Daily Archives: April 8, 2016

Activism, democracy, Politics

@Kady: A (very) unofficial guide to #NDP2016

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NDP Leader Tom Mulcair salutes supporters with a thumb's up at a campaign rally in Nanaimo, B.C., on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2015.

By Kady O’Malley, reposted from the Ottawa Citizen, Apr 8, 2015

Are you an orange-blooded New Democrat who, for whatever reason, just can’t make it to Edmonton for the convention this weekend?

Alternately, are you a political junkie aligned with a rival party (or none at all) who can’t tear their eyes away from the ongoing leadership crisis that may or may not be enveloping the increasingly embattled Tom Mulcair?

Or are you just one of those people who can’t resist a rock-em sock-em party policy plenary?

Whatever your motivation for tuning in, this highly unauthorized guide to the anticipated events this weekend should help you plan out your remote viewing schedule for #NDP2016.

Important Potential Timesaver: Are you a casual observer who honestly couldn’t care less about the eye-glazing policy debates and panel discussions that (rightly) take up most of the available time, but are keen to witness the moment of truth for embattled possibly-soon-to-be-former party leader Tom Mulcair? (Hey, no judgement.)

If so, you can safely skip everything until 10am MDT on Sunday, when Mulcair is scheduled to address the convention before delegates head to the ballot boxes to vote on whether or not to hold a leadership review, and tune back out until 12:20pm MDT, when the results will be announced.

For those of you who don’t want to miss a moment unless it’s likely to be a really, really boring one, here’s a complete guide to the NDP convention in Edmonton this weekend.

Where to watch: The Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) is currently the only network promisinggavel-to-gavel coverage from the floor of the convention, although some sessions may be broadcast/streamed by other networks as well.

You can also monitor convention-related Twitter discussion under the #NDP2016 hashtag.

UPDATE: We are informed that some delegates will also be using #YEG2016, so you may want to keep an eye on both streams.

The complete set of policy resolutions – not all of which will make it to the main floor – can be found here.

Helpfully, the NDP has posted the full agenda for those of us forced to follow along from afar, which can be read here. Keep in mind that it uses local time (specifically, Mountain Daylight Time) so remember to perform the necessary conversions when putting together your viewing schedule.

Friday

Although the convention officially gets underway at 9 a.m., most of the morning activities will take place behind the firmly closed doors of the “resolution panels,” during which delegates will begin debating proposals submitted in the lead-up to the convention, which cover both policy areas and party practices.

Those panels – which are broken down by theme – will eventually compile the master list of “priority resolutions” that may be voted on during one of the plenary sessions scheduled to take place throughout the weekend, although as just one hour is allotted per session, it’s unlikely that every one will make it to the floor. (That’s what the “prioritization” is all about.)

In any case, the official opening ceremonies will begin at 1:30 p.m. – those include the formal call to order, as well as reports from various committees and other procedural business.

After that winds down, Canadian Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuff will take the stage for what’s likely to be a closely-watched appearance, given the searing critique of Mulcair’s leadershiphe offered in an interview with the Globe and Mail earlier this week.

Will he double-down on his criticism, or downplay his disappointment? Tune in at 2:15 p.m. to find out — and feel free to stick around for Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath at 2:45 p.m., although as she’s highly unlikely to say anything surprising, this might be a good time for a snack break before the first policy debate, which will kick off at 3 p.m.

The hour-long session, which goes under the heading “Investing in a Canada Where No One Is Left Behind,” will cover a wide range of resolutions targeting social issues, including health care, indigenous rights and a guaranteed annual income, among other proposals.

After the clock runs out, the discussion will pause briefly for a 15 minute speech by UK MP Jon Ashworth, who currently serves as Shadow Minister Without Portfolio under Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, which may be the most existentially bleak title ever affixed to a parliamentarian.

At 4:15 p.m., delegates will shift their attention to resolutions related to “Strengthening [Human] Rights and the Canadian Identity,” which will likely include proposals to ensure full equality for people with disabilities, a call for an inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and increased support for Canadian artists and “cultural workers,” and as many other resolutions to make it through Friday’s panel session as can be dealt with before the time allowed for such debate expires.

After that, it’s off to dinner – and “regional caucus meetings” – with the final order of business the much-anticipated “Campaign Review” at 6:45 p.m.

Shortly after the conclusion of the official programme, Mulcair is slated to be the guest of honour at the River View Reception, a $300-per-ticket fundraiser.

Billed as both an “intimate evening” and an “exclusive event,” the entry fee will cover a full array of hors d’oeuvres, “delicious cocktails” and the chance to “mingle with Tom and other New Democrats, all while taking in the stunning views of the North Saskatchewan River.”

Saturday

As is tradition at most policy conventions, the second day is when the bulk of the real work gets done, and it looks like that’s definitely going to be the case in Edmonton.

