BC NDP Leader Resigns
07 Dec 2010, 3:42 pm
Carole James - who has likened herself to trying to repeat the "Doer Miracle"* - has just resigned from her post as Leader of the New Democratic Party of British Columbia.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrKyEqdgjRo[/youtube]
I don't know much about Britsh Columbian politics, but does Carole James departing speech seem a bit unprofessional to you? Usually, from what I understand, it's poor form to vent openly in a resignation speech.
I can't help but recall this article I read a while ago, mainly due to the contrast it paints between Manitoba and British Columbia.
Doer, a political moderate, froze taxes and consistently introduced balanced budgets. In the process, he transformed the Manitoba NDP into a middle-of-the-road party, which seriously eroded support for provincial Liberals in that province.
So is James a B.C. version of Doer? As appealing as Doer's record might appear to her supporters, there are some key differences between B.C. and Manitoba.
First, Doer governed a smaller province with a much larger percentage of aboriginal voters. Doer could count on these votes to help the NDP in closely fought contests.
Secondly, Doer's predecessor, Gary Filmon, did not undermine the public sector to nearly the same degree as B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell. In B.C., part of the NDP base wants to reverse those changes, whereas James seems more inclined to maintain the status quo. She won't even broach the possibility of increasing personal income taxes, for instance, to pay for more public services.
It was okay for Doer to be a status quo politician in a province where the social-safety net hadn't been shredded and where there were no medical-services premiums. There's a far greater risk for B.C. politicians to promote the status quo after Campbell's cuts and the Great Recession of 2008-09.
Thirdly, a significant proportion of B.C. voters care about environmental issues. In provincial elections, enough of them vote Green to thwart the NDP from winning.
James has been unable to stop this from happening in two consecutive elections. So far, there's no compelling evidence that this will change in the next campaign.
The Greens stood at 10 percent in the most recent Mustel Group poll. Even at five or six percent support, the Greens could siphon off enough votes to deny an NDP victory. Doer never had to deal with this issue in Manitoba.
Fourthly, one of the greatest global trends has been the migration of people from rural to urban areas. This is also occurring in B.C. on a significant scale.
Some of James's greatest successes have occurred in rural areas, notably on Vancouver Island, in coastal constituencies, and in the Kootenays. She has failed to do as well in Vancouver's inner and outer suburbs, where the population is increasing more rapidly.
It's shocking that the NDP was unable to win a majority of the seats in Vancouver and Burnaby in the last election when its municipal brothers and sisters won these cities in a landslide in 2008.
Finally, British Columbians have a history of embracing more extreme politicians than Manitobans. Campbell, Bill Bennett, and Bill Vander Zalm were more extreme than Filmon. B.C. New Democratic premiers Dave Barrett and Glen Clark were more extreme than Doer or his mentor, former Manitoba NDP premier Ed Schreyer.
The only real moderate to get elected premier in B.C. in the past 40 years was Mike Harcourt, and that only occurred because of a vote split on the right side of the spectrum.
Can James create a third way, just as Tony Blair did with the British Labour Party? Or will she experience a third defeat?
Today, the B.C. NDP collectively decided to endorse James's belief that Doer's success can be replicated in this province.
http://www.straight.com/article-360127/ ... ba-miracle
If there are two pointers that I may ever so humbly offer to the BC Dippers from my ever so experienced perspective**, it is simply...
1) Put your bloody personalities at the door. POLICY, not cults of personality, is what matters.
2) If Neo-Doerism is the best you can achieve, go for it. But if there's leeway for more radical action, bloody well take it!
3) WIN THE BLOODY ELECTION!! ! With the NDP government in Manitoba set to expire and various conservative parties set to win in upcomming Provincial elections, Canada could use some ideological balance at the Provincial level.
*That is, governing in a Third War, lacklustre centrist way and couple it with a folksy cult of personality.
**For the severely sarcasm impaired, I'm being sarcastic here.
07 Dec 2010, 3:56 pm
I tend not to play video clips [not least since this is not the fastest connection] so i cannot speak to perceived style, but not every politician, in moving out, is as gracious a good sport as Richard Nixon [ditto your footnote on sarcasm].
I lost track on BC a long time ago, despite the fact that our friend one of my Beta NDPites is based there. My one constant understanding is BC politics is consistently nutso [BC folks here will recognize I am an insular and ignorant Yank].
07 Dec 2010, 4:05 pm
She blamed "bullies" for forcing her out of the leadership post IN HER RESIGNATION SPEECH.
