Leadership 2017 Links

The latest from the federal NDP's leadership campaign.

- Althia Raj reports on the final membership numbers for the leadership campaign announced this week, showing a similar number of eligible voters to the 2012 campaign (at just over 120,000). And Eric Grenier chats with Aaron Wherry about the significance of the membership totals, while Kyle Duggan discusses Jagmeet Singh's reported contribution to the membership.

- UFCW has announced its endorsement of Singh, while Cory Collins concludes his series of interviews with the candidates with a discussion with Singh. Alex Balingall reports on Alexa McDonough's endorsement of Caron, while Clothilde Goujard discusses Caron's efforts to get voters to imagine a greener NDP economy. And Marc Pare talks to Charlie Angus about his standing as the first round of balloting approaches.

- Helene Buzzetti's coverage of Sunday's debate includes some discussion as to how the most recent dispute over Quebec's Bill 62 its into broader questions about the intersection between religion and politics. And Caron has written about his take on the significance of secularism in Quebec. 

- Finally, Chantal Hebert offers a reminder that there are no guarantees in voting patterns (particularly in Quebec).

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Aaron Wherry profiles how some of the NDP's youngest MPs won a place in office, and the work they're doing now that they hold the role.

- It isn't the kind of endorsement against type that would have the largest possible effect on the leadership race. But Alexa McDonough's support for Peggy Nash nonetheless figures to solidify Nash's place in the top tier of leadership contenders.

- Yes, Sun Media's report about the Libs' campaign spending looks more like an effort to breathe life into an end-of-campaign non-story than anything of substance. But it's particularly worth noting that if there was a $1 million gap between the Libs' campaign limit and their actual spending, that's $4.5 million less than the comparable gap in 2008 - meaning that the Libs pulled out more of the stops in their 2011 fall to third place than in the previous election where they conspicuously held back.

- Meanwhile, Bob Hepburn points out that the Libs' attempt to earn attention in the midst of the NDP's leadership race really reflects nothing more than a road map to nowhere. And it's particularly worth questioning which of the policy priorities cited by Bob Rae as forming the basis of his party's existence hasn't been better dealt with by the NDP for years.

- Finally, it's great to see Occupy Regina standing firm in the face of the City's efforts to shut it down.

The road ahead

The CP traces the path of Nova Scotia's NDP from third-party status to the brink of government. And it's worth noting how the strategy compares to the federal NDP's current position:

Now retired from the House of Commons, former federal NDP leader Alexa McDonough remembers a time when trying to get elected as a New Democrat in Nova Scotia was every bit an exercise in frustration that it is elsewhere in the region...

"When I ran in '79 and '80 and only got 14 per cent of the vote, people said, 'Well, you know, I'd vote for you if I ever thought the NDP could win,' " said McDonough.

She recalls "stubbornly" running three times, arguing against the "irrationality" of the position put to her by voters. McDonough now believes it was the beginning of a gradual shift in people's attitudes toward the party.

Subsequently, she said, the NDP has been able to build an understanding with voters based on strategies and platforms that have cast the party as a viable alternative in Nova Scotia...

Smith points to the 1997 federal election, in which the NDP won six of 11 ridings, as one of the key events in the rise of the party provincially.

"Reform was running on a neo-Conservative agenda . . . and the Liberal government was in deficit-slaying mode," said Smith. "There were some reasons that this particular region, which was always anxious about cuts to social programs and had high unemployment then, would consider the NDP."

She sees the collapse of the Liberal vote in the 1998 provincial election as the other key to NDP success. The Liberals went from 40 seats to 19 while the New Democrats went from four seats to 19.

"So federally you had this big boost in '97 and then '98 was a critical election for the NDP in Nova Scotia," said Smith.

She said the party has since consolidated its position, leaving it the contender it is today.

The challenges once faced by McDonough still mirror in large part the (however weak) argument still used to try to justify painting the NDP out of the federal picture. But with the NDP now both steadily gaining in seats and demonstrating its ability to contend in areas once considered to be out of reach, the claim can only look less and less plausible with every passing election cycle. And the focus of the 2008 campaign on Jack Layton as a Prime Minister in waiting can only sow the seeds for a longer-term shift similar to the one that's already taken place in Nova Scotia.

Now, that made for good enough news on its own. But the democratic coalition has both set out another path which leads to the NDP being able to convert its principles into results, and signalled the Libs' agreement that the prospect of New Democrats in government is a positive one. And if the federal party can build off that existing base of electoral support and shifting opinions, then it may not be long before the current story in Nova Scotia is matched on the national scene.

On alternatives

Leftdog highlights a pattern within the Cons where one MP hires a family member of another MP for constituency or ministerial work using parliamentary funds. And it's worth wondering whether the apparent nepotism is based more a desire to provide additional public funds to MPs and their families, or instead on a lack of other qualified members to fill the positions. Either way, though, the part of the story which most deserves to be pointed out is that at least one federal party doesn't allow the same type of practices within its ranks:

The hiring of family members is not a new phenomenon on Parliament Hill. In the early 1990s, two Progressive Conservative MPs were found to have employed each other's daughters, effectively skating around the prohibition of directly hiring children. An RCMP investigation cleared them of wrongdoing. More recently, then-Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien was accused of nepotism when his daughter, a lawyer, was appointed to a federal position on a 2010 Olympics organizing committee - an allegation his office rejected.

In Opposition, the Harper Conservatives railed against patronage and cronyism they claimed was endemic in the Liberal governments.

"They've been touters of public virtues and they do have that burden of having to be purer than Ceasar's wife," said Parliamentary expert Ned Franks, professor emeritus at Queen's University...

Manitoba New Democrat Pat Martin said his own son landed an eight-week summer job for another NDP MP in 1998. Two years later, then-leader Alexa McDonough intervened to stop an MP from hiring a colleague's relative and created a party policy against the practice, Martin said. He says he agrees with the approach.

"Nepotism and patronage are two of the same species," he said. "It's that who-you-know kind of politics that makes Canadians gag." While hiring other MPs' relatives may be allowed under House rules, it "doesn't pass the smell test," he said.

In other words, while the Cons railed against the Libs' cronyism in opposition, they've once again lost any concern for the misuse of the spoils of power now that they stand to enjoy them. And indeed at least a couple of their supporters have tried to draw specious distinctions as to why Con nepotism is entirely appropriate, or even criticize the fact that the story was even reported.

But while anybody hoping the Cons would do better than the Libs in the ethics department may have reason to be bitterly disappointed, that doesn't mean they have to be resigned to that level of politics.

After all, the NDP hasn't only pointed out the problems with funneling money to family members when other parties have done, but has also set the bar for itself at the level which it demands from its competitors. Which means that Canadian voters rightly cynical about the Cons and Libs can take heart that one federal party both stands by its ethical principles, and does more than than the bare minimum to keep its operations clean.