Here’s a breakdown of the Day Two programme, including resolutions that currently seem likely to make it to the floor:

Policy debates (One hour per session)

8:30 a.m.: “Redefining Canada’s Place in the World” – Trans Pacific Partnership, nuclear disarmament, immigration policy, support for veterans, “peace between Israel and Palestine”

10:30 a.m.: “Governing in a Fair and Inclusive Canada” – electoral reform, indigenous rights and self governance, lowering the voting age to 16, better access to information and creating an “Ombudsperson General of Canada”

2 p.m.: “Party Affairs” – Proposed changes to the party constitution, including increased support for persons with disabilities, better support for Atlantic Canadian riding associations, improving the candidate vetting process and creating a “supporter category” for donors.

4:20 p.m.: “Innovating and Prospering in the New Energy Economy” – corporate tax rate increase, protection for supply management, rail safety, a West Coast tanker ban and restoring the Canadian Wheat Board.

Interspersed between the policy sessions are panel discussions on proportional representation, “building a local movement,” First Nations relations, as well as the suddenly very topical “Tax Havens: The Price We Pay,” featuring Harold Crooks, the man behind the titular film, as well as author Alain Deneault and Canadian Labour Congress representativeAngella MacEwan.

There will, of course, also be speeches, including a 1:30 p.m. address by Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Earlier in the day, the convention will hear from human rights lawyer Julius Grey (9:30 a.m.), and former leader Stephen Lewis will close the day’s activities with a speech at 5:15 p.m.

Delegates will also hear from the three candidates running to replace Rebecca Blaikie as party president: former MP Elaine Michaud, Toronto school trustee and riding activist Marit Stiles and NDP socialist caucus chair Barry Weisledder.

As far as party-organized festivities, the only event listed for Saturday night is the Best of Alberta Social – $250 for another round of hors d’oeuvres, a “host bar” and “lively conversation with other visiting New Democrats” as well as New Democrat MPs. “This is a special opportunity to meet our caucus and chat with them one-on-one,” the invitation notes.

For those attending the convention on a more modest budget, there’s a city-hosted “POP-UP Show” that will admit delegates for free and promises “local musicians, s’mores kits and hot chocolate for everyone to enjoy.”

Sunday

As noted above, the much-anticipated/dreaded constitutionally-mandated post-election vote on whether to launch a leadership review will take place at 11 a.m., although the results won’t be revealed until 12:20 p.m. (assuming, that is, that the convention is running on time, which is never a particularly safe bet). The presidential vote will be conducted at the same time.

Before he sits back to await the verdict of the collective, Mulcair will get to make his case to the crowd at 10 a.m., and there’s also one final policy debate on the slate for Sunday: “Building a Clean and Sustainable Canada.”

That discussion, which will begin at 9:15 a.m., will almost certainly be dominated by the debate on whether the party should adopt the anti-fossil fuel/pro-renewable energy Leap Manifesto, in whole or in part, as official party policy, as has been proposed in resolutions submitted by dozens of riding associations from across the country.

Delegates will also get to discuss any emergency resolutions added to the agenda during the hour-long interlude to tally the votes.

According to the agenda, the gavel will go down for the last time at 12:30 p.m., although the schedule could change depending on the result of that leadership review vote.

SOURCE

Politics

NDP can’t afford a leadership election now, members could support Mulcair at convention to delay one, say New Democrats

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The NDP’s finances are drained following the 2015 election, despite a record $18.6-million the party raised three months before it released its full campaign platform.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair will face a leadership vote at the New Democratic Party’s convention in Edmonton this weekend. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

By TIM NAUMETZ, reposted from The Hill Times, Apr 6, 2016

A near-empty treasury following the costly 11-week federal election campaign last year could prevent a snap NDP leadership election to replace Tom Mulcair so soon after the Oct. 19 election, party sources have told The Hill Times.

Three party activists and a labour union affiliate member said a leadership convention might be held off because the party’s finances are drained following the election, despite a record $18.6-million the NDP raised in an unprecedented surge of donations in the three-month period before it released its full campaign platform only 10 days before election day. The document was released as follow-up to negative reaction by New Democrats and criticism of the skimpy details in a mid-September costing of the platform, when the party unveiled its unexpected plan for four years of balanced budgets in an NDP government’s first term, despite costly promises for major new social programs.

Although the NDP was flooded with record donations prior to that stage of the campaign, increased spending limits brought in by the Conservative government had the effect of raising party spending limits for the 78-day writ period to $54.9-million, more than twice the national campaign expense ceilings in the 2011 election.

In 2011, with then leader Jack Layton at the helm, the party spent $13.8-million on national advertising and the leader’s tour alone, more than either the Liberal Party and the Conservatives for those two categories of expenses. Rank-and-file discontent over the NDP platform, as well as anger over Mr. Mulcair’s (Outremont, Que.) top-down management of the campaign have surfaced in several policy resolutions from electoral district associations that will be debated at the three-day covention beginning Friday in Edmonton.

“Whereas Canadians, in the light of our party’s 2015 election campaign, have been left in doubt about the NDP’s primary convictions, be it resolved that the New Democratic Party of Canada will assume the responsibility to advocate courageously and explain the social democratic perspective in the public arena,” says resolution number 62, from the South Shore-St. Margaret, N.S., NDP riding association, in a chapter of convention resolutions dealing with internal party reform.

