Well, I partly blame the NDP too. They are not actually putting forth bold social-democratic policy proposals. Nothing to actually you know, inspire people to vote for them. Just peddling little adjustments here and there, terrified of being called socialists.
I think you hit the nail on the head: the leadership of the NDP is terrified of being called socialists. A lot of them are Rae-era veterans and remember very clearly the utter ratfucking they took from the establishment, and they’re desperately trying to appear “sensible” to appeal to our gatekeepers.
The problem is that they’ll always be called socialists, no matter how much they try to appease the Very Serious People that run things. Floyd Laughren has a tale about this, where he & Rae met with the banks and larger businesses of Ontario with their fully-costed plans for the next four years, only to have the banks say “That’s nice, but we’re still going to destroy you”. Mulcair went right of Trudeau in 2015 and they were still calling him a radical left Marxist socialists. Hell, they call Trudeau a radical leftists despite his being more right-wing, economically, than Mulroney.
Meanwhile, Conservatives can be as fundamentally unserious as they want, and are never held to account.
The NDP needs to stop ducking punches, stand up, and make the wealthy explain why giving them more tax cuts will somehow make things better. Co-opt the “Make ____ Great Again” slogan, but make it about marginal tax rates and being able to see a doctor same-day. And they should do it knowing that the wealthy will have a hissy fit.
That’s exactly what I’m calling tinkering at the edges.
We need plans for housing, for transit, for healthcare, for research and innovation, for the green transition, for climate adaptation, etc etc. The Conservatives are a disaster on all those fronts and the Liberals’ plan is to have no plan and let things sort themselves out. The NDP? Where are the big ideas, the bold plans, the radical breaks with the unsustainable status quo? Pharmacare isn’t it…
There was a few years ago something called the Leap Manifesto, which was in scope similar to the left US Democrats’ “green new deal”. A bold vision for the big changes we need to make. Not nitpicky details about this or that side issue that we are going to convince the big kids to kindly provide, but a Big Story why people should vote us in government. That’s what I’m talking about.
After the Reform party took over the Cons every party shifted one to the right
If you thought people voting Reform would swap to voting for social policies then I don’t know what to tell you but more Canadians are in favour of privatizing healthcare than against it (if you include want to try it but worried it might not be better)
Trudeau’s government isn’t a far right as the Chretien Liberals, let alone the Mulroney PCs.
People forget the cost cutting and devolution of healthcare and other programs that occurred under Chretien in the name of balancing the federal budget, a policy they kept right through the Chretien and Martin years.
They actively avoided getting into social policy reform as much as possible. For example, weed legalization was absolutely shot down by that government. In this aspect they were largely a care-taker government.
Trudeau has expanded public programs, legalized weed, prioritized diversity in cabinet, etc.
This doesn’t really mean anything, like his equal girls and boys shtick was just more right wing “wokeism” where they play around Gender having meaning and tokenism
Naturally we would have a more diverse cabinet due to demographics shifts and education
I will say anytime he has bad press he does come up with some left wing policy to change the narrative like his putting trans protections in the Charter. Even though they were already protected by it
Well, I partly blame the NDP too. They are not actually putting forth bold social-democratic policy proposals. Nothing to actually you know, inspire people to vote for them. Just peddling little adjustments here and there, terrified of being called socialists.
I think you hit the nail on the head: the leadership of the NDP is terrified of being called socialists. A lot of them are Rae-era veterans and remember very clearly the utter ratfucking they took from the establishment, and they’re desperately trying to appear “sensible” to appeal to our gatekeepers.
The problem is that they’ll always be called socialists, no matter how much they try to appease the Very Serious People that run things. Floyd Laughren has a tale about this, where he & Rae met with the banks and larger businesses of Ontario with their fully-costed plans for the next four years, only to have the banks say “That’s nice, but we’re still going to destroy you”. Mulcair went right of Trudeau in 2015 and they were still calling him a radical left Marxist socialists. Hell, they call Trudeau a radical leftists despite his being more right-wing, economically, than Mulroney.
Meanwhile, Conservatives can be as fundamentally unserious as they want, and are never held to account.
The NDP needs to stop ducking punches, stand up, and make the wealthy explain why giving them more tax cuts will somehow make things better. Co-opt the “Make ____ Great Again” slogan, but make it about marginal tax rates and being able to see a doctor same-day. And they should do it knowing that the wealthy will have a hissy fit.
Make way for milennial socialists!
It’s been a month since they manage to get a first phase of a pharmacare bill passed.
That’s exactly what I’m calling tinkering at the edges.
We need plans for housing, for transit, for healthcare, for research and innovation, for the green transition, for climate adaptation, etc etc. The Conservatives are a disaster on all those fronts and the Liberals’ plan is to have no plan and let things sort themselves out. The NDP? Where are the big ideas, the bold plans, the radical breaks with the unsustainable status quo? Pharmacare isn’t it…
There was a few years ago something called the Leap Manifesto, which was in scope similar to the left US Democrats’ “green new deal”. A bold vision for the big changes we need to make. Not nitpicky details about this or that side issue that we are going to convince the big kids to kindly provide, but a Big Story why people should vote us in government. That’s what I’m talking about.
After the Reform party took over the Cons every party shifted one to the right
If you thought people voting Reform would swap to voting for social policies then I don’t know what to tell you but more Canadians are in favour of privatizing healthcare than against it (if you include want to try it but worried it might not be better)
Trudeau’s government isn’t a far right as the Chretien Liberals, let alone the Mulroney PCs.
People forget the cost cutting and devolution of healthcare and other programs that occurred under Chretien in the name of balancing the federal budget, a policy they kept right through the Chretien and Martin years.
They actively avoided getting into social policy reform as much as possible. For example, weed legalization was absolutely shot down by that government. In this aspect they were largely a care-taker government.
Trudeau has expanded public programs, legalized weed, prioritized diversity in cabinet, etc.
This doesn’t really mean anything, like his equal girls and boys shtick was just more right wing “wokeism” where they play around Gender having meaning and tokenism
Naturally we would have a more diverse cabinet due to demographics shifts and education
I will say anytime he has bad press he does come up with some left wing policy to change the narrative like his putting trans protections in the Charter. Even though they were already protected by it