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Author Topic: Gilles Bisson to run for NDP Leadership
Booker
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posted 28 August 2008 04:41 PM      Profile for Booker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Gilles Bisson became the second candidate in the Ontario NDP Leadership race today.

His Web site is here

What do folks think?


From: Stouffville | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 28 August 2008 04:55 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
During this campaign I will outline the changes that I think are essential for building a culture of success.

quote:
I believe that our party must take economic issues as seriously as we have taken social issues.

quote:
voters want to be assured that the NDP will take economic policies just as seriously.

quote:
we can't preserve and build good social programs without a strong economy and sound fiscal policy.

What a joke. Why not just say:

quote:
The real leaders of our society - the filthy rich and powerful business leaders - say we're too socialistic. We have to prove them wrong. We can balance a budget with the best of 'em. Above all, we need to win win win win win! Like Bob Rae did!!

Will these people never learn?

What a farce.

[ 28 August 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 28 August 2008 05:12 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not again
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 28 August 2008 05:13 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
Not again

My sentiments exactly.

Is there anyone in the Ontario NDP that can talk in a way that workers can understand and identify with?


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Fidel
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posted 28 August 2008 05:47 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If workers in Ontario don't start paying attention to the economy falling down around their ears under McGuinty's Liberals, there won't be a much of a working class left in Ontario.

We have to get rid of this 22 percent tin pot in Toronto. Any ONDP MPP is worth one-hundred McGuinty's.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 28 August 2008 05:54 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
Any ONDP MPP is worth one-hundred McGuinty's.

So, Bob Rae's crime was that he paid too much attention to social issues like medicare and education and seniors and poor people, and not enough to attracting investment and balancing the budget.

Talk about learning the lessons of history.

Is this, like, some gigantic joke that everyone is in on except me?


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Fidel
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posted 28 August 2008 06:04 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

So, Bob Rae's crime was that he paid too much attention to social issues like medicare and education and seniors and poor people, and not enough to attracting investment and balancing the budget.


The NDP wasn't all Bob Rae then. Conditions in Ontario at the start of the 90's was a the result of 42 consecutive years of conservative rule in this province. Over four decades, conservatives racked up nearly a billion dollars a year in provincial debt through some of the best cold war era growth this province has ever known. Conservatives had everything going for them while feeding at the troff.

And then Mulroney led the entire country into economic spiral with his second-hand neoliberal economic policies. Federal Liberals were the same. Both old line parties are fiscal Frankensteins federally and provincially. The NDP has tried to advise them on how to run a semi-capitalist economy properly, but our stoogeocrats refuse to listen. Meanwhile the two big money parties are able to cling to 22 percent and 23 percent phony-majority rule and long-time greying base for support. Time is not on their side.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 28 August 2008 06:09 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Anyway, if Gilles Bisson's message is that the NDP has emphasized social issues to the detriment of economic ones, and the balance has to be rectified, I must question who he is talking to.

What he's saying is clear: more investment and balanced budgets - maybe lower taxes (he mentions "fiscal policy" - that rarely means tax hikes!). What's not clear is what makes him NDP.

[ 28 August 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]


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Mercy
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posted 28 August 2008 06:24 PM      Profile for Mercy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'd kind of assumed Bisson was an economic populist. Who knows where he's going with this - not a whole heck of a lot of content.

Bisson seems like a nice enough guy but I don't see his campaign going too far.


From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 28 August 2008 06:26 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

What he's saying is clear: more investment and balanced budgets - maybe lower taxes (he mentions "fiscal policy" - that rarely means tax hikes!). What's not clear is what makes him NDP.

[ 28 August 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]


Provincial NDP governments could, at one time, afford to be Keynesian with economic approaches. At one time, corporations paid higher tax rates coinciding with 5,6, and 7 percent cold war expansion years. Those were times when Ontario also had the electrical power capacity to drive industrial expansion. Capitalists and their political mouthpieces promised middle class prosperity here as well as to the rest of the world. They told colossal lies for the sake of a cold war leading up to the end of seven decades of Soviet communism.

That was old world economy, before the lies came home to roost. Things are different now in several important ways affecting provincial powers, as well as Queen's Parks abililty to pursue Keynesian policies. And it's high time there was a change in Ottawa after 14 decades of old line party rule and monopolizing federal purse strings.

McGuinty is torn between whether to pursue Keynesian policies or not. In the first four years he refused to tax those most able to pay and still refuses to for the most part. With the private sector continuing to abandon Ontario in droves and citing highest in the country commercial power rates to dilapidated infrastructure to an uncompetitive tax regime - McGuinty is now on a public sector hiring spree. It's almost like Pinochet 1985 all over again after that particularly despicable dictator also came to the realization that neoliberal policies don't work worth a shit.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Wilf Day
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posted 28 August 2008 06:29 PM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
Anyway, if Gilles Bisson's message is that the NDP has emphasized social issues to the detriment of economic ones, and the balance has to be rectified, I must question who he is talking to.

I'm not certain either. But his previous comments in the past two months sounded more like an appeal to the northern/labour/slightly left-of-centre-of-the-party base that Hampton appealed to, and not to the Toronto-chic social-issue types.

Wait and see?


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Fidel
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posted 28 August 2008 06:34 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yes, wait and see already. Let him get off starting blocks before seeing how he plans to operate in a phone booth fiscal environment since that infamous 1995 federal Liberal budget.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
TCD
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posted 28 August 2008 07:57 PM      Profile for TCD     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't think Gilles biggest problem will be that he's economically conservative - assuming he is.

It's that he's been around since Bob Rae was Premier and doesn't bring anything new to the table.


From: Toronto | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 28 August 2008 08:16 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And there likely won't be anything new in provincial economics until old line party thought in Ottawa is hauled out to the curb like it was spring cleanup. And to be fair to McGuinty, a 22 percenter in Toronto now feeling betrayed by his own economic advisors and friends in industry, provincial governments in Canada have relatively little control over the economy. They can tweak taxes, but aside from that the real purse strings are in Ottawa. Capitalists invest in countries where infrastructure is up to date - worforce is well-educated, healthy and capable of producing - and perhaps endowed with an abundance of energy and raw materials. And our stoogeocrats couldn't run a semi-capitalist economy if their lives depended on it. We need the social democrats/NDP in Toronto and Ottawa if we want a modern economy with world class health care, public transportation, and a competitive overall economic environment to attract fickle capital. So far the two old line parties are both stuck in a 1990's time warp - and feeling a lot like the 1950's if we look at McGuinty's plan for a bottomless nuclear money pit.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 28 August 2008 08:21 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
We need the social democrats/NDP in Toronto and Ottawa if we want ... a competitive overall economic environment to attract fickle capital.

Yes, boss.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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posted 28 August 2008 09:24 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So, unionist's main objection seems to be that Bisson a) proposes the NDP should try to be electorally successful and b) if successful, should be prudent in managing the finances.

Heck, buddy. You'd'a hated that bastard Tommy Douglas.

Of course, it's much easier to advocate electoral marginalization and to snipe from the sidelines.


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Fidel
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posted 28 August 2008 09:45 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
unionist was on a roll until he mentioned the NDP balancing budgets with the "best of them" I can only assume he means other provincial NDP governments, because the two old line parties have been fiscal Frankensteins in that regard. It's the two old line parties which set the pace for fiscal restraint as policy emanating from Ottawa in 1991 and 1995, and now neither of them have been able to govern well enough by their own parties' federal constraints to win true majorities at either level. They are hamstrung tin pots with McGuilty propped up with 22 percent of the eligible and Harper with less than 24% since 2006. They are phony-baloney tin pots, pretenders to the throne. In Ontario we have a multibillion dollar infrastructure deficit - a lack of skilled workers - and good-paying, prosperity-driving skilled jobs bleeding from our largest provincial economy like it was 2003 still. The only party that makes any sense wrt: the economy, green energy and conservation, environment, and social spending is the ONDP.

[ 28 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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posted 29 August 2008 01:12 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

Is there anyone in the Ontario NDP that can talk in a way that workers can understand and identify with?

Workers identify with not getting yourself into too much debt, I assure you.

Being financially irresponsible and in so doing giving the bankers more pull over government is NOT progressive. It might sometimes be a necessary thing, but it's something to be avoided if possible.


From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 29 August 2008 01:35 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:

Workers identify with not getting yourself into too much debt, I assure you.


