This is one of the most important elections in our history and from a progressive standpoint it has one overriding objective—rid the country of Stephen Harper. I was, therefore, in light of this new NDP campaign, wondering if my party had lost sight of the goal.
I recognize that as the campaign has progressed, Trudeau has improved his image, Mulcair not so much. No doubt the NDP wants to ensure that, regardless of the outcome, they don't end up playing second fiddle to the Liberals. I understand that but first things first. First defeat Harper, then quarrel over the spoils. If the Dippers feel a need to improve the image of their leader, they should work on that, not on undermining an ally in the greater cause.
In the end I did mail my donation but not, I admit, without being tempted to redirect it to the Liberals.
Thanks for this, Bill. As a Green supporter, when I say it I get the stink eye treatment from New Dems.
ReplyDeleteThis is what Layton did to Martin and Ignatieff in succession, aiding Harper's rise to power and then his majority. Now Mulcair is delivering the goods for Harper.
It was bad enough when Layton did it but quite another when dished out by a Thatcherite, Likudnik, free market fundamentalist, ex-Liberal at the NDP helm.
Paul Wells wrote a thing on St. Justin getting "revenge" on the NDP with attacks that associate Mulcair with Harper:
ReplyDeleteHe began with a truncated version of his standard campaign stump speech: After 10 years in power, Stephen Harper is “out of touch with Canadians” and “won’t help Canada’s middle class in any meaningful way.” And if Harper “won’t help,” then the NDP’s Tom Mulcair “can’t help, because he’s signed on to Stephen Harper’s budget.” This was a reference to Mulcair’s insistence that he will run balanced budgets if elected. The vow has severely constrained the NDP leader’s ambition, because Harper has taken care to leave very little taxpayer money in the kitty in case of defeat.
Trudeau, on the other hand, is promising a series of “modest” $10-billion deficits. It gives him room to make more extravagant promises, as he is careful to remind crowds at every stop. “Canadians need help now,” he said, “not two or three elections from now. We’ll start by making the most significant investment in infrastructure in Canadian history.”
Trudeau takes great pleasure in depicting his opponents as interchangeable. “Harper and Mulcair want to keep sending cheques to millionaires,” he said. “We have different priorities. We will use that money to lift 315,000 kids out of poverty.”
There is a measure of revenge in Trudeau’s habit of painting the Conservatives and NDP as birds of a feather. For a decade, under Harper and Jack Layton, the two parties executed a squeeze play on the Liberals, gaining support at every election from 2004 to 2011, while the Liberals lost, in instalments, about 80 per cent of the ridings they held when Chrétien was the party’s leader.
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeau-ready-or-not/
BTW, Canada is a little aristocracy. Here editors and journalists feel their job is not to uphold fourth-estate principles but to meddle in election outcomes. The CBC is far from innocent.
ReplyDeleteTrying to portray the NDP as the party of attacks is a message sent at a center-left voters who think that when opposition parties attack/criticize one another that helps Harper. (I have to wonder if it does. If Trudeau attacks Mulcair will that cause a potential NDP voter to vote for Harper? If Mulcair attacks Harper will it cause a potential Liberal voter to vote Harper? I don't see how.)
So if this story is agenda-driven, it's purpose is to get non-Harper voters to back the Liberal horse to defeat Harper.
But here's a story much more obvious in its agenda: "'Liberals in a hurry'? That's Trudeau, not Mulcair's NDP".
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-chris-hall-liberals-ndp-1.3225365
So according to CBC editors, what the NDP has been fighting for over the past 80 years, Justin Trudeau is now bringing to Canada! He has turned the Liberal party into the true party of the Left: the real NDP!
As a centrist liberal, this has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. I was a Trudeau supporter until I heard him talk about the economy and hire on market fundamentalists like Kevin Milligan as economic advisers. He is the most right-wing Liberal leader yet. More low-tax small-government bullshit.
The "Liberal is the true party of the left" was the meme that got Kathleen Wynne a fake majority on 38% of the vote in ON recently. First thing she did when she got absolute corrupt power? Privatize the electricity system out of the blue. Gave the CEO a bump in pay from $500k to $4-million. Can't wait to see what Crown Corporations Justin sells off for the good of the nation!
When are the Liberals going to stop attacking the NDP?
ReplyDeleteWhen are the Liberals going to stop supporting Conservative policies?