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Posts Tagged ‘jack layton’

The longtime leader of the NDP and official opposition leader of Canada, Jack Layton, lost his battle with cancer this morning at age 61:

“We deeply regret to inform you that the Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, passed away at 4:45 am today, Monday August 22. He passed away peacefully at his home surrounded by family and loved ones,” the statement read.

Layton led a party that I often didn’t agree with. I wasn’t a big fan of him as a politician, either. I mocked his used-car-salesman demeanour, his debate tactics, his party’s habit of apologizing for extremism or drawing false moral equivalencies, and even his moustache.

All of that aside, though, his death is a tragedy, just as any death from cancer is a tragedy. It also comes at a time when the country is, more than ever, in the iron grip of a Conservative party that is doing frightening things to our political landscape. The NDP’s historic gains in the May election, which vaulted them into official opposition status, meant that Layton was expected to play a major role in doing whatever he could to keep the Tories in check. Now, of course, this duty will pass onto someone else.

Canadians of all political stripes – left, right or the kitchen sink – will mourn Layton’s passing, and rightly so. I didn’t always agree him, but  even where we disagreed, I recognize that he was acting for what he believed was his vision for Canada. My condolences to Olivia Chow and to the rest of Layton’s family and friends.

You can read the text of Layton’s last letter to Canadians here.

With about 36 hours to go until the polls open, it’s time for me to post my totally unscientific, personal-opinion-only musings about the election and what the likely outcomes will be:

• The NDP will win 10 seats in Quebec. With polls showing an NDP surge in support, this could be the breakthrough that Jack Layton was looking for. I don’t, however, believe that Gilles Duceppe’s seat (my riding) will be one of them. I think he’ll hold onto his seat here, albeit by a slim margin.

• The Liberals will under-perform. No, it won’t be a  total collapse, a la Progressive Conservatives circa Kim Campbell. They’ll hold onto their safe seats and maybe even steal a couple from the Tories in places where the anti-Tory vote goes Liberal. But the surge in NDP support in Quebec will mostly be at the expense of the Bloc, everywhere else in Canada it will mostly come at the Liberals’ expense.

• NDP/Liberal vote splitting will help the Tories. A cynic would say that the Harper camp is exaggerating the groundswell of support for the NDP, in a classic divide-and-conquer strategy in order to try and engineer a majority. I’m not quite that cynical, and I think the NDP’s support has emerged for a variety of other reasons. But I do think that the Conservatives will pick up a handful of seats due to NDP/Liberal vote splitting. That being said…

• The Conservatives will be held to another minority government. I think that there’s enough anyone-but-Harper support out there, helped by initiatives like Project Democracy, to stave off the dreaded Harper majority. I hope.

• The Greens will once again fail to pick up any seats. Their support has stagnated and there aren’t any ridings where their candidates are demonstrating a lead – or even a close second.  The party began as a sensible alternative to the status quo, but has shifted more and more towards the fringe, policy-wise, in the past few years. And with all the mainstream parties (except for the Tories) making environmental issues a big part of their platforms, there are fewer reasons than ever to vote Green.

Remember to vote!

High-ho, high-ho, it’s election time again in Canada. And it sure does feel an awful lot like 2008:

• 4 out of 5 of the party leaders are unchanged. Only Iggy is new this time around, though his post-election political days are probably as numbered as Stephane Dion’s were.
• The party positions and platforms are largely unchanged since 2008 as well, at least on the big issues.
• Elizabeth May is once again angry about being excluded from the debates – and, like last time, I predict she’ll probably get her way.
• Jack Layton is still sporting his used car salesman ’stache.
• The Tories are once again sitting in comfortable minority-government territory, at once unlikely to lose and unlikely to form a majority.

So remind me again why we’re going to all this expense and trouble?

I would love to see the Tories get the boot. Between the long-form census debacle, the convenient-for-Harper prorogation of Parliament, corruption scandals, arts funding cuts, attacking women’s right to choose,  social engineering in the guise of economic policy that punishes anything other than the “traditional” family values, and Harper’s megalomania, the reasons abound. I simply cannot believe I live in a country where we keep electing this party.

Unfortunately, the only hope for replacing the Tories, the Liberal Party of Canada, is still in shambles. Ignatieff’s personal popularity is fairly low (no doubt made worse by those horrible Tory attack ads), the vote-splitting on the left bolsters the NDP and Greens at the Liberals’ expense, and the Bloc is standing at nearly 50% popularity here in La Belle Province.

My vote, which I have no problem saying will be for the Liberals, is a wasted vote, since I live in Gilles Duceppe’s riding and unless he gets morphed into an alien and starts singing Vegas showtunes in the shower, he’s going to run away with it here. But I will still trudge out and cast my ballot – on my birthday, no less – even though I know it won’t do any good at all.

