ONT NDP Leader Andrea Horwath will become Premier of Ontario 2

epaulo13 wrote:

..it's not stupid when you consider what just took place in new york city elections.

eta:

..what your not addressing pogo is that the poverty groups and labour are saying what the ondp is offering is unacceptable. and the ondp is saying they are not accepting what the poverty groups and labour are proposing. this is a major split. and now a power struggle is emerging and it's no longer enough to say the libs and cons are worse. this is very healthy as i see it. lets see where this leads.

I am not addressing the minimum wage issue because I don't disagree.  The Ontario NDP is on the wrong side.  Personally, I think the NDP should first talk about a living wage and how the minimum wage fits into that discussion.  Yes increase the minimum wage, but also look at other costs such as housing, transit, pensions and education.

What gets me going and rushing off posts from work (misquotes and all) is the eagerness of the left to latch on to any flimsy evidence that justifies pushing politics to the left.  I have met a few politicians in my day and they are not all sold out to the system.  If they believed they could get to power on a far left platform they would.

Brachina wrote:

http://ontariondp.com/en/100rebate

 

 Here's a better link about what I was talking about. Note the ONDP is saying at least a 100$ rebate, the other article makes it sound like its capped at a 100, it is not.

Um, no, that's not what the link says at all. Read it again. Does this mean you may actually criticize the ONDP once you realize the rebate is, in fact, $100?

This rebate is a bad idea. Really really bad. If Horwath had the slightest bit of nerve or principle, she might at least say: "Maybe it's time to have a single public Hydro company. You know, like we used to have." I'm just an outsider. Québec did that in the 1960s, as part of the Quiet Revolution, when René Lévesque was still the Liberal minister of natural resources. Think Ontario might have a look at that? Or is that too ultra-left-wing Bolshevik for the pollsters and focus groups?

Neoliberal ideology is how the discussion is usually framed in the mainstream media. The idea that we need to be balanced in our approach is flawed. The problem is that we're not prepared for the shitstorm of attacks if the NDP were to come out of something truly progressive. We will be shot down with bad economics of how the party will bring massive deficits, huge taxes, loss of jobs, loss of businesses and the apocolapse. Then again, we already are attacked with those arguments!

I want the party to come out in favour of progressive ideas, but we're stuck in this trap. The NDP needs to defend progressive ideas, otherwise they're just confirming the idea that they're not possible.

Andrea is on Newstalk 1010 now:  http://player.newstalk1010.com/ until 2PM.

Unionist wrote:

Brachina wrote:

http://ontariondp.com/en/100rebate

If Horwath had the slightest bit of nerve or principle, she might at least say: "Maybe it's time to have a single public Hydro company. You know, like we used to have."

The proposal does say,

Quote:

Cap executive pay and cut down on waste and duplication by merging Ontario’s hydro agencies

which suggests to me having a single public Hydro company.

 The rebate is not just for middle class families, but the poor benifit as well.

http://cheridinovo.ca/not-fair-to-cut-taxes-for-corporations-wealthy-whi...

Brachina wrote:

Pogo wrote:

Epaulo, I use the 'left' as a way of categorizing those who consistently and across issues agitate for the NDP platform to be further to the left. 

For me that is expending energy in the wrong area.  It is not to hector the NDP into taking stances that they clearly believe (rightly or wrongly) are risking their electoral chances.  It is more to spend that energy in the community changing the views of the voters.  Once the voters change direction, the politicians will fall all over themselves to lead the parade. 

In Richmond I can point to a few local issues where we have done this.  It can be done.

 

 Bingo, home run, + 1,000,000.

 

The NDP is filled with Progressives, but they are limited by what they precieve as what they can sell to the electorate. So the smart move is to till the soil as it were so that the public is both ready and hungery for a shift left, there are many examples of this. The role of the NDP is to pass progressive legislation, its our job to create the enviroment and opportunities within the public for them to do that and still win elections.