They also identify with having more money for household needs, but that doesn't mean they support salary hikes for CEOs. Family debt and government debt are likewise quite distinguishable in workers' minds.

quote:
Being financially irresponsible and in so doing giving the bankers more pull over government is NOT progressive.

But Gilles Bisson doesn't say, "I'll take from the rich and give to the poor", or "We'll make sure corporate profit is strictly controlled so that the fruit of production is ploughed back into social needs." He just says he'll pay attention to economic issues.

As if neo-cons don't?

It's all code, telling big business they have nothing to fear from an NDP government. It says nothing to workers.


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Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 01:49 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

As if neo-cons don't?

It's all code, telling big business they have nothing to fear from an NDP government. It says nothing to workers.


This current government says nothing to workers. It never said it would raise taxes and "user fees" on health care and essentially a continuance of the Harris agenda for waging war on the poorest and most lowly paid workers in Ontario. Largest numbers of children living anywhere below poverty line right here in Ontario. And Liberal B.C. owns the highest percentage of children living anywhere below loosely defined poverty in this country.

Because the two old line parties have deceived and waged war on workers in Ontario, can be interpreted to mean that that is what the two old line parties do once elected by phony-baloney majorities to Queen's Park.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 29 August 2008 02:38 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So Fidel, are you supporting Bisson for the leadership?
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Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 03:00 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Like most NDP'ers, I haven't decided yet. I think Gilles has fought like a lion for his riding and for injured workers across Ontario. Although the NDP lost the 95 election, MPP's like Bisson won lasting new support for the party in the North. After 42 years of neglect under conservative rule, parts of this province subsisting in thirdworld conditions received money for safe drinking water projects and provincial loan guarantees for suistainable communities for the first time under Rae's NDP. Many Northerners remember Ontario's first NDP government in a positive way.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
genstrike
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posted 29 August 2008 03:06 PM      Profile for genstrike   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

Because the two old line parties have deceived and waged war on workers in Ontario

*cough cough* Social Contract *cough* back to work legislation for TTC workers *cough*

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: genstrike ]


From: winnipeg | Registered: May 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 03:19 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
ha! cough-cough FTA-NAFTA-GST flip-flops federally cough-cough a most despicable 1995 federal Liberal budget setting the bar lower for years to come "cough-cough" - worst aggregate economic performance of 40 industrialized economies for the decade of the 90's cough-cough - some of the worst child poverty rates among richest nations still cough-cough - hundreds of thousands of living wage manufacturing and wood industry jobs lost, net-outmigration for Ontario since 2003 on McGuinty's watch cough-cough
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
genstrike
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posted 29 August 2008 03:34 PM      Profile for genstrike   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, I wasn't really disagreeing with your point about the Liberals and Conservatives, I just think that your number of old line parties is off by one
From: winnipeg | Registered: May 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 03:38 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
To qualify as an old line party in Canada, the party has to have held the reins of power in either Ottawa or a Canadian province for several decades out of the last century. Together, the two old line party autocracy has ruled Canada for about twice as long as the Soviets ruled the USSR, but still not as long as the Romanovs had a stranglehold on Russia. Whigs and Tories are working on it though.

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Lord Palmerston
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posted 29 August 2008 03:54 PM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Howard Hampton has said that people who served in the Rae government knew Rae was a Liberal all along, yet Hampton never objected to Rae's "Liberal" policies, nor did Gilles Bisson.
From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
genstrike
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posted 29 August 2008 04:22 PM      Profile for genstrike   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
To qualify as an old line party in Canada, the party has to have held the reins of power in either Ottawa or a Canadian province for several decades out of the last century. Together, the two old line party autocracy has ruled Canada for about twice as long as the Soviets ruled the USSR, but still not as long as the Romanovs had a stranglehold on Russia. Whigs and Tories are working on it though.

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


Well, the NDP has held power in Manitoba for almost 30 years and in Saskatchewan for at least 40. But my point was more to do with ideology than with time in power. Particularly as of late, sometimes when the NDP holds power and sometimes in opposition they act like the two old line parties (eg: Bob Rae, Gary Doer)


From: winnipeg | Registered: May 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 04:35 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Still only provincial strongholds, and the NDP is still the most fiscally responsible party according to a federal report I would add that the NDP is the most democratic party pushing for advanced democracy at the federal level. Our two old autocratic parties don't want to touch fair voting in Ottawa, because it would mean one Canadian equalling one vote. And the new and spooky ways do not bode well for the last three most western Anglo-American dollar democracies still clinging to far right political and economic agendas.

And Manitoba has the lowest cost of living of all Canadian provinces, too.

By the way, did you catch the Tommy Douglas Story on CBC? Tommy is Canada's greatest Canadian afterall. Apparently PET's Canadian supporters in that CBC contest should have voted strategically for Terry Fox.

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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posted 29 August 2008 04:59 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

But Gilles Bisson doesn't say, "I'll take from the rich and give to the poor", or "We'll make sure corporate profit is strictly controlled so that the fruit of production is ploughed back into social needs." He just says he'll pay attention to economic issues.


One thing worse than working for a corporation that's making money is working for a corporation that isn't. So announcing that you just taxed away people's employers' profits is not likely to be hailed as a great achievement. Profit is the fuel that makes everything else go in a capitalist economy and ignoring that is pretty suicidal. Like it or not, a social democratic government does have to "play nice" with business to some extent. If it's smart, it does so while building alternatives. The government of Ontario is a very small fish in a very large bowl, and doesn't get to set the basic rules of global political economy - any successful Ontario NDP leader has to understand that.


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genstrike
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posted 29 August 2008 05:45 PM      Profile for genstrike   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

And Manitoba has the lowest cost of living of all Canadian provinces, too.

By the way, did you catch the Tommy Douglas Story on CBC? Tommy is Canada's greatest Canadian afterall. Apparently PET's Canadian supporters in that CBC contest should have voted strategically for Terry Fox.

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


I would question exactly how much of our low cost of living has to do with Doer's policies. A lot of it probably has to do with the relatively low housing prices in Winnipeg compared to big cities like Toronto. Although that comes at a cost too, as some of the development on cheap prairie land is really contributing to urban sprawl in Winnipeg.

You can say what you will about the cost of living here, but there are a whole lot of issues that Doer is either not doing to well on or failing miserably on from any sort of progressive or social democratic standpoint (eg: when the Chamber of Commerce has to call for an increase in welfare rates). And yet, all the time I see people who hate everything he stands for rush to defend him from any criticism. I've seen people organize against his policies one week then promote them the next.

Are you referring to Prairie Giant? I did see it, and I thought it was pretty inspiring. Unfortunately, I can't see Gary Doer, Bob Rae, nor a lot of NDP politicians these days playing the part of Tommy Douglas.

Hmmmm... perhaps we are getting a little off topic here? Anyways, the main point I was trying to get across in the last three posts was that the NDP isn't always perfect and sometimes isn't even very good, and we shouldn't be ignoring the things NDP governments do when we would slam other parties for doing the exact same thing.


From: winnipeg | Registered: May 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 06:03 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by genstrike:


Are you referring to Prairie Giant? I did see it, and I thought it was pretty inspiring. Unfortunately, I can't see Gary Doer, Bob Rae, nor a lot of NDP politicians these days playing the part of Tommy Douglas.


I can't see it happening at the provincial level either. Not since Brian Mulroney privatized the remainder of money creation and credit in 1991 in order to bail out big banks since deregulation began in that sector. And not since the infamous federal Liberal budget of 1995 cut provincial tranfers by several billion dollars and downloaded billions of dollars more in program spending to the provinces. Tommy would be in tough today. He'd probably run for federal election in order to make the changes needed to run this country properly. We've had two fiscal Frankenstein parties running the show and signing the stupidest trade deals in the history of the world since Tommy's time in the sun.

Since becoming a weird experiment in neoliberal voodoo, the two old line parties have tried to hide a $130 billion dollar infrastructure deficit, doctor shortages, skilled labour shortages, hundreds of thousands of living wage jobs hemorrhaging from our largest provincial economies, no plan to meet our Kyoto obligations to the rest of the world, and some of the worst child poverty rates in the developed world. Canada is the second-largest country in the world with unparalleled natural resource wealth goin' south 24-7, and our two fiscally irresponsible old line parties couldn't run a lemonade stand if their lives depended on it. Instead, they'd hand the business over to Americans to loot and necessitate declaring chapter bankruptcy at some point later for taxpayers to absorb losses and non-payment of income taxes on profits siphoned off to America.

