The Great Debate

As part of my catch-up homework on the leadership race, I recently sat down and watched the first NDP debate, from December 4th. In its entirety. In French, and English. See what I put myself through for you, gentle reader?

The large number of candidates meant that each was limited to a few minutes speaking time, and could do little more but introduce themselves and give a taste of their personality and policy preoccupations. Echoing that brevity, here are two-line assessments of debate performance before I go more in depth on the debate. I am listing candidates in reverse order of debate impressiveness.

Robert Chisholm - No French, already out, 'nuff said.

Romeo Saganash - English was a problem for him, and I got the sense that the language barrier limited him to repeating platitudes about working together and looking out for everyone. Then I heard him in French, where, very eloquently, he said the same things.

Martin Singh - Not as crazy as I expected, given that he came from nowhere and has never held office. Still not really qualified though.

Paul Dewar - Turns out he's not a great public speaker, and lost it a bit when Topp went after him.

Niki Ashton - Poised, attractive, confident, young. A little too Tracy Flick for me.

Brian Topp - Good in French and English, comes off as issue-smart and straight-talking. But when he went after Dewar, he looked a little thuggish.

Nathan Cullen - Young MP from BC, not Niki Ashton young but at 39 still a little youngish for leadership. Great energy, policy smarts, wicked humor (calling the prisons bill "Stephen Harper's housing plan"). Keep taking those French lessons though.

Peggy Nash - Composed, polished, made a case based her record and showed she knew her issues. A little cautious, like a female Thomas Mulcair.

Thomas Mulcair - Composed, polished, stands on his record, really knows his policy. Good at looking leaderish, and avoiding misstatements. A male Peggy Nash, but in this race tie goes to the Quebecer.

The theme of the debate was "Building an Inclusive Economy," which the candidates took as an invitation to shoehorn in the word "inclusive" as often as possible in the first five minutes of the debate, and thereafter drift from issue to issue based on their individual strengths and favored talking points.

As is typical in Canadian debates, language proficiency was front and center, coloring the rest of a candidate's debate performance. It turns out that Romeo Saganash can't debate well in English, which hurts him a lot. Peggy Nash, Paul Dewar, Nathan Cullen and Martin Singh can't debate well in French, which hurts them, but a little less. Robert Chisholm, to speak ill of the departed can't debate well in English or at all in French, which prompted him to withdraw his candidacy by the end of December, specifically citing his lack of French as the reason.

Otherwise, the collegial atmosphere (at one point Cullen emphasized that he was in "violent agreement" with his rivals) and large number of candidates made this a superficial, low-impact affair. The only hint of conflict all night was a run that Brian Topp took at Paul Dewar, implying that Dewar was relying on deficit spending to fund his proposal for an East-West energy grid. Dewar was baffled by the question, and shocked at the breach of the peace. He was also kind of right - no one had even implied deficit spending until Topp brought it up. From pure theatrics, the episode was probably a wash - Topp looked like a bully, and Dewar looked flummoxed.

The debate helped sort candidates into tiers, and add an element of live testing to the war of position within the party as they vie for endorsements and the support of established constituencies. Based on both factors, the only three viable leadership candidates seem to be Topp, Mulcair and Nash. Dewar has a solid party profile, but he'll need a strong performance in the next debate if he wants to convince members that he can lead a national campaign against Stephen Harper. Nathan Cullen has great potential, but seems too young and lacks a base inside the party. Niki Ashton is too young - 29 is young even for an MP, and it would be unprecedented for a leader of a major party. Romeo Saganash needs some more seasoning - he just entered Parliament in 2011, and needs to grow into national politics and improve his English public speaking. Martin Singh needs to go back to Nova Scotia and win his riding - he hasn't made his bones yet in party politics, at least not on the national level.

For those interested in watching for themselves, here's the link: CPAC - Video on Demand

The Crowded Field...

With the exit of Nova Scotia MP Robert Chisholm from the leadership race (it turns out that learning French might, you know, take a while), the field drops to a still crowded eight. This includes five veteran MPs from across Canada (Niki Ashton, Nathan Cullen, Paul Dewar, Thomas Mulcair, Peggy Nash), another freshly-minted MP coming out of the 2011 Orange Wave in Quebec (Romeo Saganash), the current president of the NDP Brian Topp, and activist, Nova Scotia pharmacist, Sikh community leader and overall no-chancer Martin Singh.

