EpicRandy said:
I also thinks the NPD as the better platform but I little on the (we have no chance so we promise every thing) side. They actually had a shot in 2015( leading in early polls) at forming a government but then Trudeau came and the grannies and aunties found him to be 'cute' so they voted for him in droves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2015_Canadian_federal_election They had my vote in the 2011 and 2015 election but then was unhappy with their decision to oust Thomas Mulcair which was a good Leader IMO. Jagmeet Singh is great I grant you that, but I can't explain why he retained his position after the abysmal 2019 result from a party that ousted someone who had way more favorable results in the previous election. The only reason I could think of was for fear from their own party member of being painted as racist would they dare to ask him to step down. But perhaps this though is only a perception caused by the fact the media rarely mention Jagmeet Singh outside election except in story which involve racism, which is sad. For me the Bloc will get my vote this time as I believe a strong Bloc is better for Quebec in minority government. but would the NPD ever rise again like they did in 2011 - 2015 I'll be voting for them again. |
I think I mostly agree with this.
Jack Layton was the best leader the New Democrats ever had. He wasn't my definition of perfect, but no one is, and he was about as close to it as I've seen a politician be. A true believer in the idealist politics of the New Left student movement from the 1960s and '70s, he felt that "human society has the potential to achieve liberty when people work together to form a society in which equality means more than negative liberty, the absolute and protected right to run races against each other to determine winners. Idealists imagine a positive liberty that enables us to build together toward common objectives that fulfill and even surpass our individual goals." His emphasis on the concept of positive liberty separated him from the traditional politics of the classical Marxists and the Old Left more broadly, to which end he was also, appropriately, a Trekkie. And he very much lived what he believed. For his whole life. He spent his time as NDP leader fighting government corruption, advocating for the protection of consumers against predatory creditors, defending the right of workers to strike, defending public funding of elections, petitioning for a redress of NAFTA, promoting peacekeeping and helping American conscientious defectors to the Iraq War find sanctuary, advocating for indigenous peoples, etc. Married an artist and anti-domestic violence activist from British Hong Kong. Spent much of his life living in housing co-ops and actively supporting environmentalist and other co-ops. Campaigned in Quebec speaking fluent, casual Quebecois French. There is a theme of respect for people (especially ordinary and disadvantaged people) and just the world here that carried through into his personal demeanor. One almost can't help being drawn to someone like that at least politically, if not personally as well.
Layton's moral consistency helped him a lot. Helping him just as much though really was the fact that the parties he was running against -- the Liberals and the Conservatives -- were different, more right wing institutions back then than today, allowing his NDP, of which he represented the left wing, to standing out more from the pack and offer an in many ways uniquely clear alternative. He led his party to a record 103 seats in the federal parliament and to a parallel record vote share of 31%, making them the official opposition party for the first and only time to date between 2011 and 2015 before dying of cancer shortly after this 2011 election victory.
Conversely, I failed to understand the appeal of his very square successor (to appropriately apply '60s terminology in lieu of Layton), Tom Mulcair, and apparently so did voters. Mulcair was just a conventional, bland (and I really can't stress the term 'bland' enough here because listening to him debate was less interesting than watching paint dry, and certainly more difficult to understand), quasi-libertarian type who disrespected the people of Quebec over, well, the same sorts of issues the NDP routinely does now (namely and in particular the separation of church and state) and proposed to respond to Canada's 2015 recession by balancing the federal budget while Justin Trudeau's Liberals outflanked him from the left by proposing deficit spending to stimulate the economy. The Liberals gained a majority and the NDP lost most of their seats. The New Democrats drew from this development the conclusion that Mulcair's center-right politics were unpopular and in need of replacement (which they were). Thus Canadian Bernie Sanders Jagmeet Singh. Who I guess is fine on economic policies for my taste, but ugh, the wokeness. Today's social justice progressives ain't the same as the Layton social liberal left that saw communitarianism as a means by which to realize and enhance personal freedom rather than a means by which to limit the range of public debate. This shift so far has met with generational appeal to voters under the age of 30 and not many other people, resulting in the NDP losing most of their remaining seats in the subsequent 2019 election (with a near-total wipeout in Quebec specifically that returned the party to its traditional one-seat-in-Quebec status from before the Layton era).
Matter-of-factly, Canadian politics as a whole have shifted leftward since the days of Layton (perhaps, on a certain level, part of his legacy). The Liberals and Conservatives have gone from being center-right parties to being center-left parties. This leftward shift by the two major parties has made it more difficult for the NDP and the Greens to differentiate themselves, so they've responded by venturing further leftward from their already-left-leaning stances into fanatically hyper-sensitive territory, alienating large swaths of their previous supporters in the process. Meanwhile, for their part, the Conservatives under Erin O'Toole may have shifted far enough from, well, conservative viewpoints that it's actually starting to weaken their electoral prospects by alienating their more right wing constituents who have formed the base of the party, as evidenced by improved support for the People's Party in this election in the polling so far; a fact that could spell the difference between their ability to form a government of their own or endure another Liberal minority government instead if current PPC support doesn't collapse on election day.
As to Quebec, in many ways recent elections should be considered flukes because more than one Canadian party has been led by Quebecers therein (e.g. Jack Layton, Justin Trudeau, Tom Mulcair). There is a pride factor therein that I suspect diminishes nationalist sentiments, at least temporarily. But already the moment is passing, the honeymoon and its delusions of appreciation by Canadians is ending, and the Bloc Quebecois is starting to regain lost ground. Mark my words: the second Trudeau ceases to be the leader of the Liberal Party, support for the Liberals in Quebec will drop off precipitously and the BQ will regain its traditional position of dominance.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 18 September 2021