Another resolution stemming from rank-and-file anger over the party’s national campaign calls for new rules governing candidate nominations because decisions and “timeliness” of the party’s national candidate nominations committee were “in many case unsatisfactory and caused EDAs [electoral district associations] to delay nomination meetings and the start of campaigns, and in other cases to deny or approve prospective nominees on suspect grounds.”

The resolution from the Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., NDP riding association calls on the party’s powerful governing council to review candidate nomination rules to “identify problematic decisions and communication problems, and adapt the rules and processes to resolve” them.

Another resolution, moved by several associations in the Quebec wing of the party along with three electoral district associations in British Columbia, calls for an overhaul of the appointment of the party’s election planning committee because “most decisions regarding the 2015 federal election and its preparation such as the candidate nomination process and the writing of the electoral platform were taken and carried out by unelected and unaccountable staff and without any meaningful consultation with elected bodies.”

‘As it stands now, we have a schedule of conventions and we’re not a party that’s rolling in money. Putting on a convention is going to be expensive.’ —Former NDP riding president Marit Stiles, running for party president

The vote on Mr. Mulcair’s leadership is scheduled to take place Sunday morning at 11 a.m., with the vote results to be announced at 12:20 p.m., only 10 minutes before the convention’s scheduled adjournment.

A highly critical report from an internal review of the management of the election campaign is scheduled to be presented by outgoing party president Rebecca Blaikie at 6:45 p.m. Friday night, following a dinner break and regional caucus meetings, well past major news deadlines in eastern Canada and Quebec.

Party rank-and-file who attended the Broadbent Institute Progress Summit in Ottawa last weekend told The Hill Times spare party funding has led to dilapidated conditions in the interior of the party’s headquarters in downtown Ottawa, the Jack Layton Building, to the point one New Democrat circulated iPhone photos of conditions in the basement. As well, New Democrats have told The Hill Times the building does not have a tenant, other than the NDP, as a source of revenue.

Toronto school trustee and former NDP riding president Marit Stiles, the leading candidate to succeed Ms. Blaikie in an election for the president’s office scheduled to take place at the convention, told The Hill Times she is not taking a position in the debate over Mr. Mulcair’s tenure.

Ms. Stiles said in an interview Tuesday, however, that she is aware of frustration in Ontario over the management of the campaign and Mr. Mulcair’s leadership. “I’ve got people supporting me, I will say frankly, who I think are on both sides of the debate, which I think is an indication that a lot of folks, whether they support Mr. Mulcair or are opposed to him, they recognize that either way we’re going to need a strong president,” said Ms. Stiles, a former communications director with ACTRA who worked at the music, broadcast and stage artists’ union when Brian Topp, who lost to Mr. Mulcair in the 2012 NDP leadership race, was its Toronto director. “I really think that a lot of those New Democrats feel in this election, and I know in Ontario they felt similarly about the last provincial election, that if that engagement had been more real and there had been more opportunity, then some of the decisions that were made might have been made differently.”

Mr. Topp, a Montreal native who is now chief of staff to Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley, would likely be considered a prospective contender in a leadership election should Mr. Mulcair step aside.

“Certainly what was happening on the ground was not reflected in what we saw as the overall strategy in that campaign. What’s interesting about it is that we heard that not just from ridings where we lost but ridings where we even gained seats, we still had people who felt that way,” said Ms. Stiles.

In a discussion of the party’s financial ability to head into a leadership convention at this point, Ms. Stiles, who was part of a committee of 10 prominent New Democrats who conducted a sweeping review of the party’s campaign, replied: “As it stands now, we have a schedule of conventions and we’re not a party that’s rolling in money. Putting on a convention is going to be expensive.”

She added: “I’m not saying it’s not important. I think it’s essential to have conventions. I’d love to have more conventions, but I don’t think you’re going to have one a year unless there is something significant that takes place.”

New Democrats The Hill Times has spoken to have also expressed concern over the timing of a leadership review, with the next general election three and a half years away in October 2019.

With the Conservative Party scheduled to elect a new leader on May 27, 2017, and even labour leaders, including UNIFOR president Jerry Dias, expressing support for Liberal government budget measures and other decisions since last November, it might be premature to select a new leader for the NDP.

“I think the answer to that is it will be up to Mr. Mulcair,” said Ms. Stiles, “if he wants to make a change, in any scenario. Our members are going to have a chance, like they do at all of our conventions actually, an opportunity to say how they feel about the job the leader is doing.”

The NDP’s constitution gives the party’s 127-member national council authority to appoint an interim leader “should the position of leader become vacant at any point.”

The next clause in the constitution calls for a secret-ballot vote at every convention that is not a leadership convention on whether or not a leadership election should be called—the test that Mr. Mulcair will face in Edmonton on Sunday.

If 50 per cent plus one of the delegates supports the calling of a leadership election “such an election will be held within one year of the convention vote”—meaning a new NDP leader could be elected shortly before the Conservative Party elects its new permanent leader.

The state of the NDP’s finances and the timing of a leadership election are crucial as an expected 1,500 delegates begin conversations over Mr. Mulcair’s leadership when they pour into Edmonton Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Mulcair, in an email Tuesday to a Canadian Press reporter clarifying a statement he made during an earlier interview that was interpreted as an acknowledgement he needs at least 70 per cent support, said he was actually sending a message to the delegates.

