On the eve of one of the most important debates to take place in the NDP’s six-month race, the first official French-language only face-off this coming Sunday in Québec City, Ms. Ashton, 29, told The Hill Times Thursday she plans to hang in until the final ballots are cast in the party-wide election to be held March 24.
“Yes, absolutely,” Ms. Ashton (Churchill, Man.) said, playing up the ground campaign she’s been working on since Nov. 7 when she became the last candidate to launch, and playing down her appearance at the bottom of the list when Elections Canada last week posted financial contributions to the party’s eight leadership contenders as of Dec. 31.
Ms. Ashton had raked in only $10,215, from at least 58 donors whose names and donations were included in the report because they gave more than $200 each, and likely from many more other supporters who gave less.
At the top of the heap, former party president Brian Topp of Toronto raked in $156,597, from 304 donors. NDP MP Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) had collected $145,863, from 621 supporters to Dec. 31. The only other woman in the race, MP Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park, Ont.) raised $108,223 from 347 donors. In a development that MPs said Thursday could be highly significant, MPs Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, Ont.) and Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.) were close, in some ways almost tied, with Mr. Dewar raising $93,931 from 456 donors and Mr. Cullen collecting $86,109 from 442 donors.
The race officially began Sept. 15, and the Feb. 18 cut-off date for recruiting new NDP members to cast votes, crucial for Mr. Mulcair in the NDP frontier of Quebec, is fast approaching.
MPs who spoke to The Hill Times on Thursday praised Ms. Ashton’s determination, as well as the fresh and far-reaching policy ideas she has broached, and pointed out that even for Ms. Ashton, a groundbreaking aspect of the final voting on March 24 is crucial. Most of the more than 100,000 eligible New Democrats will be casting their votes by preferential mail-in or online ballots before the March 24 leadership convention. They can start sending ballots on March 1.
Most attention so far has focused on a preferential mail-in ballot party members may post prior to voting day, ranking their preferred candidates from first choice down to eighth, if all the candidates are still in the field.
But the leadership regulations stipulate party members will also have the option of voting online, in real time, in sequential balloting on voting day, along with several thousand party members who will cast sequential ballots at a concurrent party convention at the Metro Toronto Convention on Front Street on March 24. The party announced on Thursday that the leadership convention will be moved from the Allstream Centre to the Toronto Convention Centre to accommodate what is expected to be a record turnout with registration exceeding the 2,200 who attended the 2003 convention that elected the late Jack Layton.
“We’re on line for this to be, far and away, the biggest NDP convention we’ve ever had,” NDP spokesperson Sally Housser told The Canadian Press.
On each ballot, the convention and real-time online voters will vote for their favoured individual candidate, until one candidate receives more than 50 per cent, leaving plenty of room for alliances, or dark horses, as the balloting continues.
Ms. Ashton may well be the darkest of the dark horses, but MPs say she has a chance to place well before dropping off the ballot, and look to the future.
One of Ms. Ashton’s friends in the youthful caucus, NDP MP Fin Donnelly (New Westminster-Coquitlam, B.C.), has endorsed Mr. Cullen, but he told The Hill Timeson Thursday he has not yet decided on a second choice.
“I’m still weighing the options,” he said. “I definitely want to get through the French debate, I think that’s going to be important, the northern debate as well, but I think the French debate is going to be telling.”
On prospects for all the candidates, Mr. Donnelly said: “Some of them have a tough go, Niki’s a great competitor, I think we’ve got eight great candidates, but I think the key is second and third picks, maybe even fourth picks. I certainly came out for Nathan as my number one pick, and there are other really worthy number two picks, I think Niki is somebody who people are looking at. The question is, is it now or is it in the future? She’s certainly made her mark.”
NDP MP Kennedy Stewart (Burnaby-Douglas, B.C.), who has endorsed Mr. Topp, said he as well has not yet made a second-choice selection. “I guess my first choice is absolutely clear, but my second choice, I’m looking at all the candidates and I thing there’s two tiers, there’s front runners, I’m looking at all of them, they’re all great.”
Asked about Ms. Ashton, Mr. Stewart replied: “I think she’s been fabulous in this race. She’s been a whole credit to the whole race, her performance in debates has been great, I know she’s been doing lots of outreach, in the end it’s a real credit to the party.”
Ms. Ashton, whose father ran unsuccessfully for the Manitoba NDP leadership and is now a Cabinet minister in the province, acknowledged her low placement in the Elections Canada contribution lists, but said her goal all along has been to get her ideas out front, and change the way Canadians look at politics.
“It was very important for me to hit the road, but let’s just say my goal is not to be the Mitt Romney of the NDP leadership campaign,” she joked.
“For me, this race ought to be a race about ideas and how we can build on the work of Jack Layton,” she said. “I got involved in this campaign to put forward our vision for the kinds of politics we need in this country, and it’s been very important for me to put forward distinct ideas, based on our principles, but also that are innovative, and really carve out a direction for the future. We’re in a tremendous place as official opposition, but in order to truly be the alternative to Stephen Harper we need to engage people based on our ideas.”
The remaining two candidates, who raised more than Ms. Ashton but significantly less than the five at the top of the heap, are Nova Scotia pharmacists and businessman Martin Singh and Quebec MP Romeo Saganash (Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, Que.). The Canadian Press reported on Feb. 9 that Mr. Saganash will bow out of the race on Friday morning in Val d’Or, Que. The Canadian Press reported that Mr. Saganash will drop out because of an illness in his family which has caused him to miss a number of all-candidates and because his campaign has failed to attract a lot of support.
Original Article
Source: Hill Times
Author: Tim Naumetz
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