It’s very sad. The federal party that once championed the hopes and beliefs of the majority of middle and working class Canadians has now completed its transition to just being the fringe voice of far left revolutionery activists, anti-business obstructionists and environmental extremists.
Not a formula for electoral victory these days ANYWHERE in Canada!
The three generations of former NDP leaders and stalwart party supporters who worked tirelessly to achieve their dream of an NDP federal government saw it all cast aside Sunday … in favour of an extreme radical left ideologue.
The party chose Avi Lewis, broadcaster and film maker as its new leader, replacing Jagmeet Singh, who led the party to disastrous results in the last federal election.
Lewis, 58, is the grandson of former NDP federal leader David Lewis and son of former NDP Ontario leader Stephen Lewis.
Lewis has opposed any new fossil fuel developments or pipelines, would end all subsidies to the energy sector, would somehow prioritise worker rights in the age of artificial intelligence, would introduce a new wealth tax, would cut military spending, advocates proportional representation over the current voting system, and would establish a taxpayer-owned grocery chain.
I personally cannot see how these policies would do anything to increase investment/development/economic growth/jobs/revenues in Canada … or boost the party’s appeal to the working middle class, especially those in the construction, high tech, business or resource sector/unions.
Looks to me like the armchair socialist NDP delegates, who chose Lewis on the very first ballot, totally ignored the LOUD MESSAGE Canadian voters sent the party in the last federal vote.
“They nabbed just 6.3 per cent of the popular vote, their worst result since the NDP’s founding back in 1961. They were reduced to seven seats in the House of Commons, also a record low. They lost official party status – 12 MPs are needed – then lost their leader, Jagmeet Singh, who failed to win his B.C. riding,” the Globe and Mail pointed out.
I believe the selection of Lewis … and the policies he has enunciated … will make things even worse, rendering the federal NDP almost irrelevant to middle class working Canadians.
Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent, Jack Layton, even Singh must be weeping in their beer!
In fact, even some current NDP leaders have already raised concerns.
“The positions that you have expressed publicly in this leadership race, and in your prior interactions with the New Democratic Party, are antithetical to the values of a party built with and for working people,” Saskatchewan NDP Opposition Leader Beck lamented un a letter to Lewis.
“Beck, in a letter sent this morning, said (Lewis’s) opposition to fossil fuel development is “ideological and unrealistic” and “would hurt Saskatchewan workers, communities, and industries,” the Toronto Star reported. (Read the full story here: https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/ndp-leadership-vote-results-live-updates/article_bd59f61f-1628-4747-8917-4553a1dcaa93.html.)
Alberta NDP Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi is quoted in the same article: “it is clear that the direction of the federal party under this new leader, someone who openly cheered for the defeat of the Alberta NDP government, is not in the interests of Alberta.”
“Albertans deserve federal leaders who understand the importance of Alberta and our essential role in the federation,” Nenshi wrote.
“Former NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said Lewis’s rigid position on fossil fuels will make the NDP unelectable in many remote communities that rely on resource industries as their economic base,” the National Post reported.
“We know that the NDP could win in Vancouver and Toronto. But what would happen to the West of Canada, in Quebec, in East, in North? That’s the challenge for Avi,” NDP Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew told the media.
Just last week, an Angus Reid survey of past NDP voters … get that, past NDP voters … found “fully one-quarter … say the party is irrelevant (24%). More say its best days are in the past (40%).”
Yikes!
And that was before the party chose a radical left extremist for its new leader.
Harv Oberfeld
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