“What I am asking New Democrats for is a strong endorsement so that we leave the convention united in our fight for a more equal Canada,” Canadian Press quoted from the email.

The party treasurer is scheduled to present a report to the convention on Friday.

Leaders of Canada’s largest unions, public and private sector, are split on whether Mr. Mulcair should remain leader.

Hassan Yussuf, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, has said in two interviews, one with the Globe and Mail and a second with Canadian Press, that a leadership election should be held to replace him. “The election was a devastating loss and I don’t really understand what [Mr. Mulcair] will offer from what I heard so far,” Mr. Yussuf told Canadian Press. “All I’ve heard him say is that he takes responsibility for what happened and he never elaborates.”

But leaders of several of the largest public and private sector unions issued a statement last week, on the eve of the third annual Broadbent Summit in Ottawa, supporting Mr. Mulcair and argued he has the “organic relationship with Quebec” that is required to maintain the NDP’s “strongest” geographic base.

The leaders who issued the statement represent the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canada’s largest public service union with 635,000 members, the 250,000-member United Food and Commercial Workers, the National Union of Public and General Employees, with 360,000 members in 11 component unions, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents 40,000 Canadian members in air transport and aerospace industry, and the 250,000-member United Steelworkers.

Jerry Dias, president of the largest private-sector union in Canada, the 325,000-member UNIFOR, which includes the membership of the former Canadian Auto Workers union, told The Hill Times while attending the Broadbent Institute summit that the party should hold off the decision on a leadership election until 2018.
“I’m fine with supporting Tom in Edmonton, because my preoccupation isn’t Edmonton,” Mr. Dias said. “To make a decision immediately, so quick after the federal election, I think does the party a disfavour.”

He added: “Here’s what I’m preoccupied about, and focused about. I am very focused about after Edmonton, sitting down with the labour movement, sitting down with the progressive left, and having a good discussion about the direction of the party and how we fulfill that direction.”

SOURCE

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NDP convention ‘one for the ages,’ many eager for vote on Mulcair’s leadership

 

Politics

A Conservative civil war, with Harper back in the trenches? Are they insane?

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Stephen Harper
“You have to admit: Until Harper, the words “Canada” and “fascism” were seldom linked.”

By Michael Harris, reposted from iPolitics, Apr 7, 2016

Is Stephen Harper about to rise, Lazarus-like, from the political dead?

On the face of it, the very idea seems like absurdity in hot pursuit of farce. After all, following the debacle of 1993 — when Canadian voters nuked the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada — the party was definitely in need of a Moses. It’s just that no one was suggesting that it should be Brian Mulroney.

Why would they? It was Mulroney who created the perfect storm of electoral revulsion that resulted in Kim Campbell being blasted into oblivion, along with all but two members of her caucus. The lesson? It’s not normal for the guy who organizes the Charge of the Light Brigade to be given a new command.

So it was with moderate surprise that I read this week that, according to a “respected senior Conservative”, the name of one Stephen Joseph Harper was being advanced in Tory circles as a possible contender for the Conservative leadership.

Which is like saying Donald Trump has a shot at being the new Archbishop of New York. This bit of speculation was retailed by no less a pundit than the National Post‘s John Ivison. (I checked to make sure this wasn’t an April 1st leftover, and that Ivison was not moonlighting with 22 Minutes. Negative on both counts.)

The theory that accounts for the bizarre prospect of Harper Redux is that the CPC is a party in danger of bifurcating like a worm chopped in two by a garden spade. One part of this wriggling creation would be the Reform and Canadian Alliance element of the party which swallowed the old PCs after the “merger”. The other part would be the Red Tory excommunicants who have had no part to play in Canada’s decade of Tea Party Republicanism under Harper — except, with one or two noteworthy exceptions, as his accomplices.

The potential return of Harper, despite his loss of sixty seats and the government in the last election, is being driven by the urge to preserve the unity of the party — i.e. Western Canadian control of the conservative movement. And what is he supposed to be guarding it against? The heretical influence of progressive ideas from the old Joe Clark Brigade.

“These guys (the Harperites) are ideologues,” one knowledgeable source told me. “They hate Red Tories. Harper courted Peter (MacKay) for the merger. As soon as they had him, they shamed him continuously. No Red Tories allowed.”

Now it could be argued that Mr. Photo Op needed no help from Harper & Co. when it came to shaming. He did a superb job of embarrassing himself — from his broken promise to David Orchard on merging the party of John A. Macdonald with the neocon zealots of the Canadian Alliance, to his serial stretchers on the doomed F-35 fighter jet program.

There’s more, of course. There was the fishing camp imbroglio which saw the then-defence minister ordering up a Search and Rescue helicopter to get him back to work, the way the rest of us might hail a cab.

For reasons that look pathetic today, MacKay thought Libya was a great victory. He also used his office to publicly trash Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin, after Colvin tried to blow the whistle on the still-unresolved Afghan detainee issue. As minister of justice, MacKay seemed not to understand the difference between constitutional and unconstitutional laws. And who can forget the saga of Belinda and the rented dog?

Now hear this: If Harper ever did that — if he ever chose to run for the leadership — he’d be diving head-first into the woodchipper.