Some of these figures are political veterans with decades of experience in NDP politics - Peggy Nash and Paul Dewar especially - while others are relatively new (Niki Ashton is 29, meaning that her time on earth is shorter than Nash's union experience. Fascinatingly, Ashton wasn't an orange wave MP, but made her way in 2008). None of them are household names in Canada, and many are completely unknown outside of diehard NDP circles. Over the next week, I'll be looking in to their records and their statements to give you a sense of who they are.

This will be an interesting contest - every segment of the party has its champion among the candidates, and individual rivalries will play out in the context of generational ones (NDP membership skews young and old - idealistic students and retirees - giving younger candidates a shot at top posts) and in the sudden prominence of Quebeckers in what was until recently an anglophone, prairie-and-union political party. Finally, with the chance at governing more of a reality than ever before, candidates will have to convince the rank and file that they will not only represent their interests in Ottawa, but that they can beat Stephen Harper at the polls. So stay tuned...

Revival from Obscurity

Around this time, blogs and newspapers like to run retrospective features, often lists enumerating what the editorial staff considers to be the most significant developments of the past year. The Guardian did one based on reader nominations, here's one from fox news and finally, to end on an obscure note, here's the CBC's Saskatchewan list of web stories. In Canada, the number one story, according to a news poll, was the death of Jack Layton, which, coming as it did after the NDP's best electoral performance in history, combined human tragedy with political consequence. However, that very real consequence - a leadership scramble within a radically transformed NDP - rapidly vanished from anyone's view, and a lively, bickering horse-race among a surprisingly large and colorful pool of hopefuls is taking place largely out of view. So I step up, gentle reader, to help guide you through the contest, introduce you to the contestants, and hold your hand until the Canadian left has chosen its latest contender for the leadership of Canada.

And to those who doubt that the internal leadership contest of a political party could be fascinating stuff, I refer you here, where you can watch Francis Urquhart make his bid for the Tory leadership.

Conventioneering: Conclusions

Here is a Jack Layton bobblehead, hand-made out of great Canadian plaster in some Quebec riding, available for a limited time for the low introductory price of $20. I did not buy one.

The convention was a fascinating experience - it was my first time seeing one live, and I had no idea of the centrality of Robert's Rules of Order and how much damage a vaguely composed agenda could cause. I also got a lot of insights into the institutional configuration of the NDP as a party - there is no pool of federal members, but instead the party is stitched together from subsidiary organizations, like the riding associations, youth groups, unions, and vulnerable identity representation (for aboriginals, gays, women, the disabled, and visible minorities, though I may be forgetting something). Therefore, if you join the party outside of these constituent groups, you're kind of on your own, which is a tough place to be.

Are the NDP ready for prime time? Smartly dressed Quebecois parliamentary aide wearing hipster glasses and acknowledging the need for compromise says yes, but elderly man in tie-dye handing out leaflets on marijuana legalization says no. The balance is not yet on the side of the former. The usual knock on the Conservatives is that they are out of touch with regular Canadians - it could be said that the NDP is out of touch with reality. There's truth to both statements, which places voters in a tough corner.

Also, there is no one to replace Jack Layton.

Conventioneering: Day 3 (Substance)

I arrived late, and missed nothing - the first session was dedicated to passing feel-good resolutions promising do-gooder solutions to all the world's problems, payable once the NDP took power. Most passed uncontested (the only controversial ones, related to Israel-Palestine, had been banished to the end of the list, the convention equivalent of the land of wind and ghosts, whence they would never reach the convention floor).

Then a funny thing happened - the debate got interesting. The second session was about internal party affairs. Normally, given the homogeneity of PC-thinking among NDP delegates, the hipster socialist caucus can do little damage - they complain that resolutions don't go far enough, the forward paranoid conspiracy theories, they overreact. This time, it was different - the ballot resolution forbade any merger talks with the Liberals. For the hipster socialists, this was an opportunity to be leftier-than-though, and stick it to the moderates and the pragmatists, insisting on a vow of political chastity. They were all there in line to speak - beardo, dreadlock dude, keffiyeh guy, all insisting on purity of essence. They received fitful applause, and booed the speakers for the other side, twice getting reprimanded by the chair. Also, this was when the crowd showed some ugly, with the term Liberal getting tossed around like a slur.

It ended up being the only close vote of the convention, which required a real stand-up-and-be-counted resolution as volunteers passed through the crowd to tally up the delegates on either side of the issue. The resolution was defeated by an approximately 60/40 margin, wide enough so that the yes side didn't insist on a paper ballot.

