Skeena Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen says he is on Team Mulcair.
Advertisement
“That would mean we had no influence in the discussion going forward, so I think that would be a mistake”, said Mason.
As I have written of before, Mulcair’s leadership failed on its own premises and in every conceivable objective way.
It was also brutal, with 52% of the delegates at the party’s convention in Edmonton Sunday voting to hold a leadership contest, meaning only 48% supported Mulcair’s continued leadership. “We want to thank Tom Mulcair for his tireless work on behalf of our party, and all Canadians”.
NDP MPs coming back to work in Ottawa expressed support for Mulcair’s offer to stay on until a new leader is chosen.
The vote was the climax of a tense convention that exposed deep divisions within the party, particularly between its prairie wing and members from urban centres over the future of pipelines and oil sands development.
Before the vote, he tweeted: “If you keep standing with me, then together, we will never stop fighting”.
Prof. McGrane, who is studying last year’s election results and the future of the NDP, has commissioned a poll that found a majority of voters in both English and French Canada felt that the two parties offered similar agendas for the country.
“We don’t accept that”, Mulcair said.
Delegates to the convention voted to begin discussions around a policy document referred to as the Leap Manifesto, which proposes the party embrace more drastic measures to combat climate change and aboriginal issues, as well as higher corporate taxes, less military spending, a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and a move toward renewables and a ban on new pipelines. Boulerice said he needs time to think it over and discuss the matter with family and colleagues while Julian said he hasn’t given it any thought as yet.
Along with its call to transition away from fossil fuels completely by 2050, the manifesto also prescribes new taxes on the financial sector, a guaranteed minimum income, an end to unequal free trade agreements, as well as a new focus on indigenous rights. In fact, in the past 50 years, no other major Canadian party has. “Liberals and Conservatives will tell you that this is just the way things are”.
“Well, allow me to be blunt: This is complete and utter BS”.
The floor of the convention seemed shocked at the outcome.
I can only imagine the B.C. Liberals are salivating over the prospect of tying the federal NDP’s courtship of the Leap Manifesto to the B.C. NDP’s tail, and stepping back to gleefully watch the provincial party’s furious attempts to separate itself from all the controversy that may result from the positions called for by the Leap folks. Creeping privatization and a Liberal budget that doubles down on Stephen Harper’s health care cuts threaten the quality of health services in Canada. In an address that challenged the progressive credentials of Trudeau’s Liberals, he criticized the centrist party’s continued shortcomings on national childcare, electoral reform, security and surveillance laws, and most recently, arms sales to the theocratic regime in Saudi Arabia.
Advertisement
All New Democrats would be “gratified” to have Mulcair continue to demonstrate “the undeniable assets that he possesses as a parliamentarian”, he added.