Peter MacKay is no Red Tory. He’s just a creature of the security, intelligence and armament sector with a case of terminal political ambition.

That said, perhaps Harper is sufficiently distressed at watching his misbegotten political heritage deconstructed brick by brick by PM Trudeau to contemplate the unthinkable — a run for the leadership. All Harper has left to his legacy at this point is his reverse takeover of the party, and he may not want to risk MacKay or anyone else dismantling his last remaining political accomplishment.

Now hear this: If Harper ever did that — if he ever chose to run for the leadership — he’d be diving head-first into the woodchipper. It would serve only to complete the destruction of the party which started with its shellacking in the 2015 election. (I don’t think there was a run on Stephen Harper “Miss Me Yet” buttons at the recent Manning Conference in Ottawa. Maybe Ray Novak bought them out.)

If MacKay’s legacy is a run of disappointing retreats from principle, the Harper legacy remains an unreconstructed nightmare. In the twilight of the fossil fuel era, Saudi Arabia is making plans to sell that country’s state oil assets for two trillion dollars and to reinvest the money in diversified enterprises. The Chinese are proposing a fifty trillion dollar international global electricity network using wind and solar power. What was Harper’s vision? Bet the farm on dirty, expensive oil and hope the prices remain sky-high.

This is also the prime minister who didn’t even recognize the environment as an issue in the last election, while the rest of the world famously hammered out the Paris climate deal, which both the United States and China will sign this month.

This is the prime minister who looked like Attila the Hun on a day his ulcer was kicking up. He loved nothing better than sending in the troops and planes. While President Obama and all the major western allies were negotiating a deal to direct Iran’s nuclear program away from the production of nuclear weapons, Harper was still banging the War of Civilizations drum.

His domestic legacy was abominable, from proposing snitch lines to issuing cultural denunciations over so-called ‘barbaric acts’. He so offended First Nations peoples and environmentalists that not a single pipeline was built during his tenure — despite the fact that he carried a brief for the oilpatch, handed over the NEB to industry representatives and gutted Canada’s environmental protection legislation.

Despite his incessant enabling of his media courtiers, this “fiscally conservative” PM grew the size of government, couldn’t balance budgets to save his life and added $150 billion to the national debt.

Though Harper touted a “values-based” approach to public life, he had an astonishing ability to appoint felons to key positions. He hired Bruce Carson as a PMO advisor, despite knowing of his criminal record. He also appointed Arthur Porter as the civilian watchdog of CSIS. Porter flamed out in spectacular fashion, dying in Panama as a wanted fugitive. Just this week, Harper’s former parliamentary secretary, Dean Del Mastro, was taken off to jail after he lost his appeal of his election overspending case.

Harper was the prime minister who created his own personal ministry of propaganda, paid for by Canadians. He censored and muzzled and bullied and berated anyone who opposed his notion of government by personal fiat. His exemption for political parties on the copyright of all news footage had journalist Don Martin remarking that the then-PM was flirting with “fascism”.

You have to admit: Until Harper, the words “Canada” and “fascism” were seldom linked.

The Conservative Party of Canada could do something far more constructive for its future prospects than to look to the past for a saviour. The party might accept Harper-era hacks like MacKay or Kellie Leitch as new leadership material, but Canadians never will. Nor will voters buy the proposition put out by Harper loyalists that Harper was just a misunderstood statesman whose tenure will be viewed kindly by history.

He was a rogue, an outlier, an authoritarian and an anomaly. The real job is not to dry-clean the Harper years, but to reject them.

The sooner his much-diminished party realizes that, the more quickly they will begin down the long road back to political respectability.

SOURCE

Avi Lewis, democracy, Politics

NDP youth wing expected to seek new leadership

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A letter circulated to members of Young New Democrats encourages members to support “a new direction, and a new style of leadership.” (Charla Jones/Charla Jones)
A letter circulated to members of Young New Democrats encourages members to support “a new direction, and a new style of leadership.” (Charla Jones/Charla Jones)

By Laura Stone, reposted from the GlobeandMail, Apr 6, 2016

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair appears poised to lose the support of the youth wing of his party whose members are being urged to vote for “a new style of leadership.”

Stefan Avlijas, secretary and acting policy director of the Young New Democrats, told The Globe and Mail he will be voting in favour of a leadership review at the party’s convention in Edmonton this weekend.

“I don’t have faith that Tom is able to carry out the sort of renewal that we actually need in order to be a viable, credible left-wing alternative going into 2019,” Mr. Avlijas said in an interview.

“I’m just not hearing it from our membership and from the youth that I talk to, there’s no one fired up.”

The youth wing, which includes NDP members 25 and under, will have about 50 delegates in Edmonton, Mr. Avlijas said. The organization will decide at its own convention on Thursday whether its members will vote in favour of a leadership review as a group.

In a letter circulated to members of Young New Democrats, the organization decries the party’s “uninspired” and “problematic” platform.

“None of us were consulted, or even brought into the discussion when it came to platform development, or for that matter, the out-of-touch materials that we were asked to distribute on campuses,” it says.

