2012 NDP leadership convention

[DL]

I'm still not convinced that Brian Topp has any intention of running. It seems to be an open question where the rumour about him as a candidate even came from - and it would not be the first time that a story based on nothing took on a life of its own because some gossipy reporters start to drink their own bathwater.

[DL]

I don't see Ducasse as a "viable contender" at all. He ran in 2003 and got about 1% of the vote - no one has heard of him outside a few people in Gatineau and I doubt if he would run. He declined to run for parliament because his wife just had a baby.

There are several woman who would be serious contenders - Peggy Nash speaks very good French and is Finance critic. I also hear that Nikki Ashton from Manitoba may run - and she speaks FIVE languages fluently (including French).

If Mulcair actually is a bit of a "hard-ass" - big deal. It might not be pleasant for people working in the leader's office - but for the rest of us - so what? Having a bad temper hasn't stopped a lot of people from being very successful in politics. Look at Stephen Harper - he has about as much of a common touch as a tax inspector in the bowels of Revenue Canada and by all accounts he has a a horrible personality in private. He has a mouth like a toilet and reduces people to tears on a daily basis. Bob Rae is a total jerk in private and is one of the coldest, most aloof individuals you can imagine - he is still a good political "performer".

[DL]

Your talk of Ducasse is totally absurd. Who is he? a total nobody who has never been elected to anything and who no one has heard of. There are 59 NDP MPs in Quebec - it seems ridiculous to think that an unknown with ZERO political experience would be a better candidate than any of the 59 MPs from Quebec (some of whom are already proving to be very impressive).

I doubt if you will see much of a "right/left" split in this race. The leftwing of the NDP is so marginalized and so teeny-weeny that they won't amount to anything. I think it will all boil down to who members think is the most electable.

[DL]

In which case it's still Mulcair. Comartin is also electable but too old, Julian is too left but will be the left-union candidate in Nash's absence. Dewar's unilingualism rules him out.

I don't you know much about any of these people. Julian is not espcially "left" - I think the main knock against him is that he's a bit of a nerd. I don't know what makes you so sure Nash wouldn't run? and as for Dewar - he is not unilingual - he actually speaks French quite well.

Let's not for get that the caucus does not elect the leader it is a one member one vote process. Right now out of about 100,000 NDP members in Canada only about 5,000 are in Quebec - that will undoubtedly rise, but the fact remains that the bulk of NDP members are in Ontario, BC and Manitoba...

[DL]

 Did anyone outside of Toronto know who Jack was in 2003? Not many.  too young.

More than you might think. When Layton decided to run for NDP leader in 2002 - he had run for mayor of Toronto, he had served a term a President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (giving him a range of contacts across the country) he had already written a couple of books and he was a household name in Toronto (which whether you like it or not is the nerve centre of the country). Its true that Ducasse impressed people with a nice speech at the convention in 2003 - but after that he more or less sank without a trace and hasn't done much to maintain a profile.

Also, in the 2002/2003 NDP leadership contest, the party only had 13 MPs and was near death - so it was clear that the party could not limit itself to a sitting MP and needed to do something drastic. Now the NDP has 102 MPs and vast amount of talent.

[DL]

Maybe in 2015 Turmel will retire (she will be 72 by then) and then Ducasse can run...the point is that Layton was known in NDP circles in 2003 as well as in Toronto. and that was critical to winning the leadership. I doubt if more than 1% of NDP rank and file would even know who Ducasse was.

[DL]

I think she looked sad as one might expect but not in any way "horrible" if anything shoe reminded me of Jaquie Kennedy kissing JFK's coffin 1963

[DL]

No one has to "try to sell" Brian Topp as a Quebecers. He IS a Quebecers through and through. He was born and raised just outside of Montreal with a anglophone father a Francophone mother. His wife is from Montreal. He went to university in Quebec he had various jobs in Montreal and he worked on Parliament hill for Phil Edmunston the first ever NDP MP from Quebec 1990-1993. it's true that he has lived in Regina, Ottawa and Toronto for the last 20 years, but given that he spent the first 30 years of his life innQuebec and speaks impeccable French - he has a stronger claim to being a Quebecers than Layton ha.

[DL]

There have also been prominent Quebec politicians with names like Ryan and Johnson etc...

"Teddy", you seem to take card-carrying NDP members for fools. The people who are party members/activists (i.e. those who will be making the choice) are mostly political junkies who will be very well informed about the backgrounds and qualities of the people in the running.

