This will seem like it’s a US election given it’s pretty much two years until we go to the polls in October 2015.
Usually the Liberal party starts to troll for NDP support in the last to weeks of an actual campaign with their silly ” don’t vote NDP it’s a vote for the Conservatives” nonsense.
Make no mistake about it the fight is on and NDPer Brad Lavigne came out and countered with a rebuttal to Trudeau’s nonsense.
It was the right thing to do because of course Trudeau is No Jack Layton. He’s actually more like BC NDPer Adrian Dix was , a leader short on policy and capable of saying things that catch even his own party of guard.
As Mr. Lavigne alludes to, the fight for the left started before that with the Liberals being caught trashing election signs in the Toronto Center riding.
I would expect that the folk in the NDP war room will roll back the tapes on the career of Trudeau’s old Man to ensure the voting public that his ghost will rise and remind the public what a mess he made of Canada.
Harper: Put that in your pipe and smoke it Justin!
The results are now in in tonight’s by-elections and the Conservatives held onto their two seats and the Liberals won their two.
What does it all mean?
In a nut shell Justin Trudeau aint exactly the next great thing.
Lets face it the Liberals won two seats that they should have, lost one they could have and got blown out in the other.
In the great battle that was Toronto Center the Liberals won a Bob Rae seat in a by-election where nobody bothered to vote. ( 27.8 % of registered voters voted)
In Quebec they won Denis Coderre’s old seat. So what; they won that with great leaders like Ignatieff and Dion .
In Manitoba the Conservatives won big where they were expected to and squeaked by in Brandon-Souris.
In other words with the deck some what stacked against them the Conservatives still won.
To wit;
a) it so goes that sitting governments rarely win by-elections
b) the senate scandal
c) so-called problems with the nomination process
d) the Liberals ran a candidate with the last name Dinsdale a very popular candidate in the riding
e) the Conservatives ran a candidate who already lost the riding once
f) the mainstream media threw everything at the Conservatives they could to help Trudeau
This was the Trudeau chance to show greatness and steal one for the team and he couldn’t deliver.
What are the take a ways from all this?
The Conservatives have to keep the nomination process whistle clean and they should be fine. After all almost 45 % of registered voters turned out in their squeaker and they still won so I don’t think the public will be influenced at all by the so-called senate scandal come election time.
For the Liberals : Trudeau is not the piece of gold you quite thought he was. The west wasn’t buying what he was selling. Without a platform and a vision it is the voting public who will give him the finger when his train leaves the station.
For the NDP : Tom Mulcair might be excellent at question period but he is a dipshit on the campaign trail. He couldn’t motivate anybody to vote for everybody’s favorite socialist Linda McQuaig.
What will the mainstream media say? That Harper will worry over the results tonight.
In truth he won’t and it will be the media and the opposition that will be worried.
I would say the prospects for another majority look a little rosier now than they did a few hours ago, don’t they?
It’ll be an interesting run up to the 2015 election and Political Insider will be there to bring you all the action.
Now that the convention is over and Craig Keating has been elected president of the BCNDP where do they go from here?
Firstly, the election of Keating was a great first step in cleaning house and removing some of the old guard from the party. Keating is a nice guy and a good campaigner ( I met him briefly at the main Save BC Film rally earlier this year).
Jag Brar, who was his opponent in the race is also a stand up guy who represented his constituents well in his former role as an MLA. Keating’s victory could be the federal NDP’s gain should Brar decide to make a run for a federal nomination in the run up to the 2015 election.
So what does the NDP need to be perceived as a government in waiting?
Secondly they have to clean up Moe Sihota’s mess and deal with that nagging fallout from the Carole James coup. ( see the link above)
This stuff should have been met head on when they had the chance and not left for the incoming president and executive to deal with. It should have been water under the bridge month’s ago.
Probably the best thing that could happen now would be MLA James ( who has shown guts,determination and class in her handling of said coup) to address this and say let’s move on ( again).
Perhaps then the BCNDP can get on with their two most important tasks namely choosing the right leader and building a war chest to fight the next election in 2017.
The right leader is the most important decision they will have to make in the next short while. That person will be responsible for firing up,rebuilding the party and leading it into the next election.
That leader must not only be able to inspire the average undecided voter to take a look,kick the tires and ultimately vote for them but also be able to open the wallets of business and union people alike.
The second part is vitally important to the BCNDP because they are now $2 million in debt having spent $14 million in the election. ( say what you want about Adrian Dix but he got the party to 50% in the polls and raised a lot of money).
The problem is that none of the so-called leadership candidates are very inspiring save for one. ( I know the so-called front runner is Mike Farnworth but ZZZZZZZZ, wake me up after the election)
The one that could inspire and rally the troops is John Horgan and he has already said no.
John understands people from all spectrum’s of the electorate. He is also a smart business person. ( I worked with John on a project a number of years ago and can testify to his business acumen).