The letter also suggests the younger members were ignored by a post-campaign review prepared by NDP party president Rebecca Blaikie.

“We were surprised to see a final report, which although honest and open about the shortcomings of the campaign, failed to acknowledge the concerns of our peers,” it says.

It goes on to say the party must strengthen and grow from defeat.

“That starts in Edmonton at our convention, where we will be attending and encouraging all Young New Democrats from across the country to support a new direction, and a new style of leadership.”

The Alberta youth section, expected to make up the largest youth delegation in Edmonton, has also put out a letter saying by voting yes to a leadership review “we will see the best and brightest of our party come forward to lead us into 2019.”

About 1,500 delegates are set to vote Sunday on whether the NDP should hold a leadership race. Mr. Mulcair has thus far refused to provide a specific number for how much support he’d need to receive to stay on as leader, saying only he’s heard the same “type” of number as 70-per-cent support and is looking for a “strong endorsement” from party members.

The membership will also be debating dozens resolutions at the three-day convention, although not all of them will make it to the floor.

This includes a popular push from those who’d like to see a more left-wing stand to debate the Leap manifesto, a broad-ranging “transitional” document that advocates for a non-polluting economy through bold policies.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail this week, Mr. Mulcair said he’s “really looking forward to having the debate” about the manifesto at convention.

“There are elements of that proposal that are the way forward for the country, to the extent that it says it’s time we take climate change seriously and we start acting to reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions,” he said.

“That’s why you have conventions, is to put big ideas like that on the table, and to discuss them, and to look at what’s feasible and what is more challenging. And I’m going to let the members have that debate.”

Documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis, one of the document’s originators, said he hopes a resolution to debate the implementation of the manifesto makes it to the floor of the convention.

“It’s good news that Tom is publicly committing to a debate about the Leap manifesto at the convention because the ideas are big and bold and the NDP is in a moment of renewal,” Mr. Lewis, who will be attending the convention, wrote in an e-mail. SOURCE

RELATED:

After Spectacular Failure, NDP Needs A Leader Who Can Inspire

Politics, Preventing Ecocide

Canada’s Oil and Gas Push ‘Wishful Thinking’ against Climate Realities: Harvard Prof

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Naomi Oreskes says our fossil fuel strategy ‘doesn’t add up.’

By Mychaylo Prystupa, reposted from TheTyee, Apr 6, 2016

Naomi Oreskes Photo courtesy of abc.net

Video by Mychaylo Prystupa for The Tyee.

When asked what she thinks of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent remark that fossil fuel development can fund clean energy to combat climate change, Naomi Oreskes just shakes her head.

“It’s an equation that doesn’t add up,” the Harvard climate professor said with a smile in an interview with the Tyee on Monday. “It’s like when [U.S. President] Obama talked about the ‘all of the above’ energy policy. In theory, that sounds great, but it doesn’t work.”

The globally influential climate change thinker, historian of science, and co-author of Merchants of Doubt was in Vancouver for a public talk at the Vogue Theatre Tuesday night put on by UBC’s Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.

She talked up the urgency of acting to avoid catastrophic global warming — and talked down Canada’s apparently oil-friendly climate strategy.

Oreskes said Canada cannot seriously address climate change while also building more giant pipelines to deliver Alberta’s oil sands bitumen or British Columbia’s fracked natural gas to proposed export terminals on both coasts.

“If Trudeau can say we’re going to do all these things,” she said, “that says to me that they have not truly assimilated what is at stake here.”

Trudeau raised eyebrows when he told a Vancouver sustainable business summit last month that “the choice between pipelines and wind turbines is a false one. We need both to reach our [climate] goal.”

B.C. Premier Christy Clark similarly promotes liquefied natural gas as a climate solution: a “bridge fuel” to help China get off dirty coal power.

Oreskes called their positions dangerously “wishful thinking.”

For one thing, she said, building giant new bitumen or natural gas pipelines today will commit Canada to fossil fuels for 50, 70, or even 100 years into the future — a problem she called “infrastructure lock-in” — when the world has only about 30 years to decarbonize 80 per cent of the global economy if we wish to avoid two degrees of planetary warming and “trillions of dollars” in economic damages.

“If you could say, ‘We’re going to have oil and gas development just for the next 10 years, and we’re going to take all that revenue to develop sustainable energy and communities, then we’re going to shut it all down,’ that would be okay if you could actually do that,” Oreskes conceded.

“But in what world do you shut down a functioning oil field that still has plenty of production left? In what world do you shut down a pipeline that still has oil and gas flowing through it?” she questioned.

“My view [on pipelines] is… don’t do it!” the professor said. “Because once you go down that road, you may not be able to turn back. And if you can’t turn back, then you’re looking at four degrees of climate change, metres of sea level rise, and massive intensification of extreme weather events.”

Another problem for Canada’s energy plans, Oreskes said, is emerging evidence that natural gas infrastructure leaks far more methane than previously thought. The U.S. boom in fracking for gas and oil may be causing a recent and worrying global spike in atmospheric methane.

“Natural gas is methane, CH4. Methane is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas. Depending on exactly how you do the calculation, it’s anywhere from 24 to 72 times as powerful [as carbon dioxide],” Oreskes said.

