Thomas Mulcair has lost the support of his party to remain leader of the New Democrats, with less than half of party delegates voting to keep him at the helm.
At the NDP convention in Edmonton, 52 per cent of the party voted for a motion to hold a leadership race, meaning Mulcair received only 48 per cent support.
who wants to bet Nathan Cullen will throw his hat into the ring?
Interesting suggestion. Agreed. I think Cullen is a likely leadership candidate.
He put “his hat in the ring” last time and has said he isn’t interested this time around.
Yeah, but, it is a new game with Mulcair gone. You may be correct. I’m curious to see what happens. I’m also curious to see who the Conservatives pick as their new leader.
He won’t throw his hat in the ring. He’ll be busy with French immersion.
As one of the senior and most respected and qualified members, a whole bunch will throw it in for him when the time comes, and he’ll respectfully accept.
And win big.
Mulcair will remain the party’s leader until a successor is chosen
within 24 months. Though there’s plenty of time to spare before
contenders start throwing their hats in the ring, here’s an early look
at some potential candidate
The Globe and Mail narrows it to five (including Nathan).
I am not getting too excited yet. In a the next two years, we will have a pretty good idea of Trudeau’s success or failure. If he has been reasonably successful, it won’t matter who the NDP select.
If he hasn’t been all that successful, it could it get interesting although I wonder if we would just swing back to the Conservatives. The Liberals took over the left in October’s election so if the Liberals fail it’s not like another left leaning party would be that appealing. .
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I agree with what you wrote Mr White. I’m of the opinion that the NDP are not really a relevant party anymore. Plus with the NDP they are a divided party with their “Leap Manifesto”. How Nathan Cullen would deal with that I don’t know. This region benefits immensely from the resource sector and international trade.
Speaking of the Leap Manifesto, one of the CBC online comment posters invented an acronym for it:
Lenin Engels Action Plan
I am not sure what you mean by “relevant anymore.”
The NDP federally, except for 2011, have never been “relevant” except when propping up minority governments. After 1988, they were the fourth party as often as they were the third party.
Since 1944, when Tommy Douglas and the CCF won in Saskatchewan the NDP/CCF have held power 31/72 years in Saskatchewan. Since 1969, when Manitoba elected its first NDP government they have held power 32/47 years (which is almost dynastic) although it looks like they will lose next week. The next best, BC, has had only three NDP governments although there have been a few occasions when they could have won and didn’t…
But in the rest of Canada, they have had very little electoral success. Once in Ontario, once in Nova Scotia, a couple of times in the Yukon and once now in Alberta they have formed government. They certainly aren’t relevant in Quebec. In New Brunswick, they have elected 5 members in its entire history and in PEI only one. A good result in Newfoundland/Labrador is 10% of the vote and a couple of seats.
(I had fun looking some of this stuff up. I didn’t know that the NWT and Nunavut do not have political parties in territorial elections.)
Here’s my point. Does the NDP need to be “relevant” in the sense of forming government or do they just need to be “relevant” in the sense that some of their principles are worthy of consideration.
I have only seen a summary of the LEAP Manifesto. But some of it makes sense at least enough sense that it is worth debating over the next two years which is what the NDP plan to do.
Should we be moving away from fossil fuels? Should we be working toward a guaranteed minimum wage? Should we be collectively controlling our energy resources rather than “profit-gouging private companies”?
Yes these are radical ideas, but so too were universal health and other social safety nets that we now take for granted. Most of those ideas were first proposed by an “irrelevant” NDP party that had no chance of forming government but those proposed ideas soon were taken up by parties that could.
It will be interesting to see where this leads…
What I mean by relevant is are they still a party that has a chance in the future of forming government.
They are not going to form government in my opinion. They will need to pick a good leader to take on Trudeau.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is repudiating the controversial Leap Manifesto, but says she doesn’t feel the provincial NDP needs to split from the federal party.
“These ideas will never form any part of our policy,” Notley said Monday. “They are naive, they are ill-informed, and they are tone-deaf.”
Are the Greens relevant?
I think a political party is relevant if it has something to offer whether they have a chance of winning or not. I thought the Mulcair-led NDP were trying too hard to be electable and ended up on the right side of a Liberal party who promised very progressive ideas on a variety of issues - the economy, refugees, international relations etc.
I think it healthy to debate the Leap Manifesto. If Notley and Horgan (who has also been critical) and other opponents are persuasive enough it will get defeated or modified. . Either way, the NDP will have a much clearer philosophy to offer Canadians.
I have no problem with the idea that we should be moving away from or being less dependent on fossil fuels. How long that takes and what form that takes are the issue. That will come out in the next 24 months as NDP riding associations across Canada debate the manifesto.
A discussion is going to take place. Nothing wrong with a discussion. I’ll wait until the discussion is over before worrying too much.
My opinion is the Green are left (they get the environmentalist votes), the Liberal’s are center and the Conservatives are right wing. Where does that leave the NDP ? A third place party ? My opinion also is drop the “New”. But like I said its my opinion.