Then they dodged the other big, soul-of-the-party resolution, about dropping "socialist" from the party constitution. It got referred back to committee.

Then Jack Layton gave a speech and we all got to go home.

Conventioneering: Day 2 (The Postal Conspiracy)

Ah, hipster socialists. Red keffiyehs wrapped around your necks, Trotsky glasses wrapped around your eyes, Che beards scraggling from your chins... It would not be an NDP convention without you.

One of these gentlemen, stalwart of the socialist caucus, peddler of tract-filled magazines, brought me up to speed on the evil conspiracy against the striking postal workers union. This union had sought a resolution in support of their strike, and a condemnation of the Conservative governments back-to-work legislation. One had originally been introduced through the economic committee, but had been withdrawn because an understanding was reached that it would be introduced as an emergency resolution instead. But, when a union activist tried to make an announcement about the strike, she was ruled out of order and her mike cut off! Quelle horreur! This was clearly the result of a nefarious campaign by party moderates to stab the union movement in the back. Careful comrades, NEP men, former aristos, bourgeois sympathizers, foreign agents - enemies of the people are everywhere! Enemies of the people are among us! Clearly this is a plot by infiltrators to steal the party from the union movement! Unless it's a procedural issue related to the fact that emergency resolutions were slotted for day three, when they would get great prominence between speeches by Jack Layton and Stephen Lewis (a well regarded former party leader). I guess it could be that. Could it be that? Yeah, that was it. Still, infiltrators!

Conventioneering: Day 2 (Procedure)

I had spent the night before blogging about the day before, which left me exhausted and irritable the next morning. I slept in, arrived late and it didn't make a difference - judging by the empty seats in the formerly-packed hall, many other people did the same thing. The most significant consequence of this was a damping down of the debate and, as a result, a much more productive session, with resolutions being passed every five to seven minutes, allowing us to get through three or four times as many per topic area as the first day, despite each session being shorter. If you want to ram something through, put it to a vote on a Saturday morning.

On a tangentially related note, the NDP may want to tighten up requirements for delegates. Right now, any jackass who signs up for the party and pays his registration fee can come in and vote on the party platform, and in the internal elections. Given that turn out at the convention was approximately 1,500, and that youth (under 25) and unwaged early-bird registration was down around $50, an opponent with deep pockets (cough... Harper) could theoretically stack the convention floor with a majority of their own supporters for $75,050 in registration fees + $30,020 in membership dues. That's a pretty penny, admittedly, but you'd get to vote for the treasurer responsible for spending it, and pick the leader of the party receiving it. Not that anyone in Canada would do anything so underhanded for political gain (like proroguing Parliament, say).

All total, something like 70 minutes was lost in procedural bickering, similar to yesterday, including challenges to the chair. It was no longer interesting to me, and I will not elaborate on it, except to say that the chairs (Steve Morin and Maura Parte, btw) had that shit under control this time, and the challenge didn't stand.

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

It occurs to me that in the post marked (substance) I didn't actually get to the substance (the procedure being pretty awesome to write about). There was one proposal that got through which represented some new and potentially constructive thinking. Andrew Cash (MP Davenport) introduced a resolution that would extend the CPP and other benefits to workers with "precarious occupations," meaning those on contract, the self-employed, entrepreneurs, etc. There's the problem of how to pay for it, of course, but if this is a move towards decoupling social benefits and protections from formal employment, then so long as it's somehow indexed to net tax contributions it could be a politically viable path towards the generalized welfare state.

Which would be awesome.

Conventioneering: Day 1 (speeches)

Here is a simple fact: if you are committed to universal respect, if you value the dignity of every human being, if you seek consilience and chase the elusive middle-ground so that everyone can feel well-treated, you will not be funny. For a reason I cannot fathom, they began the convention by bringing out two MPs - one anglophone, Kennedy Stewart, and one francophone, I can't remember her name - who, alternating language, delivered what seemed like a stand up routine, but minus all of the punch lines. The most hilarious exchange between the two:

Anglo: In Quebec, it's very cold.

Franco: But here in Vancouver it rains more.

Anglo: But we have the Rocky mountains

Franco: ....

Anglo: We did very well in the last election.

If there were any hint of edge, this could have been a wickedly dark discomfort anti-comedy routine. Instead, it was just two of the more photogenic MPs exchange lines that seem drawn from an unsuccessful Mormon first date. Or an undiscovered Beckett play, set for some reason in the furthest Canadas.