While the U.S. industry has maintained that methane leaks from gas pipelines, well heads and storage facilities represent just two per cent of the gas produced, she said, new evidence shows it’s more like five to 11 per cent — entirely negating the fuel’s lower combustion emissions. “The whole story about [natural] gas being better than coal turns out to be completely false,” she said.

Likewise, B.C.’s globally lauded carbon tax is “sort of schizophrenic,” she observed, when viewed against the large scale of the province’s planned LNG developments.

‘Driving a stake’ through denial

Oreskes, who still calls Alberta’s bitumen reserves by the name she learned in college — the “tar sands” — rose to international attention in 2004 after she published a then little-known fact in the journal Science: the world’s scientists are virtually unanimous in their view that the world is warming, and humans are causing it.

Of 928 peer-reviewed studies she examined, not one disagreed with the consensus that mankind is heating the planet with the release of greenhouse gases. Other investigators confirmed her finding, producing the now familiar statistic that 98 per cent of climate scientists accept the fact of anthropogenic global warming.

Richard Littlemore, the Vancouver-based co-author of Climate Cover Up, about industry groups’ campaign to sow doubt about the science of climate change, credits Oreskes with making a giant contribution to correcting the public record.

Before her Science article, Littlemore said, journalists often quoted climate denialists in order to get the “other side” and create an impression of balance.

“News reporting was confusing beyond management or wrong… and the overwhelming impression that left was that it was there was still a legitimate debate,” he said. “Naomi drove a stake through that.”

Oreskes’s Merchants of Doubt, which became a documentary film in 2014, also exposed how many of the industry spokespeople questioning climate science had earlier attacked scientists who published evidence of potential harm from ozone depletion and tobacco consumption.

Oreskes said these opponents protect a set of “political and economic interests” in America that feel government regulation is getting in the way of free enterprise.

But sticking her neck out has earned Oreskes enemies. Her landmark 2004 report attracted an avalanche of hate mail. U.S. Senator James Inhofe — known for throwing a snowball across the chamber to demonstrate his view that climate change is a hoax — accused her of being part of a conspiracy to bring down capitalism.

“One of the weirdest days of my life,” she said, “was when I got a phone call from a reporter at the Tulsa Register, and he said, ‘Did you know that Senator James Inhofe made a speech attacking you?’

“I was like, ‘Is this an April Fools joke?'” she laughed. “It was just very, very weird.”

Despite the fact that G.O.P. presidential nomination candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have both threatened to tear up Obama’s climate policies, Oreskes believes much of America now accepts that climate change poses a real threat.

“As long as Republican candidates for president perpetuate the idea that this is a hoax, this will ‘destroy the economy,’ ‘we should rip up [the] Paris [climate accord],'” she lamented, “it makes it really hard to imagine how we’d make forward progress.

“On the other hand, if you look at what’s happening at the state level in the United States, or in the business community, then you see a different picture.”

Oreskes pointed to Risky Business, a report produced last year by a private group led by billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hank Paulson, who served as treasury secretary in the administration of President George W. Bush. The document laid out “very clearly why climate change is an economic and business problem.”

The author is optimistic. New research shows that most of the world’s energy needs can be met with existing renewable technologies.

But it will take political power to make it happen, Oreskes said. And a political program more in tune with climate realities than an ‘all of the above’ approach. [Tyee]

SOURCE

Politics

Tom Mulcair will ‘do everything’ to keep oil in the ground if party tells him to

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Leap Manifesto will be debated at NDP convention in Edmonton

Tom Mulcair speaks with Peter Mansbridge ahead of NDP convention 11:26

Reposted from CBCNews, Apr 6, 2016

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says that if his party adopts a controversial policy to attempt to end the age of fossil fuels by keeping oil and coal in the ground, he will act to make that policy a reality.

“If the party decides that’s the way, as the leader of the party, I’ll do everything I can to make that a reality, but Canadians have been told too many things that haven’t panned out for the last 20 years,” Mulcair told Peter Mansbridge in an interview with CBC’s The National.

“I’m going to make sure we put in place something where we internalize the environmental costs — user pay, polluter pay — those are all basic rules of sustainable development,” Mulcair said. “That’s what’s been lacking in Canada — the political will to enforce those basic rules of sustainable development.”

That policy proposal is one of dozens contained in the Leap Manifesto. Unveiled in September during the election campaign, it has supporters from labour unions and environmental organizations, but Mulcair has yet to endorse the document.

Mulcair on the Leap Manifesto 0:33

Aside from from keeping oil in the ground, the manifesto calls for an end to trade deals and the reorienting of Canadian society away from consumer capitalism.

The document’s policy proposals will be presented by activist Avi Lewis and debated at the NDP’s national convention in Edmonton this weekend.

“I`m going to be at the debate, and I’m not going to now decide what the result of that debate will be,” Mulcair said. “But I’m heartened and I’m thrilled to see the type of challenge that is put before us by some of our party members.” SOURCE

 

Politics

Wildrose and Alberta NDP tag-team Tom Mulcair

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Brian Jean asked Rachel Notley to condemn Mulcair’s position on the oil sands. Her deputy premier obliged.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Marta Iwanek
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Marta Iwanek

By , reposted from Macleans, Apr 7, 2016

Mark it in your history books. April 7, 2016, was the day Alberta’s Wildrose opposition perfectly teed up a pre-planned and spiky attack by the provincial NDP on the party’s federal leader.

