“I think very highly of Tom”. The Leap folks, for example, want to immediately halt the building of all oil pipelines and to quickly – very quickly – transition the economy away from fossil fuels. The NDP is in third place in the polls in Alberta behind the Tories and the Wildrose Party.
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After Thomas Mulcair lost the support of his party to remain at the helm of the NDP this weekend, the party enters an uncertain phase as it searches for a new leader and a new direction.
Mulcair not only failed to garner the 70-per-cent endorsement generally accepted to survive as leader, but also was unable to secure the 50-per-cent plus one the party’s constitution requires for him to even try to make a case for his continued leadership. The New Democrats voted to hold a leadership convention in two years.
March 24, 2012: Mulcair wins the leadership on the fourth ballot, beating out Topp.
“The membership has spoken”, Rankin said.
“I’m sure there are elements of both”, she said.
So will the convention to pick a new leader.
Federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair was shown the door yesterday as delegates at the federal party’s biennial convention voted 52 per cent in favor of a leadership review.
EDMONTON-The federal NDP committed Sunday to debating the contentious Leap Manifesto recommendations on climate change.
On Monday, Rankin was looking beyond the weekend divisiveness and to the future – keen to be back in Ottawa “to keep pushing the government on issues like offshore tax havens”. They might also have been less quick to risk the return of the NDP to the status it has suffered for most of its history: a left-wing protest party with little hope, or expectation, of ever winning power.
The NDP’s executive council, its key decision-making team, met on Sunday to initiate a process to determine next steps that will eventually set the wheels in motion for a leadership race. “Some parts of the party like to chat”, she said of the NDP’s move to discuss the contentious plan. Mulcair said he would continue to work “tirelessly” in the House of Commons as the party searches for his replacement.
On Wednesday, the caucus is expected to meet as per usual, but they will have a lot more than usual to discuss.
Seventy per cent support would have afforded Mulcair a chance to fight one more election, at least.
Former MP Peggy Nash, another leadership contender four years ago, penned a scathing critique of the NDP’s election campaign ahead of the convention.
“We recognize the pain and wrenching anxiety of tens of thousands of families in this great province of Alberta who are hurting because Big Oil wanted their labour in the boom and then bailed on them in the bust, which is precisely why the Leap Manifesto calls for training and resources for fossil-fuel workers”, he said.
Many said now-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outperformed Mulcair on the campaign trail and the Liberals did a better job of staking out the ground as the country’s progressive party. His campaign is based on Mulcair’s ability to hang on to the party’s 2011 gains in Quebec and lead the NDP to victory in the next election. He doesn’t have the populist touch of his predecessor, the late Jack Layton.
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“Don’t let this divided vote, divide the party”, an emotional Mulcair said on the stage as he accepted the results.
