberta, anti-oil and anti-pipelines as her advisors, all she is doing is jumping through “political hoops” to say she wants them – just to pretend that she supports pipelines. Her reputation in rural Alberta (mostly non-union) is as straight as a dog’s hind leg. With the New Dictator Party (NDP) of Alberta and Just-in (leader of the LIEberal Party) are ready to impose a “carbon tax” will guarantee that the enviroMENTALists have control of Alberta and Canada. (Yet not to worry, not ONE union job will be lost.)
We can only hope that the NDP does like Labour did when it chose Jeremy Corbyn as leader–it selects someone so radically to the left that the party will never form the federal government.
Rather than having to show her hand as to whether she supported it, Rachel Notley was seen skiing in Jasper today. When the going gets tough, the tough go skiing.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153378434590974&set=p.10153378434590974&type=3&theater
We hated them as ndp’ers, we can hate them even more as mentally ill’ers.
I still believe that Rachel Knotley is doing her best, given the economic climate in Alberta. Doing her best as in compared to her socialist counterparts outside of Alberta. Here in Saskatchewan, Premier Ross Thatcher was a CCF MLA turned Liberal when the Liberals were the right of center party in this province. He is best remembered for having kicked the doors of the Sask. Legislature opened when he was locked out (if I recall) for using foul language.
I was a part of the Saskatchewan party in the late 1990’s where we held meetings in local bars and cafes. A lot of our supporters were middle of the road NDP members, say the local hardware owner, the Case-IH dealer or a farmer who’s ancestors were CCF-NDP faithful. These people had had enough of the Regina Manifesto and the radicals that made up the NDP, so they came over to the Sask. Party. In 1999 we reduced the NDP to a minority under the leadership of Elwin Hermanson. In a 100 years, these people would not have come to our side had we stayed with the Conservatives.
I believe that Alberta needs to form a more middle of the road party that distances itself from Ottawa, yet respects the wants and needs of the younger crowd who may have environmental concerns yet want to keep our Western Canadian petroleum industry alive. Rachel Notley is only a few steps away from the other side of the house. And I suspect it would be her last chance at the throne.
When the Leap forward fist came out last fall, I thought it was so loony as to be unworthy of serious discussion. Instead now it is to be debated within local NDP constituencies.
Never over estimate socialist’s knack for self destruction. With Mulcair they had a least a chance of being taken seriously, as an alternate government. Instead,the lunatic forces of Libby Davies, the Lewis family, Klein etc, will ensure they never get anywhere near power. Three generations of Ont Lewises have never been successful at forming a government. This manifesto, should anyone read it, will ensure they never do.
From socialists to good-old-boys: A taxonomy of the NDP’s Edmonton faction
That’s some funny stuff there.
Remember Roy Atkinson, Pat Atkinson’s father; he was slightly to the left of Karl Marx and he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a suit. His attire was as impoverished as his thinking.
“It is time to start thinking more charitably about Alberta and the 4.4 million fellow Canadians who live here,” Notley told them Saturday.”
Pitching Canadian nationalism and Alberta provincialism to International Communists, how quaint and naïve.
It’s as if Notley is putting her political career before her ideology. Just won’t do, don’cha know?
Hey Rach, how does it feel to be viewed as just another embarrassing Albertan by your fellow travelers?
That said, Tom Mulcair(as the election signs here in Alberta referred to him), is just another Dipper Leader seeing his party revert back to it’s traditional place in the political pyramid, third party status.
Saint E-Jack-U-Layton of the Velvet Touch brought his party to Official Opposition status as a high water mark, an outlier, based on the aimless drift that the Liberals had achieved under nameless know nothing leaders that was a track which was corrected by the Liberals adopting a Recognizable Named Know-Nothing.
Ah me. Who wants to take bets that the next Dipper Leader is a woman and a vizmin too?
If they can’t find a famous name(and they can’t), then they’ll do the next best thing and troll for votes using identity status.
If anybody thinks that the rise of the radical left in the U.S. and Canada is some kind of coincidence, they have been living under a rock. This has been going on under the table for years. One wonders if the radical left is trying some kind of a centennial Bolshevik Revolution. If so, this time they must be stomped out.
It can’t be stamped out. It has superficial appeal, if you don’t think about it too hard. There’s always going to be lots of people who don’t want to learn history, don’t want to think about philosophy, and just want to be told pretty little lies.
It stamps itself out….unfortunately, the country takes a big hit just like it has in every other country such stupidity has been tried. Just ask the Venezuelans.
I can’t help but notice how much Havenotely has moved away from her ideological activist past in the last little while. It almost seems that she has come to the beginning of a realization that ideology can ruin lives and wreck livelihoods. Of course most conservative people came to that same realization when they were about 6 years old so still would never vote for anyone who hasn’t seen the conservative light by the time they were 30.
Joe,
Has she moved away from her ideology or just come to the realization that she needs money to implement her agenda? And the best source of that money is oil royalties rather than more tax increases. You can’t give away free stuff, raise salaries for unions, and subsidize wind mills and solar panels without revenue coming in.
“If anybody thinks that the rise of the radical left in the U.S. and Canada is some kind of coincidence, they have been living under a rock.”