Then there was a First Nations welcome ceremony. I snickered when it was first introduced - Kennedy Stewart reminded us that we were on unceded Aboriginal land, and that he was grateful for the hospitality and welcome of the local First Nations. I then realized I was the only one who thought it strange, and felt immediately guilty, especially when the ceremony - delivered by a local chief of a band whose name I cannot remember (take better notes tomorrow) turned out to be very lovely, a musical chant in his people's language expressing welcome, long enough to be mesmerizing and memorable but not so long as to drag. He had great teeth, and the kind of glow that happy old men carry when they've outlived their enemies. Really commanded the stage too.

We then got the deputy mayor of Vancouver, who tried some words in French earning the muttered contempt of the Quebec table, and a greeting in Chinese that only the BC people cheered. The real mayor was busy apologizing for the riots.

The head of the BC NDP delivered a speech-shaped pitch for our labour and money. I didn't like him.

And then Jack Layton spoke. He came in without a cane, smiling, waving, springing across the stage. His energy was there, he ad libbed some improvements to the text on the telepropter, and he nailed it. He's the show - the charisma and the charm and the gravitas of the NDP, all of it, while the others on stage were gavel wielding would-be tyrants who couldn't quell a revolt of rules dorks or some vanilla-flavored rice cakes talking about the weather. I'm worried about what happens when he's gone, because he can't last forever - he's already old and, you know, cancer. Oh well, maybe we can get the Native chief. I bet he smells good, like sage and saddle leather.

Conventioneering: Day 1 (substance)

Day one was action packed - it began with topic area committee meetings to discuss proposed resolutions relating to the various themes of the NDP program, continued with speeches from various party luminaries, and ended with the first full plenary session, when the entire convention bickers, debates, and then finally votes on the individual resolutions (like supporting the ship-building industry, or banning supertankers from the inside passage of Haida Gwaii).

I've said it once, and I'll say it again - democracy just doesn't work.

There is no real screening process for delegates - any yahoo (like yours truly) willing to join up and pay the registration fee can come in with full privileges equal to party leaders. As a result, there are many, many yahoos here - from the geriatrics who walk with the timid gait of the ineffectual, to the hipster contingent from Quebec (I counted three funny moustaches and a half-dozen porkpie hats. Presumably the crew rode in on fixed gears all the way from Montreal), to the slightly unhinged, obviously unemployed middle-aged crowd, who everyone humors and no one likes. Since this is a social democratic party, anyone who wants to speak, gets to speak - and boy do they love to speak! Every resolution, even the least controversial one, was an occasion to trot out your pet project or, if you're a newly minted mp, mug for the cameras to get some air time. As a result, in a committee session, in 90 minutes we managed to agree on the order of the resolutions and endorse four of them - a record for the convention, where the average number of committee resolutions voted on was 2.4. To give you some sense of scale, there were 54 resolutions slated for our committee. In full plenary session, we managed to pass 8. Now, these were resolutions everyone favored, and the discussion tended to be about tangentially related issues and complaints that some favorite verbiage was missing from the second bullet point. It's enough to make you nostalgic for the fuhrerprinzip.

I want to tell you the story about one of these debates. It is exception partly because it isn't even about a resolution - one of the lengthiest and most acrimonious disputes of the convention had to do with a procedural point. After the speeches, a pair of chairpersons (chairpeople?) officially convened the convention - I am angry with myself for not getting their names, damn I could have snapped some pictures too - with a vote on the agenda. Someone actually challenged that, but they were cut off by the chairs for being "out of order." So the agenda passed without comment. What followed was the pro forma delivery of reports by party leaders - the president, the treasurer and the national leader. This was mostly symbolic, since there was nothing controversial in their reports, but someone wanted to ask a question anyway. If 2,000 people rolling their eyes as a crotchety old man insists on questioning the selection of auditor, that was what rang out when the man started speaking - no one wanted to humor his suspicions. But then he got cut off by female chair, who explained he was out of order - there was no time for debating the reports in the agenda passed, so they were not subject to debate. This provoked other people - Dan Rishi, federal council member and troublemaker extraordinaire, insisted that all previous conventions included debate, and that she was breaking from past practice. She tried to silence him, arguing that he was out of order, but he stood his ground - he wasn't debating the substance of the report, he was making a point of order, and those were ALWAYS in order. Instead, she tried to rush along the vote on the reports, then ruling any of the point of order protests out of order since voting was underway. The rules lawyers in the crowd were having none of this - one clamboured up to a mike, and insisted that he was outraged and disturbed by this turn. She tried to shut him up, saying the agenda had no room for questions. SO HE CHALLENGED THE CHAIR! (the piano player stops, everyone holds their breath, the tension mounts - you just don't challenge the chair) But, the gauntlet had been thrown down (and the gauntlet throwing was, in point of fact, in order), so the female chair sat down and her partner took over. He had to call a vote on the challenge, and the sea of voting cards told the story - to his surprise, probably to everyone's surprise, the challenge stood, and they had to open up the reports to debate. And what a debate! People asked if fundraising was up in Quebec, and if the leadership had any ideas on how to inspire Canadians, and someone asked why the 2010 financials weren't out yet, and someone told Peggy Nash that she was doing a great job, and we all had a very nice chat while on stage the former chair, flushed red with humiliation, quietly wept.

