NIMBY or Not? NDP President Opposes Affordable Housing near Island Property

The BC NDP has repeatedly campaigned on promises to increase the supply of affordable housing, and the government even has a 30-point plan to achieve its goals.

But on Galiano Island, people seeking approval for an affordable rental project have run up against the party’s president, Craig Keating, who is among those opposing their project.

Horgan’s NDP on Track to Win Large Majority

With the vote counting still underway on Saturday night, the British Columbia NDP is on track to be re-elected with a large majority.

As of 10:45 p.m., the NDP were leading or elected in 55 constituencies, the BC Liberals in 29 and the BC Greens in three. There are 87 seats in the B.C. legislature.

The NDP had received about 44 per cent of the vote, the BC Liberals 35 per cent and the Greens 16 per cent.

Jagmeet Singh is the leader the NDP needs

You can't deny that the NDP likes to make history by shattering old anachronistic traditions. It began way back in the early seventies in British Columbia when Rosemary Brown became the first black woman to be elected to a provincial legislature. It continued when the party chose Audrey McLaughlin as the first woman to lead a national political party in Canada.

Site C Called First Test for NDP’s Commitment to Indigenous Rights

Recent experiences with the federal government have left Prophet River First Nation member Helen Knott wary of government promises.
Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners

So while she and other Indigenous people are excited about NDP provincial government commitments to adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, words are not enough. And the Site C dam in northeastern B.C., they say, will be the government’s first test of its commitment.

For Conservatives, an opportunity wasted. For the NDP, an opportunity beckoning.

The Conservative leadership is like the night before Christmas for those who don’t believe in Santa Claus.

Which is just to say that not many people will be sleepless on Leader’s Eve. If anything is clear about politics these days, it’s that there is no Santa Claus.

For starters, your average Walmart greeter exudes more sincerity than contemporary political leaders. Trudeau and Trump come to mind, though they’re merely the latest in a long line of public people who have abused language to the point where they’re both like the boy who cried wolf.

NDP-Green accord touted as a way to give B.C. certainty provides Trudeau anything but

When the leaders of British Columbia's NDP and Green Party stood before the microphones in Victoria on Monday to say they'd reached a deal to join forces, the reverberations were felt clear across the country, on Parliament Hill.

While the deal won't be finalized until later today, it could spell an end to Christy Clark's chances of holding on to power before she can even introduce a throne speech that might take into account the priorities of the province's three Green MLAs, on things like political finance reform, more affordable housing and funding for clean technology.

Greens and NDP Agree to End Liberal Era

The BC NDP will form government with Green support under an agreement the leaders of the two parties announced together today.

“I’m very excited about the prospect of delivering the people of British Columbia what they voted for, and that was change,” NDP leader John Horgan told reporters at the legislature.

Horgan said he hasn’t spoken with Liberal leader Christy Clark since election night, and Green leader Andrew Weaver said his party had serious discussions with both the Liberals and NDP about who they would help form government.

The CPC race is slapstick. The NDP race is politics for adults.

The NDP leadership race has two big things going for it — compared to the Conservative race, and compared to recent decisions by the Liberals alienating voters on the progressive left.

The contrasts can help the New Democrats rebuild their brand to the 20 per cent polling threshold they need to consider themselves back in the game.

Next NDP leader must present principled alternative to right-wing populism

Like many, I have been giving thought to the NDP leadership race and sorting through what it is I'm looking for in a new leader. New Democrats and friends have also asked me who I might support amongst the declared and yet-to-be-potentially-declared candidates. I decided to share some of my thoughts in the hopes it contributes to the great debate that invariably happens when New Democrats elect a new leader.

Charlie Angus joins NDP leadership race, says party must counter Trump-style populism

OTTAWA—Promising to tour the country to gather ideas and fight the rise of cynicism and distrust in Canadian politics, Charlie Angus is pitching the membership of the NDP that he is their best bet to lead the party.

The 54-year-old MP from northern Ontario registered to run with Elections Canada last week, but officially kick-started his leadership campaign Sunday during an afternoon of music and speeches at the Horseshoe Tavern on Queen St. W.