Ontario NDP Waging War on Public Investment

Public transit remains a crucial policy issue for the province of Ontario, but it is not clear that citizens will get good solutions any time soon. Investment in public transit is expensive, often requires raising taxes and can get bogged down in the nitty-gritty politics of neighbourhood planning, not to mention partisan competition.

In 2007, the government of Ontario tried to turn over province-wide planning for public transit to an arms-length agency, Metrolinx, in part to take the politics out of the issue. Its plan, The Big Move, is the result of years of study, planning and consultation. But its fate is questionable.

Because the Progressive Conservatives have effectively boycotted the political negotiations that characterize minority parliaments, the Ontario NDP and Liberals are currently driving policy and politics in Ontario.

Sadly, the negotiations between these two parties appear to have signed the death warrant for the desperately-needed investment strategy in public transit that Metrolinx has developed. If the Big Move didn't die this week, it is on life support. And if it goes, so does Hamilton's B-Line Light Rail Transit (LRT) plan.

Revenue Tools Rejected

In a March 10 interview with Hamilton Spectator columnist Andrew Dreschel, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath left the impression that she favoured increasing corporate taxes to pay for increased investment in public transit in Ontario, particularly for the Big Move. But by March 12, Dreschel published a correction to his column, noting that the party currently does not support raising corporate tax rates, but rather just favours closing some corporate tax loopholes.

On March 13, the Globe and Mail reported that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne had rejected the proposal to increase the HST or the gas tax to invest in transit.

These two developments mean that the Big Move – and Hamilton's LRT – are nearly dead in the near term. The second wave of transit projects in the Metrolinx development strategy is ambitious and had a cost associated with it of roughly $2-billion per year. The proposed list of tools to pay for this is in table 1. The current political status of each is also listed. $2-billion is needed to fund the projects and more than $1.5-billion of that is now gone....

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/950.php

Well I guess the Left Caucus needs to be told to change their name.

No no no, NDP critics don't understand. The people who swing the elections are middle class, and they won't be persuaded by talk about poverty or transit. You need to appeal to them, and create programs and platforms that cater to their interests, even if it comes at the expense of the working class. This is the only way to success, just look at the current popularity of NDP governments in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia.

Oh wait....

 I'll withold Judgement until I see Andrea's demands for the budget, but I better see something worth voting for. I'll keep an Open mind till then.

Pogo wrote:

Standing around and saying the damn NDP makes me so mad is only going to go so far.

The NDP doesn't really make me mad. They're pretty much what I expect them to be. Explaining why I feel they're unworthy of support isn't the same thing as being mad at them.

mark_alfred wrote:

"unworthy of support" usually translates into "strategic voting for the Liberals". 

Everyone who doesn't support the NDP is shilling for the Liberals. Right, mark?

Quote:

The article highlights just a few of the Liberal's betrayals of the poor over the years.

Criticizing the Liberals is shilling for the Tories. Right?

Sorry - that's what happens when instead of dealing with people's arguments and life experiences and expressed concerns, you try to fit them into a narrow-minded frame that you can understand.

mark_alfred wrote:

The Liberals and Tories are the same entity, in my eyes.

I would put the NDP in the same equation. They are all parties of the status quo, in a very fundamental and quasi-religious sense. Just look at them having communal orgasms over Israel, or the current thugs in charge in Kyiv - or look at their often virtually indistinguishable policies once they get into government. (Notable exception: Harperite Conservatism, which is a diabolical departure from all previous regimes, mostly in its frenzied hurry to undo anything decent about the country.)

Yet, even though they're all the "same entity", I don't condemn people who (very very correctly) say: "Tim Hudak is worse than Kathleen Wynne"; or: "Stephen Harper was worse than Paul Martin"; or "Jack Layton was better than Tom Mulcair". I don't see them as shills or enemies. I see them as telling the plain simple obvious truth, which people must discuss and debate and come to terms with.

