The death this past summer of NDP leader Jack Layton, whose force of character drove the party’s record success during the last federal election, has left many questioning how his loss will impact the NDP’s popularity.
“It’s going to have a big impact,” said Dylan Watson, a Vancouver native currently working in Montreal. “He was a very personable character and was very warm and friendly.”
Watson went on to say he thinks the current leadership campaign will create a power struggle within the party, resulting in a loss of public support.
Sylvia Poulin, an editor with a Montreal publishing house, thinks people need to give the NDP more time before coming to any conclusions. “I don’t think it’s going to change much right away. I think they’ll [Quebecers] give them a chance, because there wasn’t just Jack Layton in the party.”
A recent Nanos Research poll, completed for the Globe and Mail and CTV, suggests Poulin’s assessment may in fact be correct.
The poll, conducted between Sept. 25 and Oct. 2, shows a 4.1 point drop in Canada-wide NDP support, from 33.1 per cent to 29 per cent. An earlier poll, taken shortly after Layton’s death, saw a 6.3 per cent spike in NDP popularity between August and September 2011, from 26.8 per cent to 33.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, Quebec remains the largest NDP stronghold with 48.9 per cent support in August.
Poulin also added that she feels the NDP’s recent surge of popularity is “a flash in a pan.”
“It’s my opinion that the party will lose its popularity with the loss of Layton, but I also think we may be surprised,” she said.
The NDP leadership race officially kicked off on Sept. 15, with an election scheduled for March 24. There are presently five registered candidates for the NDP leadership race: Paul Dewar, Thomas Mulcair, Romeo Saganash, Martin Singh, and Brian Topp.
Topp and Mulcair are regarded as the most likely candidates to take over as party leader. Brian Topp, the current NDP president who declared his intentions to run for party leader in September, has extensive political experience, but has never been elected to public office.
Thomas Mulcair announced his candidacy last Thursday and is an experienced campaigner and debater, as well as being widely considered the face of the NDP in Quebec.
But do Topp or Mulcair have what it takes to continue what Jack Layton started?
“It’s too early for me to tell,” said Ivan Vasilinin, a student at Marianopolis College. “Each one of them has their own strengths, but I can’t tell you if anybody is suited for the part.”
Montrealer Jose Withmer acknowledged it isn’t going to be easy replacing Layton.
“Jack Layton was big, he was a great man with a big vision and I hope someone is going to fulfill his vision,” said Withmer. “We will never have another Jack Layton.”
Claire Massari, who works as a medical writer in Montreal, admitted she didn’t know much about Topp, but was less than impressed with Mulcair.
“This is for me personally, it’s just my opinion,” said Massari. “[But] I don’t get carried away when Mulcair is speaking. It doesn’t have the same effect that Jack did.”
Nonetheless, Massari remains optimistic. “Quebecers are really counting on the NDP to help them through, so if there is someone who can sort of get them going again, I think they have a good chance,” she said.
Tag: politics
A new poll has found that if an election were to be held this week, the Conservative party could quite possibly win a majority. The poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid, found that the Conservatives are now supported by 43 per cent of decided voters, which is quite close to the percentage experts believe is required to win a majority. The new survey shows the Conservatives with a 16 point lead over the Liberals, and a 40 point lead over the NDP.
The current popularity of the Conservative party can be explained by two factors. In the short term, there is a perception that the Conservative government handled the recent economic crisis rather responsibly, resulting in Canada’s faring relatively well in comparison to other western countries. In the long-term, and perhaps more importantly, the Conservative government has not adopted some of the more radically conservative right-wing policies that many believed their ascension to power in 2006 would bring. This has resulted in the people of Canada, or at least many of them, coming to realize that the Conservative Party is not as radically right-wing as they once thought. Combined with overall good and responsible governance, it is possible that after five years, they are finally replacing the Liberals, at least for now, as Canada’s natural party of government.
While the general good governance provided by Stephen Harper’s conservatives certainly contributed to the state of the current poll numbers, so too have the deficiencies in the two main opposition parties, the Liberals and the NDP. The Liberal party did far worse in the poll for a good reason. First and foremost, they have simply failed to articulate policies different enough from the Conservatives to warrant their election to government. Instead, they have chosen to harp on controversial, yet in terms of the big picture unimportant scandals such as the recent affair concerning Bev Oda and the NGO Kairos. Combined with the fact that Michael Ignatieff is still, in the eyes of many, simply not a believable leader, it is not surprising that the Liberal party only has the support of 27 per cent of decided voters, according to the poll.
With only 13 per cent of decided voter backing it, the NDP fared even worse. Simply put, the NDP is a joke. During recent debates over the upcoming federal budget, the NDP stated a list of demands without bothering to even speculate their cost, or what sort of tax raises they would require. As well, the recent proposal by that party’s leader Jack Layton that a referendum be held regarding the abolition of the Canadian Senate, is an example of the sort of ill-conceived and irresponsible PR move that his party seems to be fond of. Combined with the fact that the NDP has for many years been failing to represent the working-class base that it was created to represent, it is not surprising that the NDP appears to be rapidly becoming a party increasingly on the verge of irrelevance.
The current popularity of the federal Conservatives, if it can be sustained, seems likely to result in their formation of a majority government in the next election. If that occurs, hopefully the first majority federal government in 7 years can make the sort of legislative progress that has been seemingly impossible under the past 3 minority governments.
It’s not that there aren’t interesting things going on in Parliament – we just don’t know about them.
The reclusive Prime Minister Stephen Harper maintains his power by keeping things private. His crew of cabinet members are a secret alliance party, deciding the fate of our country behind closed doors. Taxes, infrastructure and social policy are topics are open to public discourse, and Canadians who care about these issues are proactive enough to look into it themselves.
Is anyone really complaining, though?
It is refreshing to have a discreet government. It reflects our humility, and the trust we inherently place in our politicians. They don’t need to pull the ostentatious Lady Gaga-esque stunts to win our vote. As long as we get to keep our medicare, low tuition, gun control, and fair drinking age, most of us remain pacified.
Then again, perhaps we don’t crave a more dynamic, outspoken government because we have the one down south to follow like a celebrity tabloid. American politics have a way bigger budget to dedicate to political campaigns, so they naturally become giant, entertaining marketing schemes.
There are also practical reasons for us to be so enthralled with American politics. The U.S. president, the so-called leader of the free world, makes decisions that resonate on an international scale. Our trade economy is so closely reliant on the States’ that if they crumble, we crumble.
Twitter, the fast-growing social network that allows Little Johnny to campaign for sixth-grade president, as well as country leaders to summarize their political platforms in 140 characters or less, is becoming a vital self-promotion tool.
These catchy daily declarations speak volumes about our politicians. While Obama posts about how his former press secretary, Robert Gibbs, couldn’t have been a better BFF, Harper posts a stern and official-sounding statement following the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
McGill political science professor Dr. Elisabeth Gidengil suspects that American politicians act more like celebrities because their campaigns are much longer.
“The candidates are able to spend huge sums of money to promote themselves, and the major media outlets have more funds to devote to covering the campaign,” she says. “Plus, a presidential candidate is much more a person separate from his party than is a Canadian party leader.”
American politicians campaign not only before their term, but during it as well. Obama must persistently prove that he can fix the damaged economic infrastructure that Bush left behind.
Harper must be doing something right, considering we routinely rank in the top 10 of the least corrupt nations in the world, while the U.S. sits at the 22nd spot, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index from 2010.
Silence is golden, and Harper exemplifies that statement perfectly. It’s great not having to confuse my prime minister for a loudspeaker with no “off” button.