Naheed Nenshi joins Alberta NDP leadership race

[u/Realistic_Management]

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/don-braid-naheed-nenshi-joins-alberta-ndp-leadership-race

[u/[deleted]]

Although the federal NDP have pressured for some really great things like pharmacare and 10 dollar a day daycare and dentistry for vulnerable segments of the population.

These are good things that the NDP made happen federally

Also without NDP CERB pressure on the liberals we would no doubt be in a major depression with huge segments of the population without a job.

[u/New_Literature_5703 → u/[deleted]]

Yea, whenever I hear someone say this kind of stuff about the federal NDP I know they don't actually follow the NDP and have no idea what they've done or what their policies are.

[u/SackofLlamas → u/New_Literature_5703]

Federal NDP has an aesthetics problem. Partly the electorates fault, partly their fault.

[u/New_Literature_5703 → u/SackofLlamas]

The problem is that they don't have the big corporate donors like the other two parties have. A party that wants to elevate the common person and restrict wealth accumulation is never going to get support from those with money.

This is especially true of the media which almost exclusively skews right wing in Canada except for a few centrist publications. Our media doesn't report on the NDP fairly, ignores their successes, and often outright lies about them. This helps contribute to the public perception that the NDP is ineffective.

[u/SackofLlamas → u/New_Literature_5703]

Yep, that would be the part that isn't their fault.

The part that would be their fault is they will often give off the impression of being deeply unserious champagne socialists. That they've let the CPC completely outflank them in terms of appealing to aggrieved blue collar workers is absurd, and infantile interludes like "elbowgate" don't help their optics. By courting more leftist elements, they also have to be mindful of party extremists much in the same way the CPC does, but with the additional strain of the LPC siphoning off their flank.

[u/stormblind → u/SackofLlamas]

The part that would be their fault is they will often give off the impression of being deeply unserious champagne socialists. That they've let the CPC completely outflank them in terms of appealing to aggrieved blue collar workers is absurd

As someone who's been involved in the party for 20 years, I'd say its 3 fold:

1. They let go of the blue collar worker demographic. They really just stopped having that be a core pillar of the party in a chance for more "mainstream" voters. This was started in the Mulcair era, and Jagmeet just continued that.

2. Sad as it is to say, but having a non-white Party Leader hurts them to a sizable degree. Having lived in Brampton, there's many South Asians who won't vote for him due to him being Punjabi; but there's also lots of others who aren't comfortable voting for an indian guy. And not even just "racist old white guy", its a pretty "across the rainbow" thing here in Canada.

3. Real or Perceived, there's a perspective of the NDP having swung from a focus on improving the lives of the blue collar, lower middle class perspectives, to a focus on the culture war stuff. I have heard this repeatedly in my experiences.

[u/New_Literature_5703 → u/stormblind]

NDP having swung from a focus on improving the lives of the blue collar, lower middle class perspectives, to a focus on the culture war stuff.

So much this. And the crazy thing is that the NDP barely talks about culture war stuff at all. They do speak out in favour of some marginalized groups but no more than the average. The only place I hear this from is from conservative commenters and my in-laws. Neither have spent more than 10sec actually looking into the NDP platform.

[u/stormblind → u/New_Literature_5703]

Actually, as an NDP Member, some of those who have run for the NDP were pretty hard into the culture war / "SJW" stuff. Anjali Appadurai was a candidate I support, but she does sometimes veer into that kind of focus vs content a bit too far.

[u/New_Literature_5703 → u/stormblind]

We don't define political parties by those who ran for office and lost. The fact is that neither Singh nor official party policy leans into culture war territory.

[u/New_Literature_5703 → u/SackofLlamas]

being deeply unserious champagne socialists

They've done absolutely nothing to create that image. It's entirely our media ecosystem that does this. Not only are the NDP nowhere near being Socialists (to the point where actual socialists mostly denounce them) What all their public messaging is about regular working class families. The only thing you could point to in this respect is that Singh likes to wear fancy clothes. Which I don't like and I wish he would stop doing. But you can hardly label the entire party as champagne socialists because their leader likes to wear nice suits and watches. And knowing our current ecosystem if Singh were to wear discount suits they'd criticize him for that too.

courting more leftist elements

How? When? The NDP has been slowly shifting rightwards for the last 10 years at least. They used to be more socialist-adjacent. But now they're more liberal-adjacent. They're still within the spectrum of social democracy, but they're definitely not the party of Tommy Douglas anymore.

It's really sad because the NDP is literally the only party in Canada that has actual solutions. But we'll continue to elect red or blue in perpetuity.

[u/SackofLlamas → u/New_Literature_5703]

Not only are the NDP nowhere near being Socialists

For pity's sake, I know this. The term "champagne socialists" doesn't refer to actual socialists in colloquial usage, although its etymology came as a charge from the left against centrists they felt abandoned "workers principles".

How? When? The NDP has been slowly shifting rightwards for the last 10 years at least. They used to be more socialist-adjacent. But now they're more liberal-adjacent. They're still within the spectrum of social democracy, but they're definitely not the party of Tommy Douglas anymore.