No, I’m not a huge fan of Michael Ignatieff. I liked Stephane Dion a lot better, even though he failed to rally widespread support. But I’d much rather have a party in power that I agree with ideologically on most points, as opposed to one that I believe is steadily taking the country in the wrong direction.

The CBC has launched a short but fairly accurate online tool to help you gauge your political positions vis-a-vis the major parties. Check it out. And make sure you vote, because if we’re paying for this pointless election anyway, you might as well get your voice heard.

(Even if I do sometimes wish I could vote for the onion ring.)

Well, it was lively and even funny at times. That’s all I can really say about the debate format that provided more of a chance for attack zingers than real reasoned debate. Still, I guess it made for good TV, since we were all glued to the screen for a couple of hours – the longest I’ve watched the CBC for in a while. My initial impressions:

• Stephen Harper seemed surprisingly nervous. Though his calm tone of voice contrasted well with the others, as it did two years ago, and he had the advantage of incumbancy, his positions lacked the moral clarity that they used to hold. He seemed almost wishy-washy, and he got backed into several embarrassing corners, namely on Iraq, on arts funding, and on a promise not to raise taxes that will surely come back to haunt him. He seemed rattled by May’s presence, and his showing was surprisingly poor, especially compared to expectations. I can respect someone whose views I don’t necessarily agree with, but it’s hard to respect someone who doesn’t show the courage to have those views. He missed chances to take the stance of the right on issues such as foreign policy. But then, he also had a horribly biased moderator (I mean, what kind of question is “do you think Harper is a barbarian?”). And ultimately, he can be declared the winner if only because he won the portion on the #1 voting issue, that being the economy. The rest probably won’t matter much. Still, I was surprised to see him looking so shaky.

• Stephane Dion is obviously the worst debator of the group, and had the worst showing tonight by far. His debate style mirrors the problem plaguing his election campaign: He lacks charisma, leadership ability, and the confidence to get his ideas across. I did like that he talked about standing up for what it means to be Canadian, believing in our accomplishments, and regaining our place in the world. And I also believe that he has better ideas than his debate skills would seem to indicate. But there’s no doubt that he needed to do a whole lot better than he did in order to have any chance of picking up votes tonight. This was a missed opportunity for Dion.
• Jack Layton accomplished something I didn’t think possible: he managed to make me hate him even more than I already do. I will give him points for consistency, mind you. He consistently managed to take the exact views I disagree with each and every time. Quite the achievement. Seriously, though, he was the only candidate who actually managed to get across what he stood for, rather than just spending all of his time attacking the others, and he deserves some grudging praise for that. I still can’t stand his used car salesman smile, his annoying little moustache, and his habit of saying “Exxon” in every second breath.
• Gilles Duceppe had nothing to gain or lose in this debate. He didn’t make nearly as strong a showing as he did in the English debate in the last election, mind you. As expected, he talked a lot about the province’s rights, and issues important to Quebec. He also scored the most points on the arts funding issue and – surprisingly – did a better job of defending environmental rights than either Dion or May. He had one of the best lines of the debate, when asked what he would do first if elected Prime Minister, he glibly said that he won’t ever be PM… and neither will three other people at the table. But mostly, he seemed tacked on, since he didn’t really answer any of the questions with a real policy answer.
• Elizabeth May was impressive. Period. She’s obviously a skilled debator and, though her style seems vaguely reminiscent of our neighbours south of the border, she scored a lot of clear zingers. I disagree with her on a lot of issues, but she did the best in terms of being prepared with statistics, facts and researched answers. She scored a lot of points that way, and she rattled Harper’s cage more than once. Where I felt she missed an opportunity, though, was in getting her party’s message across. The Green Party platform is all about how every other issue is related to the environment and cleaner, healthier, better living. May’s debate style lended itself well to the format, but she scored more points on attack than on ideology. Since people voting Green are mostly doing it out of ideological reasons, I felt she could have been clearer on what she stood for. Still, I think a lot of heads were turned by her showing in this debate. And she certainly had a right to be there, probably even more of a right than Duceppe.

Overall, the debate won’t lead me to change my vote, but then, I wasn’t really on the fence. For undecided voters, I suspect that Dion will have lost ground, Layton might have gained some among people who actually agree with him (read: not moi), and May probably picked up some points. What this will mean for Harper’s chances at a majority, though, is anyone’s guess.

And no, I didn’t watch the US vice-presidential debate.

Jack Layton things that the rise of the ADQ in Quebec means that more Quebeckers will vote NDP in the next federal election:

Layton told about 100 NDP supporters on Saturday that the rise of the ADQ was spurred by a rejection of the province’s two “old” parties.

“They wanted to see something new,” he said of Quebec voters.

