The NDP looks to 2015: "We’re up against our own belief in the ability to get this done"

On Saturday, in the western Prince Edward Island riding of Egmont, 1,500 local Liberals showed up to vote in a four-way nomination race. For those not in politics, let me assure that 1,500 at just about any nomination anywhere is a helluva good turnout but this is a rding where, in 2011, there were just 5,997 who voted Liberal. So when you’ve got one in four of voters in a general election showing up for a nomination meeting, that’s pretty incredible.

In Digby, N.S. that same afternoon, local reporters figured that there was about 1,000 — including Nova Scotia Premier Stephen MacNeil and Nova Scotia Health Minister Leo Glavine — who attended the Liberal nomination in West Nova. Again: That’s a heckuva turnout.

But if you asked political organizers from most parties, those kinds of barn-burner turnouts are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to party nomination meetings. They’re usually much more subdued, though no less important affairs.

For a good sense of the typical nomination meeting, click on the video link above and listen to Andrew Cash, the NDP MP from the downtown Toronto riding of Davenport, speak at the nomination meeting over the weekend of Fayaz Karim, who won, by acclamation, the NDP nomination in the suburban Toronto riding of Mississauga East-Cooksville.

The NDP should have no hope in this part of the world. The riding was held by a solid right-of-centre Liberal, Albina Guarneri, from 2004 until her retirement in 2011. Her successor is Conservative Wladyslaw Lizon. Since 2004, the NDP has finished third with usually around 5,000 votes. The Orange Wave of 2011 helped boost that to about 8,000 votes — but they still finished third.

To which Cash, in a speech to this riding association now girding up for battle in 2015 says: Forget about all that. “We’re not just up against poll numbers, from perceived momentum from the Liberals. We’re not just up against a Conservative party that can out-fundraise us,” Cash says in this video above put up on YouTube by the local NDP riding association. “Fundamentally, we’re up against our own belief in the ability to get this done.”

Here’s some other excerpts from Cash’s speech on Saturday:

“What we need to do .. on a fundamental level is we need to elect more New Democrats. For a lot of the time, for us in the movement, we like to talk about values. But while we’re talking about that stuff other people are organizing to win seats and to form government. And so what we need to do is win more seats. If we’re not building support in places like here (Mississauga), then we’re not going to form government.
And we can form government.
We have never been closer.
Right now we need about 60 seats. If we hold what we’ve got, we need about 60 more.
The Liberals on the other hand,need about 130 more.
This is something people don’t realize.

Never in the history of Canada has a third party with 37 seats won the next election and formed the government.

So if the choice is — we’ve really got to get rid of Harper, we have to change the direction of this country, then there is only one choice right now.

I know there’s polling numbers out there that suggest otherwise.

[Cash then reflects on his own experience, in Davenport, before the 2011 election]

Davenport has been a Liberal riding since God rested on the seventh day … [with, as Cash notes, a couple of Progressive Conservative blips in the 1960s)

When I got the nomination, we had 30 seats in the House of Commons. And our poll numbers were around 12 per cent. But I didn’t care about that. ….

I knew that the representative of the riding I wanted to win was lazy. [Liberal Mario Silva was MP from 2004 until he was defeated by Cash in 2011] I knew that that person took his seat for granted. I knew that that person took the voters he represented for granted and consequently didn’t do the work, didn’t show up, didn’t find the issues his constituents cared about and didn’t push those issues in the House of Commons. So I knew there was a possibility there.

I can’t tell how many people told me I would not win. Just about every day someone told me that. And not just our opponents. Members of our dear party told me that as well. This just underlines what we’re up against.

We’re not just up against poll numbers, from perceived momentum from the Liberals. We’re not just up against a Conservative party that can out-fundraise us. Fundamentally, we’re up against our own belief in the ability to get this done.

What we’re trying to do here is essentially steal a seat here. We can do it.

We in this room believe that our values are Canada’s values, that our ideas are the best way forward for Canada.

What are you scared of? Canadians polled on security threats

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CFB PETAWAWA, Ont. – A graduating student of the 2014 Patrol Pathfinder course holds a position as a CH-147F Chinook helicopter departs Garrison Petawawa on November 10, 2014. (Cpl Mark Schombs, 4 CDSB Petawawa Imaging)

Ipsos Reid polled citizens of 26 countries about security threats and released the results at the Halifax security conference on this weekend. Here’s the Canada-only results from that poll: Continue reading What are you scared of? Canadians polled on security threats

Voter preference by household income: Parties of the rich and poor

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The Liberals have just released a new online video (see below) arguing against the Harper government’s income splitting plan. Liberal Justin Trudeau has vowed to roll back income splitting for parents if he’s elected PM.  Thomas Mulcair this week has vowed the NDP will fight the plan thought he was a bit more cagey about what he’d do if he became PM and income splitting was still in place. Given these arguments, I wondered about how income levels matched up to political preference. David Coletto, CEO of pollster Abacus Data, sent me this data set, Continue reading Voter preference by household income: Parties of the rich and poor

The nasty Vancouver election! An incumbent apologizes!