(I didn't notice at first, since the other chair had taken over and there was a lot going on on stage. But after a minute, I'm like - wait, didn't we just see a strong woman humiliated by the democratic process? I wonder how she's doing? Oh, she's completely devastated! It's taking all her will power not to run screaming from the stage. Hey, Pierre, take a look - this must be like the worst moment of her life.)

Welcome to VanCon 2011!

The Orange Alternative

For some reason, the NDP have insisted on selecting Orange as their political color:

Orange: It screams gravitas. Also, Orange Crush

I am not a fan. Orange for me conjures up images of Dutch princes or, worse yet, Protestants. It has none of the power of socialist red, or the dignity of conservative blue. Indeed, Orange is such an apolitical - even ridiculous - color that the only political parties that use it are either Protty nationalists or weird outliers, and it's considered so neutral that in New Zealand it's used exclusively by the non-partisan electoral commission.

But now, as will usually happen when I am narrating, the story turns to Poland. Because orange was so politically weird, an absurdist dissident group - the Orange Alternative - mobilized right under the noses of the Communist Party, in the middle of the repressive 80s. Although their slogans were subversive (one pamphlet read "citizen, help the militia and beat yourself up"), the vast majority of their actions and demands made no sense, disquieting the authorities without quite giving them enough for a crackdown. They were most famous,

perhaps, for introducing the character of the little orange dwarf as a mascot, which they spraypainted over the concealing coat that the authorities had spraypainted over dissident graffiti (thus taking the whole thing to the meta-level). This culminated in the 1988 "Revolution of the Dwarfs," when they gathered a crowd of 10,000 to march through Wroclaw in orange dwarf caps. This is their leader:

No, the hat is not photoshopped. Now imagine Jack Layton wearing it. Disturbingly easy, right? And all because they had to go with orange.

Resolution Reading List

The NDP have released the first document of resolutions to be voted on at the convention. This is not all of them, mind you, just the "top ten" from each of the 7 topic areas (delegates will be split up and only vote on one set). They come in four flavors. First, there's left-wing goal setting of the vaguest and least controversial order - there's a resolution on eliminating violence against women, as though passing an NDP resolution will help on that goal, another on strengthening multiculturalism, one on protecting public land and water, etc. Then there's measures to bolster the social safety net, with a strong emphasis on veterans, former RCMP officers and families. There's also some interest group politicking by farmers, Atlantic shipbuilders and others, who offer remarkably specific proposals to amend the party program. And finally, there's one-issue resolutions, some on relatively hot topics (the InSite program in Vancouver) and some somewhat obscure (a ban on tankers sailing along the interior passage around Queen Charlotte Sound). We'll see how this all adds up, and if anyone will actually vote against stopping violence against women. My guess is no.

NDP conventioneering

Sad to say, but prison week is coming to a close, but you have something new to look forward to - NDP convention blogging!

In an uncharacteristic fit of civic engagement, I joined the NDP (for those of you thinking "Is that a credit union?" the New Democratic Party is the Canadian social-democratic party, to the left of the Trudeau/Chretien Liberals. The did REALLY well in the last election, and are now the official opposition) before the last election. Then, wondering what I had gotten myself in to, I decided to sign up for the party convention happening this weekend (being social democrats, they allow any member to show up as a delegate). If you are curious to see if they have any potential to govern, any succession plan for Jack Layton, or are just as crazy as the Conservatives would have you believe, stay tuned! And I'll let you know I can glean this weekend.