[DL]

FWIW Mulcair was born in Ontario. Topp was born in Quebec!

[DL]

not to mention Tea Party type racists who talk about Barack HUSSEIN Obama.

[DL]

Anyways, even if the party insiders want Topp to win, that doesn't mean he will. In the provincial convention, all the insiders wanted Tabuns to win (including Ed Broadbent), but Andrea Horwath won.

That's not quite correct. While some federal level insiders like Broadbent and people around Layton were supporting Tabuns for the ONDP leadership, Horwath was supported by Hampton and all the people around him at Ontario NDP HQ - so she had her own universe of insiders on her side.

[DL]

I just saw a tweet that Romeo Saganash will run! Good to have a Quebecer in the race in addition to Mulcair - esp. one who is Cree as well!

[DL]

I was surprised to see that BC has more NDP members than Ontario!

There is actually a very simple explanation for that. The BC NDP typically doesn't have that many members but they had a very hotly contested leadership race of their own this past April and it was OMOV and you had three serious candidates each signing up thousands of "instant New Democrats"...Adrian Dix alone signed up several thousand NDP members from the Sikh community just to support him...those people are all still on the BC NDP membership rolls.

[DL]

Well, the choice of the date will be more or less an endorsement of a candidate.

I don't think that's the case at all. I think that a lot of members of the NDP federal council will want to have the leadership vote in late February or March - not because they want to do Mulcair any favours, but because they just think its better for the party to leave enough time for candidates to sign up members and especially for membership in Quebec to have a chance to catch up to the rest of the country.

[DL]

Libby Davies speaks no French so she would never be a serious candidate - if even she was crazy enough to run. I'm not sure what makes you think Peggy Nash is "too leftwing". She strikes me as totally mainstream in her views. She was party President. She is Finance critic and she seems to tow the party line on everything. She also speaks French very well.

[DL]

If you are trying to say that anyone who has ever had any links to the labour movement is ipso-facto "far left" then that would label a huge proportion of the current NDP caucus and most of the other contenders. Brian Topp is currently executive director of a union ACTRA -I guess he's on the far left too. Or what about Paul Dewar who was active in the teachers union before being elected? Of course then there is the most extreme left-winger of all (not) Gary Doer the former presidetnt of the Manitoba Government Employees union!!

[DL]

Nash is "seen" as very left-wing.

The only place I have ever seen Nash described as "very leftwing" is by you in this thread. That's it!

[DL]

I have never seen Peggy Nash described as "too leftwing" for the NDP. She is usually depicted as being about as mainstream as they come. In fact the biggest knock I've seen against her is that she's not a dynamic enough speaker and is a bit dull. If younhave an example of a specific policy position she takes thatnis at odds with most of the party and would put her in cahoots with the "socialist caucus" please tell us about it.

[DL]

To give you an idea, there was 72,000 members in PQ in 2004, 155,000 in 2005 and 74,000 in 2006. (source:quebecpolitique.com). There was a leadership race in 2005.

I'd say "double" is a rough estimate to what happens to the membership numbers during a leader's campaign.
[/quote]

In the case of the NDP in Quebec, I think membership will far more than double over the next six months. Even if there were no leadership race at all with 59 MPs all creating riding associations and assembling lists of contacts - the # of NDP members would probably go from 1,750 to about 10,000 (at least) no matter what. Now with a leadership contest it may go much higher than that.

[DL]

I think that the number of NDP members in Quebec is actually somewhat higher than 1,650. That number was from a couple of months ago and I've heard that quite a few memberships came in over the summer. It may be closer to 3,000 by now.

[DL]

You forgot Robert Chisholm who sounds like he's definitely running.

[DL]

She's not that inexperienced. She ran in 2006 lost, ran again in 2008 and won so she has 3 years exp. in parliament. She speaks 5 languages - including impeccable French. She also had Michael Moore come and campaign for her in Thompson MB. I agree she would be a longshot - but she would add a lot to the race.

[DL]

I'm not surprised - the sub-sample of non-francophones who vote NDP in Quebec would be quite small in that survey - but why would they not support Mulcair? He is a fellow non-francophone Quebecer and a former Quebec Liberal to boot! If you are an anglophone NDP voter in Montreal - what's not to like?

[DL]

Someone tell Joel-Denis Bellavance that Peggy Nash is from Toronto not Hamilton - maybe he's confusing her with Andrea Horwath.