You got that right. This has been brewing for almost sixty years. I’m sure many of you recall my telling the story of when I was sixteen in 1958, in the summers, a fellow worked for my dad on the fruit farm to earn money for his teacher training in McMasters in Hamilton and had a communist in his class. Also, in 1981, my mother remarried in Saskatchewan and a new step brother, a public school principal at that time, related that he had communists in his teacher training classes at University of Saskatchewan. These filth never rest.
Now Mulcair knows what Khrushchev felt like.
Yes cgh, there could well be interesting times ahead. Think of the support Bernie Sanders is getting. The radical left feels strong enough to makes plays for power.
I guess the NDP is a french first party… just like the Bloc, or Pierre the Turd. I always wondered why the communists, I mean the NDP, thought it was a good idea to let a Quebec Liberal and a citizen of France become their leader… Mulcair let the Trudope Party run a more leftist campaign than the NDPers, that strategy along with the help of the corrupt Media and their unions assured the globalist gangsters victory. As Mulcair joyfully shouted on election night, “we won, we defeated Stephen Harper”, he took a bullet so the Libranos, the globalists and their Media could seize power. Notley is simply full of shizznit… she is using the same strategy as the globalist A-Holes that successfully put a nit-wit trust fund jagoff into the PMO, lie, lie, and then lie some more. Is Notley as sociopathic as Jr. Turd? Of course she is, run up massive unsustainable debts, pay off your comrades, punish your enemies, say one thing and do another, anything for power.
He was a liberal cabinet minister before. He would cross in a second
Just keep in mind that a good portion of the liberal party actually agrees with the manifesto.
‘New’?
what’s ‘new’ about the ‘New’ Democrats? everything they push for is recycled from some other place and time.
Oh well, 62% of voters in the last federal election voted NDP, Liberal, or Green. So the little pink 23 year-old poli-sci “experts” that infest the analysis/advisory ranks of all parties (including Conservative) have written the script.
Is there anything stopping Rachel from throwing her hat in the ring? She is a member of the federal NDP, after all. If they don’t hold a leadership convention for another 2 years, she’ll have all that time to screw Alberta and solidify her credentials as a true Dipper.
Any talk of the NDP inevitably puts me in mind of that old Wayne and Shuster skit, “The Good, the Bad, the NDP”.
I’m no great fan of Mulcair but he was at least a grown-up who made for a credible, cogent presence in the House of Commons even if far too often he did fit his “Angry Tom” moniker. There was a clear sense of someone saying to the shrill ideological firebrands of the party, “Whoa now. Slow down, think for a moment”.
On the plus side for all those of us not enthralled by the Knee Dippers anyway, the Great Lewis-Klein LEAP into the Dark could end up being just the ticket to see the NDP neatly marginalized as a credible voting option for a very, very long time.
Red Rachel isn’t going to be premier in 3 more years so switching to federal in 2 years might keep her in work.
Mulcair was never part of the ndp establishment. He was an outsider who beat establishmentioned candidate Brian Topp. Topps leadership bid was backed by Ed Broadbent and other assorted party insiders. Topp is now Mrs Notley’s Sr advisor. Who knows he may take another run at the job?
Mulcair tried to move the party to the center. The Libranos out flanked him on the left. Mulcair was foolish to talk about balancing the budget. The party rank and file never forgave him.
The ndp will move back to the left. Their socialist agenda has largely been accomplished in Canada. There are few social justice issues left here,that is why they cling to environmental themes.
One person with a real dilemma has to be Lizzie May. If the NDP adopt their Great Leap Forward, she will be outflanked on the left and will have to move to the centre. I can see her either crossing the floor and joining the Liberals if promised a cabinet post or lobbying hard for a Senate seat and resigning as a MP.
About the only “seat” I would give to Lizzie May is a one way ticket to Venezuela…
Talk about a NUT JOB…
I actually think federal politics is what she’s really interested in. After all, she let one of her cabinet ministers take time off from her *provincial* job to campaign for a federal NDP candidate in B. C.
It’ll give her a good excuse to show up drunk at the next Canadian Press Club function. This time, though, she won’t be able to bad-mouth Harper.
I’ve been wondering lately if the CPC threw the last election to get themselves off the stage for the Big Crush that seems to be coming. That would be the one that makes 2008 look like a bad quarter.
If that’s the case, and Temp Drama Instructor Shiny Pony winning makes that very believable, I wonder if the NDP might win in four years? Who else is left to hold the bag?
“About the only ‘seat’ I would give to Lizzie May is a one way ticket to Venezuela…”
I have no idea why she’s still around after her bizarre turn at the Press Gallery dinner last May. She should have vanished from the political landscape without a trace.
Whatever you might think of Harper, Mulcair or Trudeau, if any one of them had put on a performance like that, their parties would have dumped them with unceremonious haste.
Muclair was the best hope they had to be a party to be taken seriously and they tossed it away. I underestimated him, but he is the first person to make the party seem relevant to Canadians, well for a brief period till the party elite stabbed him in the back.
Did you know Lizzie May had to spend almost a quarter million to keep her seat in October. She outspent all the other leaders by a wide margin.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/elizabeth-may-election-spending-1.3508236
Internicine is such a delicious word.
Especially when invoked in sentences that also contain “NDP”.
The Lewis klan opened with their call for Alberta oil to be left in the ground so there would be no noxious emissions. Alberta countered with a proposal for the Lewis klan to be left in the ground for the same reason.
Negotiations continue.