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 29 August 2008 07:14 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:

The government of Ontario is a very small fish in a very large bowl, and doesn't get to set the basic rules of global political economy - any successful Ontario NDP leader has to understand that.

So far, they all seem to - so no worries, Doug.

Not sure how you define "successful", though...


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 07:28 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Like Nordic country economic competitiveness and social democracy combined.

As long as we have Whigs and Tories running the show, we can't get there from here.

Feel free to parse and disseminate anything you want from that, unionist

eta: Scuse while I go throw out all my lunch meat

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 29 August 2008 07:38 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So Fidel, which NDP premier went down to defeat because he overemphasized social programs to the detriment of the economy?

Or have they all been anti-Keynesian neo-liberals?

If Bisson can't fight the global economic juggernaut, why is he running for the leadership? Looking for graft? Fill his pockets?

I'm amazed at the cynicism which declares, in advance, that the NDP will accomplish nothing of any great substance, even if elected. It may be true - but what really gets me is the pride with which this is proclaimed.


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Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 07:53 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The 1990 result wasn't supposed to happen, but cocky Liberals called an election. Neither Whigs or Tories dared mention the phony-baloney majority won by the NDP, and we know why that was.

A 22 percenter in Toronto. No more prosperous cold war economies to prop them up, only kick-back and graft

Neither stooge party won 24 percent of the eligible federally

This is where we're at after far too many years of Whig-Tory monopoly on power and purse strings in Ottawa. They need cleaning out like so much mold and mildew. They were fresh out of new ideas long ago

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 07:57 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
So Fidel, which NDP premier went down to defeat because he overemphasized social programs to the detriment of the economy?

Or have they all been anti-Keynesian neo-liberals?


How would you go about implementing Keynesian policies provincially since Mulroney and Chretien?

It took Floy Laughren about a year to figure out just how bad the previous Liberal budget deficit was $2-$3 billion

Then Mulroney slashed transfers to Ontario by $4 billion. He led the country into one of the worst recessions since the 1930's

The NDP actually spent money in places that never saw money before, like Northern Ontario in a state of neglect after 42 glorious years of conservative rule

Rae's NDP left Ontario with the country's highest minimum wage and anti-scab legislation in place.

Over to you, smart guy.

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 29 August 2008 08:02 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

How would you go about implementing Keynesian policies provincially since Mulroney and Chretien?

Over to you, smart guy.


So these characters who run for NDP leader are promising what, exactly, when they win? Or are they just fooling people?


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 08:15 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

So these characters who run for NDP leader are promising what, exactly, when they win? Or are they just fooling people?


No-no, you began hinting at how the NDP are neoliberalizing neocons abandoning any and all paths to Keynesian economics in favour of Whig-Tory style kick-back and graft. Although I'm not sure why that is - none of Dalton Camp, Bill Vanderscam, Grant Devine's jailbirds, lyin Brian or the Libranos ever purported to be social democrats.

So given that 1989, 1991, 1993, and 1995 were key dates for sweeping changes to our political economy and how Ottawa funds provinces in general, how would you go about implementing Keynesian policies in Ontario or any other province, unionist? Can't wait to read your answer.

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 29 August 2008 08:27 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

No-no, you began hinting at how the NDP are neoliberalizing neocons abandoning any and all paths to Keynesian economics in favour of Whig-Tory style kick-back and graft.


Wrong. You and Doug (and others) are the ones saying no little-fish provincial government can do anything in the big global capitalist pond. You are the one, and you don't even seem to get it.

quote:
So given that 1989, 1991, 1993, and 1995 were key dates for sweeping changes to our political economy and how Ottawa funds provinces in general, how would you go about implementing Keynesian policies in Ontario or any other province, unionist?

And there you go - you've said it again! Keynesian policies are impossible! So naturally, the only think left to do is promise to manage the economy even more prudently than the spendthrift Liberals!


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Coyote
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posted 29 August 2008 08:35 PM      Profile for Coyote   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Fiscal prudence does not exclude keynsian economics or a mixed economy - as successive BC, Sask., and Man. NDP gov'ts have proven that; as well as PQ gov'ts in Quebec. But the lack of fiscal prudence places social democratic parties at the bottom of voters' lists.

I don't believe any of these social democratic governments have been given any near the credit they deserve for holding onto state enterprises against the general onslaught of neo-liberalism, nor for the important social spending they have done.

But in order to govern and be in a place to implement any kind of progressive agenda, social democratic parties need to inocculate themselves against the criticism that we cannot handle the books. It doesn't MATTER if it isn't true. It's the perception. You can damn the perception and not address it (and lose), or confront the perception by showing what you will do in terms of fiscal prudence and put yourself in the running.

I know what I prefer.


From: O’ for a good life, we just might have to weaken. | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 29 August 2008 08:45 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Fine, Coyote. So go back and read Bisson's texts and tell me what he is saying. I don't get it. What is a "strong economy" and "sound fiscal policy"? How is that synonymous (in what you call perception terms) with being careful with money?

The code I read is very different.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 08:45 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
Wrong. You and Doug (and others) are the ones saying no little-fish provincial government can do anything in the big global capitalist pond. You are the one, and you don't even seem to get it.

Yes, without natural deposits of oil and gas, no one wants to play free trade spin the bottle kissy-kiss us in the dark with Ontario. The Yanks tell us to shove our lumber, and Pinocchio in Toronto hands American competitors Northern Ontario's advantage with highest in the country power rates.

Pinocchio McGuinty broke over 55 election promises between 2003 and 2007, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because he won 22 percent of the eligible vote, 66% of legislature seats, and 100% of power in Toronto. Ontarians will forget what Pinocchio even looks like come next election. The kiddies will remember though having seen dozens of colour sketches of our absent Liberal leader in bedtime story books.

quote:
And there you go - you've said it again! Keynesian policies are impossible! So naturally, the only think left to do is promise to manage the economy even more prudently than the spendthrift Liberals!

Exactly the point I've been trying to make here. And thanks for reminding me by the way. But I think it's more like creating an environment for the semi-capitalist economy to be able to thrive and attract marauding capital from abroad, I mean, make it worthwhile to build a manufacturing plant here or start a new business. When it comes down to it, Ontario is said to be the cheapest place in this hemisphere to do those things. So why are we hemorrhaging jobs? The NDP told McGuinty to forget about the jobs we've lost - concentrate on keeping the ones we have using what little power he does have - tax incentives, namely manufacturing tax incentives for investing in new mills and modern equipment, a regional power pricing scheme to offset higher operating costs for energy intensive northern mills and mines. No can do, says Pinocchio. So there he goes on his public sector hiring spree but doing little else that's positive for the future of this province. And I don't lay all the blame on McGuinty, he's been hard done by Ottawa at the same time.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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posted 29 August 2008 08:57 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by genstrike:
[QB]

Are you referring to Prairie Giant? I did see it, and I thought it was pretty inspiring. Unfortunately, I can't see Gary Doer, Bob Rae, nor a lot of NDP politicians these days playing the part of Tommy Douglas.

QB]



I'm always amused by the hard left's capacity to lionize Tommy Douglas while spitting on his legacy. Fiscal prudence. Incremental approach to implementing progressive policies. Focus on electoral success.

Don't know why you guys pretend to respect Douglas. If you'd been around when he was alive, you'd have hated him and called him a sellout.


From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Coyote
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posted 29 August 2008 09:00 PM      Profile for Coyote   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
Fine, Coyote. So go back and read Bisson's texts and tell me what he is saying. I don't get it. What is a "strong economy" and "sound fiscal policy"? How is that synonymous (in what you call perception terms) with being careful with money?

The code I read is very different.


Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't agree with what I interpret him as saying, and I'm not being snarky. You're a socialist to the core and I admire your dedication to that cause. I think it's entirely proper that you don't support the NDP in the same way I do as a moderate social democrat.

Tommy Douglas preached fiscal responsibility from day one. He brought in balanced budgets, and he paid down debt. He even sold off crown corporations that he had created when he thought the tax revenues it would bring was a better investment for Saskatchewan than holding to the principle of state ownership.

This is broadly the direction I think Bisson is going. A "strong economy" is one that creates jobs, in my view.

In point of fact, I think one of Rae's least fiscally prudent moves was backing down on nationalizing auto insurance; it could have been done, it should have been done, and it would have proved succesful in Ontario as it has throughout Canada where implemented.