He speaks and talks with the kind of emotion that get’s people to stand up and take notice.
A Horgan led BCNDP would scare the pants of of the BC Liberals and give the party the shot in the arm it desperately needs.
If I were Craig Keating I would be on the phone to John Horgan and do everything in my power to get him to change his mind.
Failure to do that and unless another inspiring candidate steps forward will almost certainly relegate the BCNDP to the backbenches in 2017.
It’s fitting that the word nation plays a big role in the word assassination as the events of November 22,1963 ( 50 years ago) certainly gripped not only the U.S. nation but the whole world.
I was a kid, 7 years old and I remember like it was yesterday all the pomp and circumstance leading up to the presidential visit to Dallas.
Even with two TV stations and a pair of rabbit ears all you heard about was the visit.
Speaking of rabbits, I remember what I was doing when the fateful moments occurred.
I was living in Winnipeg and either sick or home for lunch sitting in front of the TV watching a Daffy Duck cartoon on the Bugs Bunny show when the station cut in and pretty much preempted your life for the next little while.
Even at 7, I remember shedding tears and watching the whole thing with utter amazement.
I remember the funeral as I watched it on a friends TV ( the Saunders family actually) and how sad it was.
Imagine as in the image above a 3 year old boy saluting at his owns fathers funeral ( He would later meet with his own grisly death in a terrible airplane accident).
As a kid I remember wondering if I would experience this again in my lifetime. ( That year I had already had my first experience with unplanned death as my young friend Denise was run over by a car more or less in front of me. Her lifeless body under the front wheel of the car still haunts me today as I am sure it does the women who ran her over and Mrs. Small my former kindergarten teacher who tried to save her.)
Little did I know it would only take 5 years and JFK’s brother would suffer the same fate ( I was in bed sleeping, my mother woke me to tell me ) as would Martin Luther king Jr. ( Hawks and Bruins hockey game preempted).
Fifty years ago the world changed for this young kid in a way I never would have thought possible.
Other children experienced a far worse life altering event back in 1914 when an certain Austrian prince was shot off an horse leading to the start of the first world war.
But that was the event for my young times.
Do you remember what you were doing on that fateful day?
Only in BC Politics you say? Not anymore with all the goings on on Toronto lately.
Tomorrow, disingenuous Mayor wanna be Denzil Minnan-Wong will finish off his own political career when he brings a motion before Toronto City Council to ask the that the whole matter concerning the Ford affair be turned over to the provincial government so that they will step in and throw Ford out.
Minnan-Wong is disingenuous because he says he is bringing the motion to have Ford removed to clear the air around city hall and not as a prelude to the launch of his mayoralty campaign. This, as anybody that follows politics knows, is a load of opportunistic crap.
Of course he is trying to get a head start on the mayoralty campaign, but he does not have the balls to admit it. He’s just another gutless opportunistic politician who will find out shortly after he proceeds with his motion that he will be lucky if his family will vote for him , let alone find any volunteers Conservative or otherwise to help with his campaign.
Minnan-Wong would be a poster boy for what is wrong with today’s opportunistic excuses for politicians except that after the motion there will probably be enough poster boys and girls from the Ontario Liberal Party trying to present themselves front and center to help rule against Ford and create and even bigger scandal in Ontario.
Can you imagine a bunch of Liberals ( ones who are at the root of enough scandals of their own doing; think gas plants ) being put in the position of making that kind of a ruling over a Conservative Mayor.
The National Energy Program, a prime Minister waving the middle finger at the constituents in the train station and the biggest fuddle duddle of them all the near break up of Canada due to Trudeau’s constitutional mangling.
Son Justin has already shown his lack of respect for things Canadian when he called Minister of Environment Peter Kent a “piece of Shit” in the house of commons.
He has now gone on record with his admiration for China ( communist China where people are dying to leave and move here).
Kinda makes you wonder what else is going on in his head ( apart from entertaining women).
Perhaps the Second Coming of the National Energy Program?
Is this women in on the largest scandal of the day?
With all the mayhem going in in the political world, the political insider thought it is the appropriate time to ask the question; What exactly is the worst scandal going on now?
We have lots to choose from.
1) Senate Scandal
2) Rob Ford
3) Media Scandal
The first one is obvious and doesn’t need a ton of added discussion although the issue of pension plans will raise it’s ugly head. This one is not over yet.
The Rob Ford Scandal is actually two scandals in one. The first being that he smoked crack will employed as a mayor and the second part might be the who can blame him given how the media has treated him since he was elected mayor scandal.
Then there is the media scandal. You know the one where the media determines just what drugs are actually unlawful enough to smoke will you hold elected office.
Right now it’s fashionable in the media to refer to the drugs Rob Ford Smoked as ” Hard” drugs but according to the media it’s cool to smoke pot while you are an elected MP.
One of these gets you the coveted Walter White award, the other gets you on the media fast track list to the Prime Ministers office.