Well, yes, that’s true. But the similarities between the right-of-centre ADQ and the decidedly left-wing NDP end right there. People wanted change, sure, but they flocked to the ADQ, not to Quebec Solidaire. Layton might do well to remember that.

Martin attacks Layton for not attacking Harper.

Catch that? And in related news, Duceppe attacks Harper for not attacking Layton for Martin’s attack on him.

I’m starting to understand American politics better, where the word “attack” is usually followed by something like “Iraq”.

Update: Reflections now that the debate is over:

• Someone needs to buy Paul Martin a stopwatch, so he can time his statements better. There was hardly a segment in which he didn’t get cut off for nearly going over his time.
• Jack Layton really needs to stop phrasing every answer with his slogan that there is a third alternative. We get it, okay? We just don’t like it.
• As for seniors, children, and working families being Layton’s priorities, well, that’s all very well and nice. (Oh, and if he were being honest, he ought to have listed labour unions at the top of his list). Personally I’d like a government that works for all the rest of us, too. But that’s just me.
• Stephen Harper said one of the only courageous things in the entire debate, when he defended his belief that large companies need tax breaks in order to stay competitive and to create jobs. Unfortunately, he didn’t follow through. Half the debate seemed like a competition on who could bash the big bad rich corporate bogeyman the most.
• Gilles Duceppe’s name-dropping is getting annoying. I can just picture him as the guy at the B-list Hollywood party trying to score points with the cool kids by talking about his lunch with Brad and Angelina. Can’t you just see it?
• Most of the time, the other three candidates ignored Duceppe, figuring there was nothing to gain from going after him and everything to lose. Martin and Harper, in my opinion, lost an opportunity there. Except during the unity segment, none of them bothered to attack Duceppe, and therefore none of them really managed to make the case that they would strongly defend Canadian Unity in the case of a referendum.
• On that note, I’m not sure what Jack Layton hoped to gain by repeatedly talking about “winning conditions” for Canada in Quebec. He couldn’t possibly be thinking he’s going to win any seats here, could he?
• If you tied Paul Martin’s hands behind his back, who else thinks he would be mute?

Overall I’d have to give this debate narrowly to Stephen Harper on points, because he survived the first real test after gaining the lead in the polls, and managed to sound more coherent than Paul Martin in most of his responses. However, it was far from conclusive. Martin has indicated that there is plenty of Liberal ammunition to look forward to in the next two weeks, most likely in the form of attack ads painting Harper as being in the pocket of American Conservatives.

As Duceppe grows bolder about gunning for Canada in general and promoting sovereignty, Layton salivates with the notion of once again holding the balance of power, and Martin and Harper duke it out for another two weeks, tonight’s debate has one solid conclusion: this debate is still wide open.

Once again demonstrating his perpetual spinelessness and willingness to do anything to hang onto power, Paul Martin struck a deal with Jack Layton, making “concessions” in exchange for an NDP promise to vote for the budget.

What sort of “concessions”? The usual NDP mixed bag. Deferring corporate tax cuts in favour of $4.6 billion in additional social spending for things like Aboriginal housing, the environment, foreign aid and the like.

That’s all besides the point, though. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the changes, the main thing here is that we have the party who came in dead last among the four major parties in the last election essentially dictating the federal budget. What’s wrong with this picture?

Is it just me, or are our politicians holding a contest these days for “most spineless”?

Martin may succumb to Layton’s blackmail by agreeing to defer corporate tax cuts in the federal budget in exchange for a promise for the NDP to support the budget:

The apparent concession came just hours after Prime Minister Paul Martin appeared to shut the door to NDP Leader Jack Layton’s demand that the cuts be scrapped. “We are prepared to discuss the possible deferral of the corporate tax measures,” the source said.

Martin’s fighting for his political life, so it’s obvious why he’s doing this. But the NDP doesn’t hold enough seats to prop up the Liberals if everyone else votes against. Martin will probably learn the hard way that Layton’s life raft is made of lead.

One last thought on the election before I go to sleep: It’s still close. Many ridings were won with squeakers, and others are still undecided. With recounts, the results may still change enough to make a difference.

At the moment, the NDP and Liberals are combining for 157 seats. Remember that 155 is needed for a majority. That’s a close enough number that any recounts, slim losses, or bolting of MPs may put the notion of a Liberal-NDP coalition in danger. Or at least one can only hope…

If Layton gets his way, his popular vote will translate into a lot more seats next time around. But I can’t imagine any of the other parties approving proportional representation. It’s not in their best interests.

And of course, if Duceppe has his way, then Quebec won’t be in Canada in time for the next federal election. And to think that in 8 ridings, the Conservatives stole enough Liberal votes to elect Bloc MPs. *Sigh*.

Update: The combined Liberal-NDP total is now down to 155 predicted seats. However it ends up, it’s going to be close.