From: O’ for a good life, we just might have to weaken. | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
Coyote
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posted 29 August 2008 09:02 PM      Profile for Coyote   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
p.s. this coyote's tuckered and heading off to bed.
From: O’ for a good life, we just might have to weaken. | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 29 August 2008 09:16 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Coyote:

But in order to govern and be in a place to implement any kind of progressive agenda, social democratic parties need to inocculate themselves against the criticism that we cannot handle the books. It doesn't MATTER if it isn't true. It's the perception. You can damn the perception and not address it (and lose), or confront the perception by showing what you will do in terms of fiscal prudence and put yourself in the running.

That's what Rae and Laughren had to ponder in 90-91. Ontario was a conservative party stronghold for 42 years at that point - and 50 since Harris. A large minority of voting Ontarians still think Rae's NDP were fiscally irresponsible with ringing up the debt. What they don't realize is that Rae's NDP was the first government in Ontario history to actually reduce year-to-year spending to deal with the recession and lack of tax revenue. Before Rae and Petersen sky was the limit because provincial txfers had only increased during the cold war years. Mulroney's-Chretien's sweeping neoliberal reforms changed the big picture for provincial governments thereafter.

According to the babbler known as Skdadl, JK Galbraith met with the new ONDP government and advised them on Keynesian economics and not to fear the dreaded budget deficit, which as already committed by the previous Liberal government thrown out of Toronto for the NDP. And let's not forget the positive things the NDP did achieve, but they apparently chose fiscal prudence over fighting a nation-wide recession. Laughren did hand some business to Bay Street for financing the NDP's projects, unlike spendaholics Harris and Eves later who borrowed $35 billion from foreign sources to finance tax cuts to their rich friends and left us holding the bag with $5 billion annual budget deficit during what as an improving economic environment nation-wide. Essentially Clinton's people started the North American recovery while our federal Liberals were still busy fending off Denis Dessaultel's requests for them to stop cooking federal accounting books.

Foreign ownership of Canadian corporations and crowns and crown assets has increased since 1985, and perhaps not to unprecedented levels since the 1970's, but it's the number of key sectors majority foreign-owned and controlled and, last thing I'd read about it, were taking advantage of transfer pricing to avoid paying Canadian taxes. Corporate tax revenues have fallen as a percentage of total tax revs. In 1970, corporate taxes were something like 80% of total tax revenues while individual taxation was 20%. Today those percentages are reversed and ability to fund social programs having taken a beating. We need more scrutiny on foreign ownership and control of energy and raw materials - the one-time hard currency generating sectors of prairie provincial economies. And I think marauding capital doesn't have to rule Ottawa's decision making. Layton did a PhD thesis on international capital flows, and I think he's a good man to have in Ottawa. We need fresh ideas or there won't be any country left to divvy up and transform into a right-wing libertarian model for decentralized power and resource exporting provinces run by crooked governments. Because it will already have happened at that point. Are we there at that point now? Moving right along unless Canadians suddenly become interested enough in voting again.

[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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posted 30 August 2008 11:24 AM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

Not sure how you define "successful", though...

Successful in two ways - getting elected (and re-elected) and making a difference for people. The second requires the first.


From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 30 August 2008 11:36 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:

Successful in two ways - getting elected (and re-elected) and making a difference for people. The second requires the first.


The second only requires the first if you stick to your principles. Otherwise getting elected makes no difference to people, except disillusionment.

I'm sure you would give a little credit to the CCF/NDP for universal health care and pensions and unemployment insurance etc. Yet the Libs or Cons were in power federally every step of the way. That shows what "making a difference for people" really means. Such differences aren't always apparent in the last few terms of NDP governments in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

That's why I pay lots of attention to what a person says before s/he is elected. It is so damned rare to see someone campaign from the right and govern from the left, isn't it?


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 30 August 2008 11:47 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

I'm sure you would give a little credit to the CCF/NDP for universal health care and pensions and unemployment insurance etc. Yet the Libs or Cons were in power federally every step of the way.

Pearson had no choice but to implement most of the CCF's plan for medicare nation wide. If he didn't, someone else would have done it for him.

Liberals have tended to campaign on the left and govern paternalistically on the right since Trudeau's last years. And this is why they won a little over 23% of the eligible vote in 2006.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
cornerstone
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posted 30 August 2008 12:10 PM      Profile for cornerstone     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

Pearson had no choice but to implement most of the CCF's plan for medicare nation wide. If he didn't, someone else would have done it for him.

Liberals have tended to campaign on the left and govern paternalistically on the right since Trudeau's last years. And this is why they won a little over 23% of the eligible vote in 2006.


Tories got 36% Libs got 30% and the NDP got 17.5%

I don't know where you're getting your numbers from.


From: in time and space | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 30 August 2008 12:17 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm saying that was the actual-rough percentage of registered Canadian voters who voted Liberal in 2006. Neither of the two old line stooge parties won 24% of the eligible.

Federal Liberals won the phoniest majority in 1997. Brian Mulroney won the most exaggerated majority in 1984.

Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberals won 22% of the eligible vote, 66% of legislature seats, and 100% of power in 2007.

Most of Canada's international peers adopted proportional democracy between 50 and 100 years ago. http://FairVoteCanada.org

[ 30 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
cornerstone
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posted 30 August 2008 12:46 PM      Profile for cornerstone     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not voting is a choice and should not be dismissed.

If all you want is to increase voter turn out introduce a fine like they do in Australia or deny government services like they can in Brazil. Voting is a right and some people like Jehova's Witnesses exercise their right not to vote.

PR is not a magic bullet and it introduces a whole raft of new problems from weak governments that are at the mercy of fringe parties to politicians who are further distanced from the electorate as they are just names on a list.

Now that's what I call a thread drift.


From: in time and space | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 30 August 2008 12:53 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Chretien promised electoral reform to a crowd of Winnipeg voters years ago leading up to an election. Once elected, that promise to fix Canada's democratic deficit dropped off the Liberal agenda like Gomery charges rolling off teflon-coated Librano cabinet ministers. It's the democracy gap, and our two old line parties across Canada count their lucky stars today for a British institution invented before electricity.End of major Thread Drift

[ 30 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
cornerstone
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posted 30 August 2008 02:02 PM      Profile for cornerstone     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
wow a politician not keeping his/her vague promise

knock it off with the Librano crap it is insulting to those of us with Italian blood. It's bad enough how the media portrays Italians in film and TV so I don't need any of that crap from a progressive board like this.


From: in time and space | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged
Lord Palmerston
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posted 30 August 2008 02:13 PM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
It is so damned rare to see someone campaign from the right and govern from the left, isn't it?

Yet that doesn't stop Moveon.org, etc. from uncritically backing Obama.


From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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posted 30 August 2008 02:19 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
[QB]

That's what Rae and Laughren had to ponder in 90-91. Ontario was a conservative party stronghold for 42 years at that point - and 50 since Harris. A large minority of voting Ontarians still think Rae's NDP were fiscally irresponsible with ringing up the debt. What they don't realize is that Rae's NDP was the first government in Ontario history to actually reduce year-to-year spending to deal with the recession and lack of tax revenue.


Trouble was, that was after two years of doing the opposite to no discernable effect. Not surprising, because whatever the province provided in terms of economic stimulus, the federal governement and Bank of Canada took away, and more. It ended up being counterproductive.


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Fidel
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posted 30 August 2008 02:36 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
CCPA economist Marc Lee on Ontario's first NDP government. Not sure if he mentions Mulroney cutting $4 billion from transfers to Ontario, or that Petersen's budget deficit was "unforseen" leading up to the 1990 election. Laughren put Ontario on track for balanced budgets, and they would have been balanced sooner had Harris and Eves not borrowed $35 billion at high interest rates to finance tax cuts for their wealthy friends. The economy was picking up steam by 1994.

quote:
Ontario’s deficits, which met with such hostility from corporate Ontario, actually made the recession less painful for Ontarians than it would otherwise have been. Those deficits pumped counter-cyclical dollars into the economy just when they were most needed. The deficit was 3.9 per cent of GDP in 1991/92, and 4.3 per cent in 1992/93, before falling to 3.8 per cent in 1993/94 and 3.2 per cent in 1994/95.

Just imagine how bad that recession would have been were those each balanced budgets. And once Ontario’s economy turned around, deficits shrank rather quickly


Saskatchewan's first CCF government found themselves in debt. A $15 million dollar "forgivable loan" to the previous Liberal government suddenly became due and payable to the feds. The CCF had a number of terms in government to fix the damage done to Saskatchewan though. Look at Ontario today, we're still in a mess after multiple terms with Tories and Liberals at the helm.