Left-leaning, progressive Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has twice won at the polls but this time, it appears he’s in tough against challenger Kirk LaPointe, the former journalist (who was my boss at not one, not two, but three different news organizations in my career) who is the candidate in this race for the Non-Partisan Association. Check out the latest accusation from Robertson against LaPointe.  Some — but not me, of course — might say this sounds like a desperate accusation from an incumbent feeling the heat from a challenger. Here it is, as reported on Twitter by former CTV journalist Kai Nagata

 

That “DPinBC” is Dimitri Pantazopoulos, the pollster who was instrumental in Christy Clark’s big “upset” win — a win which defied all public pollsters predications. And, yes, Dimitri has been a “Harper advisor” at some points. But here’s what “DPinBC” tweeted in response to Nagata’s tweet:

Meanwhile, as we reported on my program, Battleground, on Sun News Network tonight (above), Robertson is now apologizing to voters for not getting it done the first time they elected him mayor and the second time they elected him mayor. But he promises that if he gets a third chance, by golly, he’ll make it all right.

Wait a minute: Mulcair's NDP says Andrea Horwath's NDP beat Christine Elliott?

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Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Whitby-Oshawa Liberal candidate Celina Caesar-Chavannes (right) meet constituents at the Whitby Go Train station on October 30, 2014. (Photo by Trudeau official photo Adam Scotti from this Flickr Gallery https://www.flickr.com/photos/justintrudeau/sets/72157649013377706 )

Oh dear. I think the federal NDP has mixed things up terribly. Continue reading Wait a minute: Mulcair's NDP says Andrea Horwath's NDP beat Christine Elliott?

AUDIO: Among the finest speeches a Governor General has delivered

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Governor General David Johnston participated in the re-dedication ceremony today that was part of the National Remembrance Ceremony at the National War Memorial (above). He delivered what I thought was one of the finest speeches I’ve heard a G-G deliver. Click below to listen to the audio file as it was delivered. I’ve re-printed the English-only text below that that was distributed by his office. Continue reading AUDIO: Among the finest speeches a Governor General has delivered

Canada's first WWI combat death: Cpl Raymond of Windsor, Ont.

Page 565 of First World War Book of Remembrance

Canada suffered 172,000 casualties in the First World War, the last being the death by sniper of George Price, shot at 10:58 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918 — two minutes before the the end of the war. But who was the first? Researchers at Library and Archives Canada have an answer. It was a Canadian serving with a British unit in the first days of the Great War: Continue reading Canada's first WWI combat death: Cpl Raymond of Windsor, Ont.

Paperwork makes the world go around: Liberal get set for 338 universe

The following notice was in the Canada Gazette this morning. One might think that Liberals were giving up in, say, Wascana — the riding of Ralph Goodale. Not so, of course.  Today’s batch of deregistrations are all part of paperwork shuffle involved in moving from the current 308-riding universe to the new 338-riding universe. Expect the flurry of paperwork to continue for the next few weeks. Continue reading Paperwork makes the world go around: Liberal get set for 338 universe

Did Canada's central bank governor tell young people to work for free?


Yesterday, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, spoke in Toronto and when Bloomberg’s Greg Quinn reported on his remarks, he zeroed in on some things Poloz said about youth unemployment in Canada. As Quinn reported, “How bad are things in Canada’s job market? Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz says bad enough for young people to consider working for free.”

Today, in Ottawa, Poloz was in front of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance and Liberal MP Scott Brison wanted to pick up on that theme. Listen, above, to their exchange.

CBC's President, in 2013, dismissed all allegations of sexual harassment in Toronto

On Friday, in the wake of all the allegations against former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi, CBC President Hubert Lacroix issued a statement noting, among other things, that:

“As I told a parliamentary committee last year, we have a robust system of training and policy in place to try to create a safe work environment, and to investigate and respond appropriately if incidents occur. This case raises concerns that our systems have not been enough, and that upsets us deeply.”

The parliamentary committee he speaks of is the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Lacroix appeared before it on March 5, 2013 as part of the committee’s study into sexual harassment in federal government workplaces. Lacroix, in his testimony then, was dismissive of the work my colleague Brian Lilley had done using Access to Information requests about sexual harrassment at CBC.

Here is what Lacroix told the parliamentary committee in the spring of 2013, a time, we now know, when Ghomeshi was engaged in behaviour which is now the subject of a broader CBC investigation [the emphasis below is mine] : Continue reading CBC's President, in 2013, dismissed all allegations of sexual harassment in Toronto