NDP inhibits internal democracy with steep leadership race entry fee

Excited about the possibilities that the upcoming NDP leadership race might allow?

Wondering if an insurgent campaign might arise and if an outsider or unexpected candidate might lead to something akin to what happened with Corbyn in the Labour Party?

We are seeing an unanticipated socialist moment in North America due to the Sanders campaign in the U.S. Given the repudiation of the establishment the membership just delivered when it ousted Mulcair as leader, one would have every right to think that maybe, just maybe, now was finally the time where something might occur to shake up the deadening centrist rot that has been eating away at the NDP.

There was no NDP Leap

What is going on in Canada's "mainstream" left?

According to many -- including those on both sides of this debate -- it seems that the NDP has taken some great leap to the left by embracing the activist Leap Manifesto backed by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis.

A look at the Leap Manifesto that is dividing the NDP

If the NDP split over the ousting of Tom Mulcair as party leader wasn't clear enough at last weekend's convention, the fallout from a decision to consider the Leap Manifesto has been cast by some as widening the gap.

The document, a slim five pages with an additional two-page costing document, has become a central point of debate among NDP members and pundits, especially when it comes to its energy recommendations.

When did stating the obvious become ‘political suicide’?

To judge from the reaction of the Canadian punditariat, the New Democrats’ convention in Edmonton amounted to a collective murder-suicide. Tom Mulcair was ousted (and immediately resurrected as interim leader) and the convention voted to discuss the Leap Manifesto — which everyone took to be political self-immolation.

A New Democratic… Pirate Party?

The Canadian scholar Northrop Frye once described the New Democrats as Canada's only truly conservative party, and he may have meant that in the worst possible way.

Ever since its days as the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the NDP has essentially accepted the old 19th-century industrial model in which wealth is created by extracting resources and then converting those resources into manufactured goods. The workers accepted that model. They were, in effect, just a group of disgruntled investors, demanding a bigger return on their investment of skill and labour.

Rather than fearing the Leap Manifesto, let's bring on the debate

That silly Leap Manifesto -- giving itself away right in the subtitle, which calls for "a Canada based on caring for the Earth and one another." No wonder it provoked fury and outrage.

As my colleague Thomas Walkom pointed out earlier this week, reports of the manifesto's scariness have been greatly exaggerated; its call for a transition from fossil fuels to green energy is solidly based in science and widely accepted.

Leap Manifesto Is Thoughtless, Naive And Tone Deaf: Rachel Notley

EDMONTON — Alberta's NDP premier has come out swinging against the federal party's plans to consider dramatic policy changes that would have huge implications for her province.

Rachel Notley called the energy pieces of the Leap Manifesto thoughtless.

"The government of Alberta repudiates the sections of that document that address energy infrastructure,'' Notley said Monday. "These ideas will never form any part of policy. They are naive. They are ill-informed. They are tone deaf.''

NDP's Crushing Rejection Of Mulcair Stunned Supporters, Detractors

EDMONTON — Thomas Mulcair was resoundingly rejected as the future of the NDP at a party convention Sunday.

Fifty-two per cent of the approximately 1,800 delegates in Edmonton voted in favour of having a leadership contest. It was a crushing defeat that surprised Mulcair's advisers, supporters and detractors alike.

The result was likely influenced by the NDP's disastrous election campaign, one that saw it blow a first-place lead in national public opinion polls to land with a third-place finish, by running on a platform that many New Democrats found too centrist.

Why a centrist NDP is not an option

Prominent CBC commentator Chantal Hebert thinks dumping Tom Mulcair for being too centrist would be a mistake.

When the NDP did win elections provincially, it won running from the centre, and the federal NDP would be no different, she wrote in a recent Toronto Star column. She advised that in a succession race, a centrist would win out over someone who wanted the party to go hard left.

Lukewarm support for NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, Forum poll shows

OTTAWA—Support for Thomas Mulcair appears tepid as the NDP leader heads toward a difficult vote on his leadership next month, according to a new Forum Research poll.

The March 15 poll found that 35 per cent of those surveyed approve of Mulcair’s job as NDP leader, essentially unchanged from a month before. But his support among the small group of NDP partisans interviewed by Forum fell to 67 per cent, down from 74 per cent in February.