[ 30 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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posted 30 August 2008 09:34 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
[QB]

(Quoting Doug: Successful in two ways - getting elected (and re-elected) and making a difference for people. The second requires the first.)

The second only requires the first if you stick to your principles. Otherwise getting elected makes no difference to people, except disillusionment.

QB]


Bullshit, unionist.

The first (getting elected) is an absolute necessity. That's what you purists fail to grasp. Pissing, moaning, sniping and whinging - while doubtless personally gratifying though self-indulgent - accomplish exactly two-thirds of four-fifths of bugger all.

The foolish claim that since the CCF-NDP never held power federally proves that influence is sufficient ignores the most salient fact. Not a single damned one of those things would have been accomplished federally without Douglas winning elections in Saskatchewan.

The sole (arguable) exception to that is the pension concession that Woodsworth and Heap squeezed out of King in the 1920s. But how did they accomplish that? By winning enough seats to be able to force the issue.

Phony purists glorying in defeatism do exactly nothing to advance progressive ideas.


From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
genstrike
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posted 01 September 2008 08:07 AM      Profile for genstrike   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Malcolm French, APR:

Bullshit, unionist.

The first (getting elected) is an absolute necessity. That's what you purists fail to grasp. Pissing, moaning, sniping and whinging - while doubtless personally gratifying though self-indulgent - accomplish exactly two-thirds of four-fifths of bugger all.

Phony purists glorying in defeatism do exactly nothing to advance progressive ideas.


While getting elected is necessary, there is no point to getting elected if you're just going to act like the other parties when you do. In some areas where the NDP is strong, they have a strategy for winning elections. They move so far to the right that they squeeze the Liberals out and don't leave a lot of room for the Tories. Unfortunately, that results in these governments not accomplishing a heck of a lot.

And I'm not sure that taking a leftist stand is condemning a party to defeat. The right didn't get to where they are today by toning down what they are saying, they got there by saying stupid things until people started to believe them and voted Reagan in.


From: winnipeg | Registered: May 2008  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 01 September 2008 08:27 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Malcolm French, APR:

The first (getting elected) is an absolute necessity.

Yes, Malcolm, it is an absolute necessity. I just wanted to introduce a little balance by saying that it is possible to influence the course of history without forming the government, and that much is undeniable. I didn't say it was desirable. My central point was that you have to stick to your principles, otherwise why would anyone want to elect you?

I am absolutely 100% convinced that if the NDP took strong, well-argued, visionary, left-wing positions on many issues where it today waffles and wriggles wimpishly, it would win more votes, more seats, and more governments. Then, there would be no question as to what policies it would implement and which promises it would keep while in power.


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Fidel
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posted 01 September 2008 11:09 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

My central point was that you have to stick to your principles, otherwise why would anyone want to elect you?


The ONDP has stuck to its principles, imo. The problem is, Ontario voters couldn't be less interested in what goes on in Queen's Park after the manic 1990's came to an end and now this anemic economy with sky-high child poverty and homelessness under the Liberals. We have a dysfunctional electoral system and overall democratic deficit across the country. It's the democracy gap and a string of old line party governments that have flip-flopped and betrayed voters on time every time. Ontarians just don't believe in participating in our obsolete democracy, and it showed last year with the lowest voter turnout since the 1920's.

Imo, Ontario is in a transition phase. We've had a die-hard conservative and old line party support base for a long-long time. They're greying now and turning out to vote in fewer numbers as they pass into their golden years. The future belongs to the youth in Ontario. Old habits die hard, but they are going gently into that good night, jts.

[ 01 September 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
meades
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posted 01 September 2008 12:10 PM      Profile for meades     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There seems to be a lot of confusion about Bisson's politics in this thread. Part of that has to do with the messaging on the website, but Bisson has among the most solid leftist credentials when it comes to economic policy. He's a former organizer with the Steelworkers, and understands the significance of trade policy on manufacturing and extraction industries. After all, these trade policies and the erosion of labour rights have had their most detrimetal impact in Northern Ontario. This judgment is based off of discussions and speeches he's made at the NDP's Northern Council.

I don't doubt that he has the most solid class politics of any of the possible candidates. The question is whether people will write him off because they're not going to seek a second Northern leader in a row and because the upper crust finds his personality a bit abrasive.


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Lord Palmerston
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posted 01 September 2008 04:58 PM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Then again Bisson wasn't exactly a voice of dissent in the Rae govt.
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genstrike
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posted 01 September 2008 06:32 PM      Profile for genstrike   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If you read between the lines on his website he also seems to be trying to reassure Bay Street that he won't do anything that would piss them off too much.
From: winnipeg | Registered: May 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 01 September 2008 06:53 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by genstrike:
If you read between the lines on his website he also seems to be trying to reassure Bay Street that he won't do anything that would piss them off too much.

And we don't wanna upset those guys with Ontario's economy on its proverbial knees like it is while big energy friends of the two old line parties transform Alberta into a toxic waste dump. They might hold a Canadian Club meeting of fat cats to decide interest rates need cranking up to level off price inflation emanating from Oilberta and throttling economies across the rest of the country simultaneously. It's a good thing we have the two old line parties in power and sharing power in Ottawa for twice as long as the Soviets ruled that part of the world, fer-sure fer-sure.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
RedRover
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posted 01 September 2008 10:30 PM      Profile for RedRover     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

My sentiments exactly.

Is there anyone in the Ontario NDP that can talk in a way that workers can understand and identify with?


Laughable.

I have no idea where you have been 'unionist' but today, unionized voters support the Conservatives more than the NDP. One could speculate that this is because well paid unionized workers, much to the chagrin of devout marxists, are just like everyone else in modern society - pursuing their own self-interest. They have become so sucessful that 'organized' workers now have more reason to support a party that will offer tax-cuts instead of minimum wage hikes and better public healthcare.

When someone, like Gilles Bisson, speaks about the need for a strong economy, then he IS speaking to workers. Workers, especially unionized or 'organized' ones, don't need public healthcare, pensions, or minimum wages. Sorry, they don't. In their mind, these workers 'need' tax cuts and targetd tax credits, more job security - seemingly obtained through corporate tax cuts, and cheap gas for their pickups and sport cars.

You either have no idea about what constitutes a 'worker' today (ie: you are a Steward or executive member at a local or even higher), what they care about, and probably even who they vote for.

Bisson IS speaking to workers, and you are so out of touch you can't even recognize it.


From: Ottawa | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 01 September 2008 11:26 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Flaherty told McGuinty to lower business taxes. The idea is that businesses would invest tax savings into high tech and new equipment, and contribute to productivity, better standard of living down the road blah-blah-blah everything turns to gold. And political conservatives have no real idea of how to make a semi-capitalist economy work either. They're just as out of touch as the Liberals.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 01 September 2008 11:47 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by RedRover:

Laughable.

I have no idea where you have been 'unionist' but today, unionized voters support the Conservatives more than the NDP. One could speculate that this is because well paid unionized workers, much to the chagrin of devout marxists, are just like everyone else in modern society - pursuing their own self-interest. They have become so sucessful that 'organized' workers now have more reason to support a party that will offer tax-cuts instead of minimum wage hikes and better public healthcare.

When someone, like Gilles Bisson, speaks about the need for a strong economy, then he IS speaking to workers. Workers, especially unionized or 'organized' ones, don't need public healthcare, pensions, or minimum wages. Sorry, they don't. In their mind, these workers 'need' tax cuts and targetd tax credits, more job security - seemingly obtained through corporate tax cuts, and cheap gas for their pickups and sport cars.

You either have no idea about what constitutes a 'worker' today (ie: you are a Steward or executive member at a local or even higher), what they care about, and probably even who they vote for.

Bisson IS speaking to workers, and you are so out of touch you can't even recognize it.


I don't know when the definition of worker changed to mean "unionized" workers? Your mind wander into some weird intellectual cul-de-sac where only those who have preserved some of the privileges bestowed upon the white working class from the salad days of the union movement get counted on pay day?

Is everyone else invisible? What do we call the rest "untouchables"?


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 01 September 2008 11:54 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Malcolm French, APR:

The first (getting elected) is an absolute necessity. That's what you purists fail to grasp. Pissing, moaning, sniping and whinging - while doubtless personally gratifying though self-indulgent - accomplish exactly two-thirds of four-fifths of bugger all.