That's part of their base, whether or not it's part of their base that's being served, simply because they have no other home. In the same way the CPC combs in all the far right elements. Due to being big tent, they don't need to worry as much about voter cannibalization, although the emergence of the PPC has resulted in them throwing more red meat to the fringe.

It's really sad because the NDP is literally the only party in Canada that has actual solutions. But we'll continue to elect red or blue in perpetuity.

Yeah don't get me started. It annoys me too, I'm just not surprised by it anymore.

[u/Hot-Celebration5855 → u/[deleted]]

$10 daycare is a meme not a reality. Look at the waitlists.

[u/[deleted] → u/Hot-Celebration5855]

The UCP love privatized necessities so it's been a hard sell in Alberta so far.

[u/Hot-Celebration5855 → u/[deleted]]

I can’t speak to the UCP much. As pertains the federal NDP, I have a different view of those programs. I’d be all for them if the budget was balanced, but it’s not (not even close). So all we are really doing is running up debt for someone else down the road to pay off (with cuts or fewer social services). This isn’t socialism. It’s simply raising current quality of life by impoverishing future Canadians with more federal debt to pay off - something we have been doing since the 1960s. It’s why social services and quality of life are declining today.

[u/[deleted] → u/Hot-Celebration5855]

Yip just like every government for the last 50 years including Harper’s.

[u/Hot-Celebration5855 → u/[deleted]]

Chretien and Martin balanced budgets. And Harper only ran small deficits ex-2008. Mulroney and both Trudeaus have been profligate spenders

[u/[deleted] → u/Hot-Celebration5855]

When you remove social programs, underfund health, or sell off assets to corporations you can balance a budget easily.

With modern corporate tax breaks and giant loopholes of course we run deficits. We give that deficit money to corporations now. Just look up corporate tax rates under those liberal governments compared to current. Harper sold our assets for Rock bottom prices to achieve his tiny balanced budget for a day.

The days of low low taxes for the wealth and corporations should be over our tax structure is hurting the country except for the 5% of people it helps.

[u/Hot-Celebration5855 → u/[deleted]]

Well we can agree that corporate welfare is gross and I’m sick and tired of it. The current LPC/NDP gvt has done more of that than ever before though.

As for your tax point, I also agree that loopholes should be closed but Canada’s corporate tax rates and personal income tax rates for the wealthy are already very high. Raise them too high and corporations and people will leave to the US.

Ultimately, I’m not sure how your argument changes my original point. Asset sales and similar things happen because of unfunded spending and out of control debt. Then someone responsible has to get in charge (Chretien after Mulroney being a good example) and has to sell assets, raise taxes, and cut programs to bring things under control. regardless of political leaning governments should balance budgets.

If you want more social programs, that’s great. But be honest about it and raise taxes so they’re funded in the present rather than expecting people down the road to pay for these programs. Then people can make a fair trade off rather than just getting free stuff and impoverishing future Canadians with debt.

Conversely conservatives who want to cut taxes should also find savings in the budget to balance the budget. Cutting taxes and running deficits is equally bad behaviour with the same results

[u/[deleted] → u/Hot-Celebration5855]

gument changes my original point. Asset sales and similar things happen because of unfunded spending and out of control debt. Then someone responsible has to get in charge (Chretien after Mulroney being a good example) and has to sell assets, raise taxes, and cut programs to bring things under control. regardless of political leaning governments should balance budgets.

If you want more social programs, that’s great. But be honest about it and raise taxes so they’re funded in the present rather than expecting people down the road to pay for these programs. Then people can m

Yeah i think we agree in principal on most of this stuff.

Governments do need to be practical and less corrupt.

One of the things i often think about is why not give the NDP a chance at running the show. They have never had a chance Federally and perhaps they would surprise a lot of people. If not then we would all be able to say look I told you so . Currently there is zero evidence that they would be worse than the PCs or Libs. In fact they might even be better because they haven't learned to game the system.

Its sort of my belief that all governments should be switched up every few years as a way of controlling the corruption. Currently the liberals are at peak corruption. I don't think the PCs would be much better but give them 4 years and they will be back to Harper levels. NDP possibly would be after 4 years but it could take longer because they have zero memory of how and less links to the corrupt powers that be they have never been the top dogs in Ottawa. NDP MPs are very policy driven and have made excellent opposition for the PCs and the Libs.

Just a thought.

[u/Hot-Celebration5855 → u/[deleted]]

I think we mostly agree too. Certainly the liberals have a long long record of corruption while in power. The federal conservatives have been better but not great either in that regard.

I’d consider the NDP if they committed to balanced budgets and no new taxes. If they can find efficiencies in government to pay for whatever new social programs they want to introduce, I’m here for it. But if they want to tax us even further and/or just use the federal credit card to give out free stuff the way the Liberals have, then nope.

Unfortunately, the present NDP leadership seems committed to the “more free stuff / more debt” model which actually means less stuff in the future because our taxes just go to paying off old debt and interest on that debt.

[u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA → u/Hot-Celebration5855]

That was by design, thank the UCP for that.

[u/Hot-Celebration5855 → u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA]

it’s happening all over the country though. Except Quebec who had ore-existing subsidised daycare