I withdrew my membership in the NDP decades ago, for reasons which are mostly (but not all, thankfully) still in place - and other new reasons have arisen since which have confirmed the great wisdom of my youthful whim. When Ontarian posters in this thread say they can't support the ONDP any more - and they provide the clear plain reasons motivating their decision - I applaud their decision.

I know, for a fact, that the NDP doesn't listen to its uncritical supporters. Maybe - just maybe - it'll listen to the uncomfortably growing ranks of its ex-supporters.

mark_alfred wrote:

Unionist wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

"unworthy of support" usually translates into "strategic voting for the Liberals". 

Criticizing the Liberals is shilling for the Tories. Right?

Wrong.  And that's the incorrect mind-set of those who advocate for strategic voting.  People should vote for the party that best (and maybe not perfectly, but best) represents their interests.  For the wealthy with corporate interests, that would be either the Liberals or the Conservatives.  For the rest, that would be the NDP.

You connected my answer to a different part of your post. Wanna review and try again?

mark_alfred wrote:

I'll leave dissecting posts to you, Unionist.

It was a simple request. If you want to quote me, do it accurately in context. Thanks.

Quote:

My opinion is that encouraging people to be hypercritical of the NDP does not serve progressive politics well.  It usually results in so-called strategic voting, which just gets us the same-old same-old.  Again, it's worth remembering some of the Liberal policies over the years.  

You've obviously never lived under several terms of NDP government (as I have) - so I fully understand that you might base your aversion to "hypercriticism" on their platform, rather than on what they actually do once in power. Although one would have supposed that Bob Rae's glorious reign would have dampened those illusions somewhat.

As for "encouraging people to be hypercritical of the NDP" - it is the NDP which does that, when (as Horwath is now doing) they pander to the better-off sections of society in the ultimately futile hope of not only replacing, but becoming, the Liberals.

mark_alfred wrote:

I'll take the NDP in Ontario any day over the Liberals or the Conservatives.

Ok - but would you take the Liberals over the Conservatives, if it came down to that? Don't mean to bug you - just trying to understand your logic.

mark_alfred wrote:

"unworthy of support" usually translates into "strategic voting for the Liberals".  For me, I figure the NDP are not perfect, but they're the best of the lot.  Anyone who thinks it's strategic to vote Liberal is truly forgetting a lot.  OCAP had a good rally at the Liberal 'Heritage' Dinner recently.

No, that's not at all what I mean. Since becoming eligible to vote, I've cast ballots for 5 different parties, but have never voted Liberal.

It warms the cockles of my heart to see OCAP getting some love on babble, as it's a group I have supported and worked with for the better part of two decades. But don't mistake OCAP's criticism of the Liberals as an endorsement of the NDP by default.

[url=http://ocap.ca/files/history%20of%20ocap.pdf]A Short History of OCAP[/url]

The emergence of OCAP coincided with the election of an NDP Government. This posed major difficulties for us in that the climate became tough for an organization that wanted to take a strong stand. The backsliding of the Rae Government away from its promises to raise welfare rates above the poverty line and ‘end the need for food banks’ created a lot of confusion and demoralization. For quite some time, people were unclear on how to confront a Government that they had expected and hoped would offer them more than the Liberals and Tories. Resources to carry on our work were very hard to come by and our base of activity was largely confined to Toronto. We held demonstrations at NDP gatherings and gradually, as Rae’s measures grew ever more right wing, found a stronger level of support for resisting the Government. We worked with the Street Peoples’ Organization to put up a tent city of the homeless at Queen’s Park. We hounded Government Ministers and challenged the freeze they imposed on welfare rates. We played a major role in convincing them not to actually cut welfare rates. We pressed forward as best we could but it was a tough period to work in.

It was during the Rae years that OCAP first took up in a serious fashion the Direct Action Casework that has played such an important role in its development. We began bringing mass delegations into welfare offices and taking similar actions. People began to turn to us as an organization that could make a difference in their lives and act to defend families under attack.