The idea that some NDP'rs are forwarding the notion that the party might get elected as the government, as part of a lecture on pragmatism and realisms is truly astonishing. The NDP is not getting elected federally ever, at anytime, least of all by forwarding a platform that makes it indistinguishable from the Liberals. The best they can hoped for at this point in time is to pull the agenda leftward, and that has been their traditional role, and in fact the reason people ever bothered voting for them.

Please don't try and kid me into thinking that you actually think people are going to believe that the NDP will be more efficient and able at managing the economy for the benefit of business, than those that have a hundred years of experiences at it. I was born at night. Not last night. No one is going to believe that. Particularly not the Liberal voters you think you will be attracting.

The Liberals themselves followed the game plan that "first (getting elected) is an absolute necessity". That is how they became Liberals.

Now be a good boy and throw the ring in the big firey pit, and if Bisson goes over with, that will be sad, but its not going to kill you at the box office.

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 02 September 2008 08:58 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by genstrike:
If you read between the lines on his website he also seems to be trying to reassure Bay Street that he won't do anything that would piss them off too much.

Which means, of course, that he'll do nothing that matters whatsoever.

Also, where the hell did Red Rover get the idea that unionized workers "don't need" pensions or health care? unionized workers are never going to retire or get sick?

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
RedRover
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posted 02 September 2008 09:05 AM      Profile for RedRover     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:

I don't know when the definition of worker changed to mean "unionized" workers? Your mind wander into some weird intellectual cul-de-sac where only those who have preserved some of the privileges bestowed upon the white working class from the salad days of the union movement get counted on pay day?

Is everyone else invisible? What do we call the rest "untouchables"?


In order to understand my post, you would have to read the 5 or so messages that preceeded it. After expressing displeasure at a leadership candidate for speaking about taking "economic issues as importantly as social issues," a poster who chose the name 'Unionist' says the NDP should "talk in a way that workers can understand and identify with."

Do you think 'Unionist' was urging the party and potential leaders speak to those making the minimum wage or less than say $30,000 per year or organized workers? I thought the latter, and so my post reflected that.

The NDP has, to it's immense credit, talked about raising the minimum wage, improving public health care, and creating a sustainable strategy for protecting manufacturing sector jobs. I am proud of this. But in doing this, the NDP is NOT showing the unionized workforce that it is responsive to the concerns of its members - tax cuts for the middle class, and working with corporattions (like GM and Ford) to keep well paying jobs in Canada by providing corporate tax cuts (perceived in the public as the best way to keep jobs here - Conservative framing at its best). I beleive that this probably why, according to several national election studies, unionized workers and their households vote for the Conservatives in greater numbers than they do for the NDP.

The NDP has, in the past, chosen to address those making minimum wage or slightly higher, need public medicare and daycare, and who need better schools and cheaper tuition for their children to have a chance at making life better. These families, have not typically been referred to as "workers," since the term has most often been referred to trades, labour, and organized or unionized employees.

In short, if a candidate like Bisson is trying to address issues like the economy and fiscal matters - then he IS speaking to what has traditionally been referred to as "workers" - unionized or organized employees that make a very livable wage, are concerned about personal and corporate tax rates, and have little in common with whom the NDP has most recently targetted.


From: Ottawa | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 02 September 2008 10:00 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by RedRover:
the NDP is NOT showing the unionized workforce that it is responsive to the concerns of its members - tax cuts for the middle class, and working with corporattions (like GM and Ford) to keep well paying jobs in Canada by providing corporate tax cuts (perceived in the public as the best way to keep jobs here - Conservative framing at its best).

Flaherty suggested broad tax cuts for Ontario's manufacturing sector. That's not going to work. They'll pocket the savings and continue offshoring jobs to China and Mexico.

The ONDP has recommended specific manufacturing tax credits for industries choosing to invest in high tech and new equipment ... here in Ontario. This is proven to work in other provinces.

The two old line parties are as out of touch today as they were when leading Canada down this path of neoliberal/neo-classico economic reform nonsense in the 1980's.

The ONDP has also recommended a regional power pricing scheme for energy-intensive manufacturing. Otherwise, industry will continue leaving Ontario for provinces and countries with lower power rates or simply fold up instead of "competing globally" Again, Canada's two old line parties are as out of touch today as they were years ago. Liberals and Conservatives are bad news for workers as is evidenced by the exodus of good-paying high value manufacturing jobs from Canada's two largest provinces. If workers used to good paying jobs want to end up manufacturing sandwiches and burgers or cleaning toilets at the strip mall, or even all of those menial tasks simultaneously with a broom handle stuffed up their derrieres for low pay, then make sure to vote either Liberal or Conservative. Or don't vote at all as a show of support for the presently deteriorating economic and social conditions.

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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posted 02 September 2008 09:50 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:

The idea that some NDP'rs are forwarding the notion that the party might get elected as the government, as part of a lecture on pragmatism and realisms is truly astonishing. The NDP is not getting elected federally ever, at anytime, least of all by forwarding a platform that makes it indistinguishable from the Liberals. The best they can hoped for at this point in time is to pull the agenda leftward, and that has been their traditional role, and in fact the reason people ever bothered voting for them.

Please don't try and kid me into thinking that you actually think people are going to believe that the NDP will be more efficient and able at managing the economy for the benefit of business, than those that have a hundred years of experiences at it. I was born at night. Not last night. No one is going to believe that. Particularly not the Liberal voters you think you will be attracting.

The Liberals themselves followed the game plan that "first (getting elected) is an absolute necessity". That is how they became Liberals.

Now be a good boy and throw the ring in the big firey pit, and if Bisson goes over with, that will be sad, but its not going to kill you at the box office.

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]


You do realize that arguing with straw men and caricatures only proves that you haven't a clue what you're talking about.

No one has argued for a general rightward adjustment of NDP policy.

And nobody has argued that getting elected is the only thing that matters.

I'm sick to effing death of the bullshit tossed about here that those of us who want to see the NDP elected are Liberals, while you pretendy purists are actually the ones defending the interests of the Liberal Party.


From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 02 September 2008 09:58 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Don't forget, Martin, McGuinty's Bay Street-backed Liberals are enjoying 100 percent of power with just 22 percent of the eligible vote under them. And with this wonderful economy and child poverty being wiped out at a geriatric snail's pace, the NDP's veritable mountain to climb three years from now is actually a mole hill. I think Liberals chances for another phony-baloney dictatorship will fade away before next election, or they shoot themselves in the feet - one or the other.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 04 September 2008 02:20 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by RedRover:

In order to understand my post, you would have to read the 5 or so messages that preceeded it. After expressing displeasure at a leadership candidate for speaking about taking "economic issues as importantly as social issues," a poster who chose the name 'Unionist' says the NDP should "talk in a way that workers can understand and identify with."

Do you think 'Unionist' was urging the party and potential leaders speak to those making the minimum wage or less than say $30,000 per year or organized workers? I thought the latter, and so my post reflected that.

The NDP has, to it's immense credit, talked about raising the minimum wage, improving public health care, and creating a sustainable strategy for protecting manufacturing sector jobs. I am proud of this. But in doing this, the NDP is NOT showing the unionized workforce that it is responsive to the concerns of its members - tax cuts for the middle class, and working with corporattions (like GM and Ford) to keep well paying jobs in Canada by providing corporate tax cuts (perceived in the public as the best way to keep jobs here - Conservative framing at its best). I beleive that this probably why, according to several national election studies, unionized workers and their households vote for the Conservatives in greater numbers than they do for the NDP.

The NDP has, in the past, chosen to address those making minimum wage or slightly higher, need public medicare and daycare, and who need better schools and cheaper tuition for their children to have a chance at making life better. These families, have not typically been referred to as "workers," since the term has most often been referred to trades, labour, and organized or unionized employees.

In short, if a candidate like Bisson is trying to address issues like the economy and fiscal matters - then he IS speaking to what has traditionally been referred to as "workers" - unionized or organized employees that make a very livable wage, are concerned about personal and corporate tax rates, and have little in common with whom the NDP has most recently targetted.



I know you think you are saying something new and startling. But it is not. There has always been a good chunk of the working class that identifies with "the system" for lack of a better phrase. Sometimes more sometimes less. The duty of the leadership of the left is to articulate a clear vision that undermines that, not one that supports it. The NSDAP was very good at organizing among the working class and they actually owe a large part of their success to their ability to use petty prejudice and self interest as a catalyst for establishing their power base. But they (and the right) are very pro-active at asserting their agenda, and take a leadership role in defining politics as they see fit.

That's how its done, whereever you sit on the spectrum of opinion.