Premier Rachel Notley’s provincial foes have long been eager to use her ties to Thomas Mulcair’s orange brand and anything sounding remotely anti-oilpatch. Wildrose operatives filmed the pair’s campaign appearance together last October, the last time Mulcair visited Edmonton before this weekend’s NDP convention. On Thursday afternoon, Mulcair was again strolling the city’s downtown streets and handing money to an often-aggressive Jasper Avenue panhandler (this according to a friend’s Facebook status update). At the same time at the Alberta Legislature a few blocks away, the at-least-for-now leader received a multi-partisan upbraiding.

How do we get from Notley hand-in-hand with Mulcair six months ago to her deputy premier saying his “remarks are unacceptable” on Thursday? The Wildrose had expected to make the Alberta NDP squirm at an association with Mulcair’s new environmental rhetoric, not smash the association—let alone to compare such talk to that outlandish time former MP Rob Anders called Nelson Mandela a terrorist.

But let’s get to what should come after the previous paragraph’s question mark first. After a federal election setback, many NDP activists are entertaining a markedly less centrist tack, and the Leap Manifesto has become one of the focal avenues in which to do so. While it doesn’t explicitly call to leave oil in the ground, it does call for a 100-per-cent clean economy by 2050, which would give the oil extraction at the centre of Alberta’s economy about 34 more years before it’s kaput. It’s more blunt about being anti-pipeline: “The new iron low of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.”

This becomes awkward for Notley’s provincial wing, which advocates for both Energy East and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to B.C.’s Lower Mainland—and isn’t anywhere near eager to declare the oil sands an industry with limited days ahead of it. So the Alberta New Democrats aren’t anywhere near delighted, either, to hear Mulcair tell CBC’s Peter Mansbridge that he’s open to the NDP embracing the manifesto, and perhaps getting far tougher on fossil fuel development.

“If the party decides that’s the way, as the leader of the party, I’ll do everything I can to make that a reality,” he said.

Cue the Alberta Question Period on Thursday, with Wildrose Leader Brian Jean leading off.

“It’s time to elect Thomas Mulcair as our Prime Minister. (eds: More floor-crossing from the Wildrose! I can’t believe it!) Those were the Premier’s words last October in the federal election. (eds: oh) Today the federal NDP leader says that if his party tells him to, he will do everything he can to keep Alberta’s oil in the ground. We know this Premier has fund raised for the NDP politicians who have said this in the past, but Albertans expect her to condemn this when she speaks at the convention on Saturday. Will the Premier stand in her place and commit that she and her cabinet will do everything they can to condemn this motion in the strongest terms possible?”

Deputy Premier Sarah Hoffman responds:

“Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to make it crystal clear that I absolutely do not agree with what Tom Mulcair said about keeping the oil in the ground yesterday. Those remarks are unacceptable, and I will certainly be there to convey that message to membership and that they know how important it is we get our product to market, Mr. Speaker.”

While Notley has a Saturday afternoon speaking slot at the convention, it’s Hoffman who will be on the convention floor, assigned to similarly denounce the federal activists who push too hard against oil development and pipelines.

Jean again: “The federal NDP have made several statements campaigning against Alberta pipelines. Will the premier advocate to her provincial and federal colleagues to proudly stand in her place and support Alberta’s oil sands and pipelines right across the country and around the world?”

Hoffman: “Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. We’ve been consistent on that. We know that pipelines are the safest way to get our product to market, and we absolutely are committed to making sure we have a drama-free method of getting our product to tidewater. In terms of party members not always agreeing, like for example we have a few people here who are a former colleague of the honourable leader, not that long ago said that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist: did he agree with what that party member said? I sure hope not.”

If there’s any living Canadian politician who’s a more widely reviled and toxic comparator than Rob Anders, he at very least hadn’t been elected to 18 years of recent federal office. Hoffman has taken a universally condemned comment and compared it to some environmental sentiments a not-insignificant segment of the federal NDP harbour.

Notley doesn’t necessarily have to hit the big red Anders button, but her political survival relies on her embracing pipelines and environmentally responsible oilsands and energy extraction. Mulcair’s next few days of political survival rely on his not alienating the Leapers.

Notley’s budget next week, and her TV infomercial speech released Thursday, lay clear that while the federal party is lurching leftward, she’s rushing for the centre. Notley cannot possibly balance the budget with oil at $35 US a barrel, but she is still promising red ink will cease as the economic pain does, and in the meantime “cost control” is her new mantra. And she also reiterated, and urged all Ottawa politicians: “We must get to ‘yes’ on a pipeline.”

The Wildrose will doubtless keep up this practice of trying to drive a wedge deeper between Notley and Mulcair and whatever New Democrats continue to Ottawa beyond Sunday. The bigger the divide is between Alberta and federal NDP, the more hopeful Notley’s foes will be that they can catch her saying something that yokes the two camps to each other once again. SOURCE