Author
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Topic: ONDP Leadership III
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aka Mycroft
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6640
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posted 03 November 2008 06:07 AM
From NDP Left blog quote:
The NDP's Socialist Caucus hosted the first (unofficial) all candidates debate leading to next March's provincial leadership convention this past Saturday at OISE in Toronto. (Just to clarify, the individuals associated with this site are not affiliated to the Socialist Caucus) We'll provide some commentary on the candidates and the debate in the coming days but first, here's a transcript of the opening remarks. I made a recording of the debate so if anyone knows anything about uploading audio files and can give me some tips please email me. Each candidate was given two minutes to make their opening commentsPeter Tabuns: Good afternoon everyone. It’s extraordinary to me that we’re all here in the aftermath of an amazing event and that’s George Bush partially nationalizing some of the biggest banks on this planet. Who’d had thought it eh? But in fact think about that reality. Think about what it says to conventional orthodoxy. For over 20 years we’ve been told that governments have to get out of the way; let the market do it’s work; don’t interfere - and look at what we’ve got. We’ve got jobs vanishing as unregulated free trade does its work. We’ve got a climate crisis that is not being dealt with. We’re in a situation where people’s life savings and retirement funds are confronted with the biggest financial crisis since the great depression. We’re seeing poverty deepen as the income gap grows. For the NDP these issues are a challenge - they’re a challenge that we’re going to meet because we know that at the other end we have a government in this province that’s missing in action, that’s not willing to use the levers of government - regulation, taxes, incentives, procurement policy - to take on the climate and jobs crisis. For us there’s an opportunity to put forward solutions that show that government is central to making a society work, central to making sure that we live decent lives and so I’m looking forward this afternoon to talking to you about the solutions that we here in the NDP can put forward. Thank you. Michael Prue: Good afternoon sisters and brothers. My name is Michael Prue, I’m the Member of Provincial Parliament for Beaches-East York. I have been in politics now for some 20 years and over those 20 years there’s something that I have taken and I think that you know. The only way that we are ever going to get results is for our party to get into power. The only way we’re ever going to have a truly NDP government and a socialist government that all of you in this room want is for us to be in power. The only way we’re going to get that power is if we are willing ourselves to make the change. Within the Socialist Caucus to change the NDP; within the NDP to make the changes that are necessary to take us from third party with only 10 seats to government and the only way we’re going to do that is if we’re willing to look very strongly at each and every one of our policies that have been the cornerstone of the NDP in the past. I’m looking forward to the people in this room using all of the strength and all of the energy you have to argue those policy changes when we get to our convention in March. It is that policy change which is going to change the outcome and change the results of the NDP. I am running for leader because I believe that by being leader I can be the agent of those changes that all of you will be so instrumental in making over the coming months and I promise you as leader we will have results we’ve never seen before. Results to our party; results to the economy; results to politics; results to the number of people we elect and most importantly results for Ontarians from all sectors from all across the province looking for what they need. I ask for your support come March 6th. Andrea Horwath: Thanks very much and good afternoon sisters and brothers and thank you very much to the Socialist Caucus most importantly because I believe this is not just a debate but an opportunity for dialogue and discussion and I look very much forward to the rest of the afternoon. I plan to lead Ontario’s New Democrats and some people might think that’s a little bit presumptuous. What makes the youngest member of caucus, a mom from Hamilton, think she can actually even apply for the top job? Well I might not have been at Queen’s Park for the longest amount of time but I’ve been there long enough to know that things are not working. I spent the summer and the spring talking to New Democrats across this province and it became very very clear that it’s time for new voices. It’s time for change. It’s time for new democrats in government. I want to work with all of you to get that change that we need here in Ontario. To give you some brief background about myself I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician, I grew up in and around Hamilton. My dad was an autoworker and his good job as an autoworker gave me a chance to go to university. But like most working class kids before university I had to work. When I was 15, I got my first job, like most kids - retail, food service. I thought I landed the greatest job in my life when I got employed in an industrial dry cleaning factory and now looking back I realize how unsafe that factory was and I know that’s where I get my passion for things like occupational health and safety and unionization because that plant was not unionized and the workers there every day could not go to work knowing that they would come home as well as when they left the house. You know, when I think about what we need in this province I think about what I’ve learned because after university I spent most of my career as an organizer. I organized the Days of Action in Hamilton, I’ve organized co-op housing in Welland and that’s what I believe we need in this party - we need organizers. Gilles Bisson: Good afternoon sisters and brothers, my name is Gilles Bisson, I’m the member for Timmins-James Bay and a proud New Democrat running for the leadership of the party. I believe that quite frankly if we want to make the changes that we have to make in this province we need to get into government and the way that we do that I think is fairly simple, we’ll talk about that through this whole debate. I’ve said in my campaign from the very outset that people in Ontario as across Canada have always given New Democrats credit when it comes to equity issues and when it comes to social policies. We are the party that developed health care. We are the party that championed labour rights. We are the party that championed many other rights that people now take for granted in society. But the one thing that people have a problem with is where we’re on on the economy. Now does that mean to say we have to become like Tony Blair? Absolutely not! But what we need to do is act like social democrats. We need to be serious on the issues of the economy from a social democratic perspective. We need to say to people directly in this province that there are solutions to the economic problems that we have today. We don’t have to do what George Bush is doing although he’s becoming a bit of a left-winger along with Mr. Sarkozy and a few others [laughter] one’s nationalizing banks, the other one is trying to regulate capitalism. I don’t know, I’m a bit confused. But I say that we as social democrats have to speak about the economy from our perspective. What are the issues that we need to deal with in order to make sure that people have jobs, that we have the money necessary to put food on the table, to raise our families, to do the things that we have to do and that we have equity and social justice in the economy and that we as governments have the money necessary to invest in key programs. Last point is we need to reform the internal parts of the party. We have big problems with fund-raising. I will talk about that a little later. But we need to restore to the riding associations the right to receive and collect money directly and then give a share back to the provincial party. Thank you brothers and sisters.
From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2004
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madmax
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15139
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posted 07 November 2008 10:50 AM
Now officially official. quote: Horvath enters Ontario NDP leadership fight Updated: Fri Nov. 07 2008 12:17:14 PMThe Canadian Press HAMILTON — Andrea Horwath has entered the race for the leadership of the provincial New Democrats. The lone woman running to replace Howard Hampton when he steps down announced her candidacy today in her Hamilton Center riding. Horwath is running against Peter Tabuns, the former head of Greenpeace Canada, party veteran Gilles Bisson, and former East York mayor Michael Prue. All four candidates say they will work on rebuilding the party leading up to the next provincial election in 2011. The candidates say they'll show Ontario voters the NDP can tackle an economic downturn. Hampton steps down as leader in March after 13 years at the helm
From: Ontario | Registered: Apr 2008
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madmax
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15139
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posted 08 November 2008 12:37 PM
DRAGON SLAYERYou read it here. Andrea Horwath slays medieval liberals quote: News Canada Hamilton MPP seeks NDP's top job By ANTONELLA ARTUSO, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEFLast Updated: 8th November 2008, 3:27am Hamilton dragonslayer Andrea Horwath has entered the race to lead the Ontario New Democrats. Horwath, who beat a hand-picked Liberal candidate in a hotly contested by-election that restored official party status to the NDP in 2004, said yesterday she brings a unique voice to the campaign to replace outgoing leader Howard Hampton.
From: Ontario | Registered: Apr 2008
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