Your analysis (and Bisson's apparently) is quite the opposite. It is based on a passive relationship to organizing. In fact an approach that has nothing to do with organizing or setting and agenda by helping shape the opinions of people by using the offices of leadership to set the tone and direction of debate. It is merely responsive, as if the left has to sneak its agenda in by the back door.

No one respects that.

The NDP should be asserting that a policy defined by a "social agenda" is a sound approach to economics, not that "sound" economics, and social policy are seperable and possibly not even compatible, as if the left has not been promoting policy that is sound economics by promoting the idea that the general good of people is the basis of measurably sound economics for years and years.

If you don't believe that, then I really don't see how you consider yourself to be on the "left" at all.

Bisson's pitch, when pared down to its overall thrust, is basically this: "Hey! We have a really good reputation for defending the needs of the less fortunate -- lets leverage that into a vote getting pitch that we can use to promote a right wing approach to "economics."

That is the way it looks to me.

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 04 September 2008 02:31 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think Cueball has summed it up pretty well.
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
meades
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posted 04 September 2008 04:11 AM      Profile for meades     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Bisson's pitch, when pared down to its overall thrust, is basically this: "Hey! We have a really good reputation for defending the needs of the less fortunate -- lets leverage that into a vote getting pitch that we can use to promote a right wing approach to "economics."


Except your analysis of Bisson's economic politics is entirely incorrect, and based wholly on a conservative reading of the content of a rather skeletal website.

Has it ever occured to you that perhaps Bisson is consciously trying to co-opt the economic rhetoric of the right and redirect it?


From: Sault Ste. Marie | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 04 September 2008 09:22 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What's disturbing in RedRover's take on this issue is that he(as well as Doug)seems to be pushing the arguement that the NDP could represent "the poor" OR "the workers", but not both.

Wouldn't it be both the logical and more electorally viable thing for the NDP to fight for both groups and to get them to find common ground?

There's no way for the NDP to make meaningful electoral gains by sounding just as conventional, mundane and socially exclusive as the Tories and Liberals. People that look down on the poor would never vote for the NDP anyway.

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 04 September 2008 09:31 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Combined with the Conservatives in Ottawa, the Liberals are adhering to the overall economic plan laid out for Canada through NAFTA and SPP, deep-deep integration, that this country be relegated to exporting massive-massive amounts of fossil fuels and total energy to the U.S. non-stop 24-7. They don't want our manufactured goods just our energy, massive-massive amounts of it and leave the spigots turned wide open. This is in-line with the neoliberal shinola for targeting inflation at 1 to 3 percent "core inflation" If it climbs above that due to a bit of price inflation emanating from that burgeoning toxic wasteland in Alberta, then push that down in Alberta with higher interest rates whilst clobbering the rest of the country with a single sledgehammer effect to swat a fly, the notorious prime interest rate. Liberals and Tories are down with this U.S. plan not to export inflation to the imperial-master nation ... just what limited reserves of fossil fuels we have left, and keep it comin' Our stoogeocrats trust and obey their corporate masters in the U.S. without question.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 04 September 2008 09:40 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by meades:
Has it ever occured to you that perhaps Bisson is consciously trying to co-opt the economic rhetoric of the right and redirect it?

Really. Give me an example of a leader who has campaigned from the right and governed from the left, and I'll entertain your analysis as a (remote) possibility.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 04 September 2008 09:48 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by RedRover:

The NDP has, in the past, chosen to address those making minimum wage or slightly higher, need public medicare and daycare, and who need better schools and cheaper tuition for their children to have a chance at making life better. These families, have not typically been referred to as "workers," since the term has most often been referred to trades, labour, and organized or unionized employees.

Your attempt to divide the working class along unionized/non-unionized (or rich/poor) lines is ill-begotten.

As is your attempt to suggest that the NDP's policy has been to reach out somehow to poor unorganized workers.

The union movement has always led the way in fighting for protective legislation - minimum wage, maximum hours of work, overtime, vacations, etc. - most of which are totally unnecessary for unionized workers themselves, because their collective agreements provide superior benefits.

If your anti-worker thesis were accurate, you could point to some documents of the CLC or CSN or USW or CUPE or CAW or UFCW or any of them calling for lower personal income taxes. You can search in vain all you like. Workers and their organizations are far more advanced than the petty chauvinist selfishness which your defamatory posts attribute to them.


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 04 September 2008 09:53 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ken Burch:

Wouldn't it be both the logical and more electorally viable thing for the NDP to fight for both groups and to get them to find common ground?

What could the NDP possibly do worse in Ontario than hasn't already been done by Harris/Eves through McGuinty?

And some of us paying attention are thinking ahead a few years to when our light bills will soar through the roof to pay for what will be another bottomless nuclear money pit in this province in subsidizing whatever industries might decide to pay exorbitant power rates. There are over 250 nuclear power stations around Lake Michigan alone in the U.S., and there is no industrial renaissance happening in the Northern U.S. either, just dangerous and unreliable power and sky-high light bills for a much broader tax base to absorb than here. McGuinty and friends will be signing cheques to select few Canadians/U.S. power contractors for anywhere between $40 and $70 billion taxpayer dollars for power none of us will see for at least another ten years. They will be made in the shade, long gone when the light bills come rolling in as happened to Rae's NDP after 1991. Nuclear is so 1950's. The two old line parties are bad for Ontario.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 04 September 2008 10:38 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I agree that the NDP in power in Ontario couldn't be worse than what's happened since 1995, but I'm not sure how that refutes the quote from my post that you used.

I was actually responding to RedRover's social exclusionist argument, in which he clearly seemed to be calling for the NDP to accept the idea that most people despise the poor and that the NDP needs to abandon them (as Gordon Brown just did with his punitive changes in benefit policy in the UK)and embrace conservative-type poor-bashing in order to "win", because power in name is all that matters as he sees it.

The purpose of a party like the NDP is to include all those who've been excluded by the main parties, the powerless and the dispossesed. Unless I'm reading him radically wrong, RR is calling for the NDP to take the same view of those groups that the Tories and the "Liberals" take.

If the NDP DID win by such means, could it possibly do anything in power that was worth doing?

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 04 September 2008 11:03 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I supopse what I should have said is, the NDP has the best overall plan for the ailing economy, imo. The two old line parties have not done the job in this respect, and the proof of that is the hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs and $6.6 billion dollars in wages hemorrhaging from Ontario with no end in sight.

There is no old line party plan for Canada's largest provincial economy. The two parties in power federally-provincially are only concerned about old world economy - exporting energy and raw materials to the U.S. as laid out for them by our imperial masters in the U.S.

The federal-provincial NDP have an economic plan.

The two old line parties do not.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 04 September 2008 11:15 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I agree that the old-line parties don't have a plan.
What bothers me is that Bisson and his defenders here appear to want the NDP to sound more LIKE the old-line parties then like themselves.

From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Olly
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posted 04 September 2008 12:15 PM      Profile for Olly     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
If your anti-worker thesis were accurate, you could point to some documents of the CLC or CSN or USW or CUPE or CAW or UFCW or any of them calling for lower personal income taxes. You can search in vain all you like. Workers and their organizations are far more advanced than the petty chauvinist selfishness which your defamatory posts attribute to them.

The last I saw, Oshawa is voting Conservative. It doesn't matter what union documents say if their membership doesn't vote on those lines.


From: Toronto | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 04 September 2008 12:30 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ken Burch:
I agree that the old-line parties don't have a plan.
What bothers me is that Bisson and his defenders here appear to want the NDP to sound more LIKE the old-line parties then like themselves.

I don't think Bisson has said anything in detail about his own thoughts on the provincial economy, which was headed for the rhubarb patch years ago, and now we've really gone safari road rally and are now stuck in the mud. If McGuinty hasn't said a single positive thing about the economy since 2003 while actually governing this Northern Puerto Rican sub-territory, then why are we focussed on Bisson who hasn't even drafted his own platform yet? Ontarians threw away the best laid plan after last year's election. Some 22%+16.9% of the electorate who voted for the two old line parties were apparently more concerned about Catholic school funding than what's up with the economy falling down around their ears.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 04 September 2008 12:47 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Olly:

The last I saw, Oshawa is voting Conservative.


No kidding. Could you refer me to some evidence about unionized workers' voting tendencies in Canada (which is a suburb of Oshawa)?

Do you actually have a clue about how union members campaign, work, sweat, and vote in federal and provincial elections?

You believe RedRover's wild toss-off that most union members vote Conservative?