Another post in the comment section of that old, pre-resignation, article that I found interesting
James??? She's accomplished absolutely nothing in public office prior to her leadership, other than being elected as a school trustee? Huge difference IMHO and should have been mentioned. I don't think anyone would have considered Doer an insider to the degree that James is?
Secondly, the Greens aren't a fair comparison to the Liberals in Manitoba. Doesn't anyone remember Sharon Carstairs? The liberals were a credible alternative for a time whereas the Greens never were and the NDP in Manitoba, under Doer, fought for PC votes. The LIberals after Carstairs were never a factor.
Thirdly, you mention that James has been successful in 'rural' areas on Van Island? Those are NOT the same rural areas as Manitoba. Those rural areas in BC are chalked full of resource industries and union members. Rural areas in Manitoba are agrarian and tend to have lots of farmers balanced out with resource industries; ergo why voting PC or NDP is not nearly considered as polarized.
Fourthly, one can say that the NDP in Manitoba since the late 60s, are the 'natural' governing party given their majority status over time, whereas the NDP in BC have only accumulated approx. 10 years of power in over 50 years? Doer is viewed in a different context than James?
Fifthly, Doer, while in Opposition, was effective and outspoken. James has been missing action for 7 years and seems to only endorse most of what Campbell as done. Even the 'carbon tax' difference was flipped a week after she lost, proving that the issue was simply manufactured to come up with SOME contrasts. (Both parties collaborated to ignore the police issues which would have been pure gold for the NDP if they came out swinging on civilian overseeing and accountability, not to mention, fleshing out a position regarding the continuation of the RCMP? The Liberals ran ex-cops and James is married to one and Dawn Black, for some reason jumped from the Feds, proudly boasts of her sons being cops? No wonder the issue was broached by either)
http://www.straight.com/article-360127/ ... e#comments
07 Dec 2010, 4:43 pm
Greetings from the "Left Coast."
Politics here is (or, until the Toronto election, was) the most polarized in the country.
Add to that the availability of such loopy devices as the "citizen's initiative" and recall petitions, and you have all the ingredients for a wild structure. Throw in van der Zalm, and you have some pretty cheesy icing on that political cake.
James has had a really rough month. The Premier being summarily turfed on the heels of a 9% approval rating, and then clinging to three further months in office by his fingernails ought to have given James a very strong position from which to portray herself as the real government in waiting. Instead the NDP started eating its young in a fashion that would have made Diefenbaker era Tories proud.
Jenny Kwan was the last straw. Immediately after a provincial council meeting that endorsed James' leadership, Kwan was out in public calling for her resignation. The writing was one the wall from that moment, and the only question became, "when?" The cancellation of the provincial caucus meeting on Sunday was the final bit of evidence.
Was she churlish? Yes. Did she have reason to be? Yes. Will it hurt the NDP? Probably not--there are so many other ways that they can hurt themselves.
The very interesting aspect of this will be the concurrent leadership campaigns. The Liberals are first out of the gate, and there is the added prize that the winner gets to run the government for another couple of years. But the NDP will get the last word, and perhaps a bit of momentum through the HST campaign in 2011 (depending, of course, on the new Premier's view).
_________________
--James
07 Dec 2010, 4:48 pm
In all honesty, while Carole James was good at rebuilding the party, her strategy for victury after the neoliberal Liberals trashed the public service was comical, Neo-Doerism won't work in BC. I really hope somebody who possess (or is perceived as possessing) moral clarity grabs the reins of the BC Dippers, gives the neoLiberals hell, and seeps away at the Green vote.
07 Dec 2010, 5:23 pm
Pretty much - she said something about them no longer having her to blame for the Party's electoral failures.
07 Dec 2010, 5:32 pm
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/int ... 95549.html
08 Dec 2010, 11:20 pm
Class politics is probably more pervasive in BC than anywhere in North America, and has been for a long time, so it's harder to get them to embrace the Third Way stuff. As a socialist I have no problem with this. It's also a lot more interesting to watch than my province of Ontario!
If you look at the federal NDP caucus a lot of its most left-wing MPs are from BC: Libby Davies, Bill Siksay and Peter Julian.
08 Dec 2010, 11:23 pm
If you look at the federal NDP caucus a lot of its most left-wing MPs are from BC: Libby Davies, Bill Siksay and Peter Julian.
Why the hell doesn't the Party establishment embrance a more leftwing version of social democracy than, rather than stick to Third-Wayism?
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