But only a little bit. And only because her campaign is being criticized from within. As I noted in a recent post, Ontario NDP leader Andrea’s Horwath’s hubris following what almost everyone else would call a failed Ontario election campaign has been both unseemly and wholly unjustified. She initially avowed
Continue readingTag: Ontario NDP
Politics and its Discontents: Andrea Horwath: Her Smugness Takes A Hit
The other day, while watching some reactions to the Ontario Throne Speech, I couldn’t help but note a truculent and smug Andrea Horwath, the leader of an NDP party now diminished by her foolish decision not to support a progressive budget, thereby triggering an election that few wanted. She opined
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Blame Game
The fact that I experienced physical and verbal abuse at the hands of my teachers during my Catholic education probably has a lot to do with my visceral response to arrogance. Having someone presume to sit in judgement on another is both a humiliating and ultimately enraging experience, one that
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Wynne’s Win, and the Agony of Right-Wing Pundits
Three election opportunities lost, Nova Scotia, BC and now the Ontario results flatten the calculating NDP strategists decision to force an election and shift to the so called middle. Here is Murray Dobbin’s assessment as carried in the Tyee Bad voters! You failed to opt for communal suicide. By Murray
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: I can’t blame the NDP for the election call
Despite being a nonpartisan lefty, during the campaign I wasn’t particularly kind to the NDP. I derided the choice to call an election as a gamble that risked either a fairly horrible outcome (Hudak forming government), or a relatively small loss (slightly less influence within a majority Liberal government) for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links – #VoteOn Edition
This and that for your Thursday (and Ontario election day) reading… – Joseph Heath makes the case against Tim Hudak’s PCs in particular, and the shift from public to private goods in general: (I)t’s fairly clear what the PCs are planning. They are proposing a general shift in Ontario away
Continue readingOntario Election: Evaluating Voter Engagement In My Riding Of Parkdale-High Park
Obviously some of the onus is on voters to research candidates, platforms, and issues, and to think for themselves about who and what they want to cast their ballot for. That being said, the opportunity to engage with a candidate one-on-one can have a tremendous impact on voter intention –
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The effect on strategic voting of Wynne ruling out a coalition
Unfortunately, for those of us who think that some form of Liberal-NDP election deal or coalition would be vastly superior to the PCs forming a government with the largest minority, Kathleen Wynne has said that she won’t form a coalition with the NDP. Unsurprisingly, as this move changes the possible
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The NDP email on "strategic voting" is largely nonsense
The NDP has sent several emails to supporters before and during the campaign premised on the idea that the best way to stop the Conservatives is to vote for the NDP. Here is the latest: “This election, there is one simple trick you can use to stop a Conservative majority:
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Tiny Alberta Progressive Parties need to get their act together
TweetWhat do the Alberta Liberals, New Democrats, Alberta Party and Green Party have in common? None of these parties will form government after the next election. As Albertans prepare for another electoral showdown between two conservative parties – the long-governing Progressive Conservatives and the opposition Wildrose Party – many non-conservative voters
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: 2014 Ontario Election: Much to lose, little to gain for the NDP
I once wrote about what I called the “n-party problem”, how movements of various parties on a political spectrum is much more complicated when n, the number of political parties, is greater than two, analogous to the complicated orbits of n-body solar systems for n greater than two. The positioning
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: UPDATED: Gerald Caplan’s Lament
The NDP exists for a reason: to express certain principles and to represent certain voters. Today it is not easy to say what the Ontario party’s principles are or for whom it speaks. This lament, which Gerald Caplan places near the beginning of his open letter to Ontario NDP leader
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The best case view of the NDP platform
NDP candidate Rosario Marchese cuts through a lot of spin to defend a frank and real representation of the NDP’s platform. In my previous post, I was fairly harsh towards the NDP plan – both as a set of policies and the larger strategies. I wanted to share his post
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The Ontario NDP’s small plan isn’t even good strategy
Shortly after the 2014 Ontario Election was called, I said that progressives – whether nonpartisans like myself or NDP supporters like some of you – should take yes for an answer, and vote to reward Kathleen Wynne’s relatively left leaning and progressive budget. Andrea Horwath’s big chance to change my
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Following Politics Too Closely Takes Its Toll
I imagine that many people who follow politics closely do so in the belief that it is one of the few arenas that offers the possibility of change on a wide scale. Enlightened public policy, backed by the appropriate fiscal measures, can help bring about greater social and economic equity,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Ontario NDP: The Party of No Damn Principles?
That is the conclusion Rick Salutin recently came to in a column entitled Andrea Horwath’s right-wing populism. Describing her as a right-wing populist, full out, Salutin explored the framework within which this unpleasant and inconvenient truth emerges: She’s Rob Ford, thinking always about saving taxpayers money simplistically by cutting waste
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Taking the HST off hydro is bad policy, if good politics
One of the signature campaign planks for the NDP in the 2014 Ontario Election is to remove the HST from our hydro bills, saving perhaps $120 a year for average families. The motivation behind this – reducing the cost to average families – is reasonable and will undoubtedly be a
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: While Wynne goes to the left, Hudak dives hard right
You might have thought that Tim Hudak would have learned his lesson after his disastrous and short lived attempt to push his party towards US style union busting: going hard right in Ontario isn’t a winning strategy. Well, he is at it again with the first two major campaign announcement
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Is Andrea Horwath for real?
That’s what the new Kathleen Wynne ad asks Ontarians after Horwath said NO to an increased child benefit, an Ontario Pension Plan, better transit, and a new job creation strategy for Ontario. I’m really digging the “I’m Kathleen Wynne and I stand behind this message” tag the Premier has been
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Is Andrea Horwath for real?
That’s what the new Kathleen Wynne ad asks Ontarians after Horwath said NO to an increased child benefit, an Ontario Pension Plan, better transit, and a new job creation strategy for Ontario. I’m really digging the “I’m Kathleen Wynne and I stand behind this message” tag the Premier has been
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