Let's have some evidence, please. Oh, and come visit a unionized workplace sometime and see how many Harper fans you can round up.

Oshawa. Where is that anyways?


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 04 September 2008 12:50 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by meades:

Except your analysis of Bisson's economic politics is entirely incorrect, and based wholly on a conservative reading of the content of a rather skeletal website.

Has it ever occured to you that perhaps Bisson is consciously trying to co-opt the economic rhetoric of the right and redirect it?


Sure I did. And in fact this is being co-opted by the economic rhetoric of the right, because it promotes it, as the feasible model, as opposed to presenting a model that exentuates the fact that a truly feasible economic model is predicated upon fairness and equity: Rampant, uncontrolled capitalism is destructive, inhumane, and causes social stresses that make it inefficient.

Words have meanings, I think. Don't you?

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 04 September 2008 01:02 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If you actually look at the ONDP's economic strategies in the past, there is nothing neoliberal about them. The ONDP has been outspoken about the failures of neoliberal policies, which Harris/Eves backed away from themselves. McGuinty's Liberals also reversed their stand on neoliberal deregulation, at least in the area of power generation, but have not reversed Harris' policies either. Ontario is still in a state of shock from those failed old line party policies and flip-flops. We still have a large and greying stalwart support base for the old ways. And their recollections of prosperous old-world cold war era economies will take some time to fade as well. Ontarians need reintroducing to democracy and new ideas. The ONDP will continue pointing us to the high road.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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posted 04 September 2008 09:02 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Content of the post removed by the author - the matter has been dealt with satisfactorily below.

[ 05 September 2008: Message edited by: Malcolm French, APR ]


From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 04 September 2008 09:26 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think what is amazing is McGuinty's sudden Keynesian shift with public sector job creation. Guvmint jobs-o-rama right now. And I think it's also amazing that they've chosen to ignore the NDP's excellent advice on how to save what are estimated to be another quarter million private sector jobs at risk over the next two or three years. Who knows, maybe it will take a year or two for them to absorb that idea as well.

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
RevolutionPlease
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posted 04 September 2008 09:45 PM      Profile for RevolutionPlease     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm at wit's end that the NDP isn't the most progressive party?
From: Aurora | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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Babbler # 8346

posted 04 September 2008 11:11 PM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If I misinterpreted your intent, Malcolm, I'm sorry. I didn't lie. Lying would've meant I knew you meant something else and intentionally misrepresented your position.

Sorry for accidentally misinterpreting. I've edited my post. I trust you'll now go back and delete the quote from my post in its original form and the implication that I was lying.

And as for you, please don't misrepresent the positions of people like unionist and others by labeling them as "hard left". "Hard Left" means being a Stalnist or Maoist, not being an honorable committed democratic socialist.

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Lord Palmerston
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posted 04 September 2008 11:37 PM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:

No kidding. Could you refer me to some evidence about unionized workers' voting tendencies in Canada (which is a suburb of Oshawa)?

Do you actually have a clue about how union members campaign, work, sweat, and vote in federal and provincial elections?

You believe RedRover's wild toss-off that most union members vote Conservative?

Let's have some evidence, please. Oh, and come visit a unionized workplace sometime and see how many Harper fans you can round up.

Oshawa. Where is that anyways?


I'm pretty sure a plurality of union members have voted Liberal historically.


From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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Babbler # 5168

posted 05 September 2008 04:14 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ken, thank you for the unreserved withdrawal.

Throughout my time on this list, I have been consistently accused of advocating a number of positions I have never advocated, most especially that the NDP should "shift to the right" in its policy orientation.

Although no one has ever managed to produce any evidence to support this slanderous claim, and although I have consistently called them on having made it, the slander keeps getting repeated.

At some point, I can only conclude that SOME of those posters know it's a baseless charge, but lay it anyway.

That said, I do not recall having had such an exchange with you previously, and it was therefore wrong of me to assume that your misrepresentation of my position was malicious and deliberately dishonest. I unreservedly withdraw the accusation that you were lying.


From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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posted 05 September 2008 04:18 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:

I'm pretty sure a plurality of union members have voted Liberal historically.


Various reearch, including the magnum Canadian Election Studies, have shown that the Liberals have virtually always carried a plurality - and usually a majority - of union members' votes in federal elections. The NDP has usually finished second - but occasionally third and I believe in 1993 and 2000, fourth - among union members.


From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Lord Palmerston
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posted 05 September 2008 08:36 PM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I guess this explains the careers of Sen. David Croll, Herb Gray and Paul Martin's father in Windsor and Sheila Copps in Hamilton.
From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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Babbler # 5594

posted 05 September 2008 09:49 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Malcolm French, APR:
Throughout my time on this list, I have been consistently accused of advocating a number of positions I have never advocated, most especially that the NDP should "shift to the right" in its policy orientation.

Imo, this must be coming from Liberal Party supporters, angry that their party isn't reaping any rewards for having become another conservative party. Neither of the old line conservative parties won 24% of the eligible vote in 2006, which leads me to believe only a a greying stalwart support base is voting for them, while a rather large percentage of eligible voters have become jaded with Canada's democracy gap.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Kloch
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Babbler # 3765

posted 06 September 2008 09:15 AM      Profile for Kloch   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Malcolm French, APR:
Ken, thank you for the unreserved withdrawal.

Throughout my time on this list, I have been consistently accused of advocating a number of positions I have never advocated, most especially that the NDP should "shift to the right" in its policy orientation.

Although no one has ever managed to produce any evidence to support this slanderous claim, and although I have consistently called them on having made it, the slander keeps getting repeated.

At some point, I can only conclude that SOME of those posters know it's a baseless charge, but lay it anyway.

That said, I do not recall having had such an exchange with you previously, and it was therefore wrong of me to assume that your misrepresentation of my position was malicious and deliberately dishonest. I unreservedly withdraw the accusation that you were lying.


Better late than never... as one of those who, in a different thread, also implied that you were a defacto Lib, I also want to withdraw that comment.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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Babbler # 5168

posted 07 September 2008 08:54 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Can't you feel the love?
From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Papal Bull
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Babbler # 7050

posted 07 September 2008 09:09 PM      Profile for Papal Bull   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
Let's have some evidence, please. Oh, and come visit a unionized workplace sometime and see how many Harper fans you can round up.

Oshawa. Where is that anyways?


My evidence is anecdotal, but I feel very pertinent.

I live in Oshawa. Lo and behold, I have family that works in the Motors and votes Conservative. Many of my closest friends' parents work in the Motors and vote Conservative. Simultaneously, a lot of people I know are fervent dippers.

But, you go to any workplace in Oshawa and you'll find plenty of Harper fans. Sure, the bedroom communities vote Harper - but where the hell do you think someone who makes 30 something bucks an hour lives?

edit:: and also, Oshawa is located east of the Centre of the Universe. It takes the steel from Hamilton (the accretion disk of the Centre of the Universe) and manufactures the anchors needed to hold it in place.

[ 07 September 2008: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]


From: Vatican's best darned ranch | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
robbie_dee
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Babbler # 195

posted 15 October 2008 08:43 AM      Profile for robbie_dee     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Will the federal NDP's breakthrough in Northern Ontario help Bisson's campaign for the provincial leadership? If the ONDP can build on the fed's momentum, it looks like there are more than a few seats to be had in the next provincial election.

[ 15 October 2008: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]


From: Iron City | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 15 October 2008 04:59 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
All this tells me is that the NDP was able to win way more seats in northern Ontario while being led by a guy from downtown Toronto than they were ever able to win when led by a guy from Kenora-Rainy River.
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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Babbler # 5594

posted 15 October 2008 05:20 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The North began shifting to the NDP since Rae's government. Communities up this way forgot about 50 year old line party promises for new bridges and infrastructure and settled for the NDP's promises of clean drinking water projects, northern development funds, and affordable housing projects.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Malcolm
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Babbler # 5168

posted 15 October 2008 08:02 PM      Profile for Malcolm   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
All this tells me is that the NDP was able to win way more seats in northern Ontario while being led by a guy from downtown Toronto than they were ever able to win when led by a guy from Kenora-Rainy River.

A lot of commentators out my way claim that the three-time shutout in saskatchewan is because Layton is from Toronto. I point out that the last federal leader to be shut out three times in Saskatchewan was Tommy Douglas ('62, '63, '65), and our two best ever Saskatchewan results (7 in '84, 10 in 88) were under Ed Broadbent from Oshawa.


From: Regina, SK | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged

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