Over the years, OCAP's principled refusal to pull their punches when it came to criticizing the NDP has cost them a lot in terms of financial and political support from people who expected them to act as attack dogs for the NDP. Anyone who thinks OCAP is anywhere close to being in alignment with Horwath's NDP simply hasn't been paying attention to what OCAP is saying.

As we head into another round of provincial elections in the spring, we will not be swayed by fake gestures and empty rhetoric from any politicians.

We're going to march on the Convention to demand from all parties:

·Raise OW and ODSP 55% to restore the spending power lost since 1995!

·Provide a $14 an hour minimum wage fully indexed to inflation!

·Fully restore the Special Diet and Community Start Up Benefits!

·No merger of OW and ODSP, stop the attack on Disability benefits!

http://ocap.ca/node/1137

Yeah, I like Harper too, but that Nigel Wright really shafted him.

Honestly A24, any party that's about its leader needs to self-destruct and rebuild.

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=fullcomment.nationalpo...

 This ia basically an NDP idea and honestly barring something really horrible I can't see how the NDP could vote against a budget that includes this. Wynn is trying to out NDP Andrea Horwath and honestly it may end up forcing Andrea to the left or risk losing some of her base. Wynn for all her faults is smarter then any other liberal leader in recent memory. It likely won't save her, too many scandals, too much patronage pork, but this is a smart move and the only hope she has.

 Good point, but I do believe there is room for improvement, especially in regards to dealing with the base and perhaps more effort in Toronto.

To digress for a second, there was good mainstream media coverage of the OCAP rally against the Liberal's cuts to social services: 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/video/video-protesters-rally-against-onta...

To digress for another second, there's a courtcase, and likely a noon-time rally, in defence of healthcare for injured migrant workers tomorrow.  Two injured migrant workers were given the right to receive care for their injuries, but the stinking Ontario government is appealing this.  I'm going to go.  link

http://m.thestar.com/#!/news/unpaid-interns-are-this-generations-slaves-...

As I watched and listened to TVO's "The Agenda," the general topic seemed to be about political parties and the role of citizens in relation to the parties.  Over the past 30 years, the number of people who are members of the different parties has declined.  Many constituency associations are shells compared to what they were like many years ago.  Political campaigns are highly leader-centric and are focused on maintaining the loyalty of hardcore supporters by raising money from them, and then reaching out for that extra ten to 20 percent of voters that will give a leader and his/her political party a majority in a legislature or parliament.  The name of the game for political parties is not to present policies in order to make society better.  It is to win in a game of political hardball.  Stephen Harper knows this, and he does generally well with this strategy.  Other political leaders are catching on.

Provincially, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath knows that she has to play political hardball if she wants to win against Kathleen Wynne and Tim Hudak.  The days of the NDP being the conscience of a legislature or parliament are fading.  Even though her party holds the balance of power, each political party is now constantly campaigning for the next election.  Each party wants to win.  In Ms. Horwath's case, she talks about labour rights when she attends labour conventions.  However, Ms. Horwath avoids talk about labour rights when she speaks to the general public.  Instead, she focuses on boutique issues like lower auto insurance rates and a new accountability office in order to attract that extra ten to 20 percent of voters.  She doesn't speak about issues that matter to supporters of OCAP because it's likely that those supporters are not donating money to the Ontario NDP campaign.  People may volunteer in a local campaign.  However, most local campaigns may influence about five percent of the vote.  The leaders and central party organizations influence the other 95 percent.  A donation to a central party is much more effective than volunteering in a local campaign.  A donation can help a party buy a media spot in order to reach a large but targetted audience.  Local campaigns tend to reach large audiences, but their effects are weak.

I think that the new reality is that even when Andrea Horwath no longer leads the Ontario NDP, the next leader will opt for a similar strategy to win power like Stephen Harper has done.  Seek donations from the loyal base; have key boutique polities that will attract the extra ten to 20 percent of voters.  Run centralized perpetual campaigns.