06.13.2011 11:25 AM

The policies the Horwath NDP don’t want you to see

• “Acquire, administer and finance our own ‘non-corporate’ program(s), if not our own media, by sharing, cooperating and pooling our collective resources with our present left-of-centre, noncorporate allies . . . and implement a strategic plan to acquire and share better media coverage” (passed in 2002);

• Elementary schooling for immigrants entirely in their mother tongue, where numbers warrant (reaffirmed in 2004);

• Industrial democracy to ensure “direct worker control” and “joint decision-making” in provincially owned corporations (2004);

• Public auto insurance, lest we forget (pledged in 1996 and reaffirmed in 2004);

• A promise to make its resolutions available “for distribution to the general public” (2004);

• A caution that any NDP government “must follow the established fundamental policies” of the party. Any “significant variance” must first be cleared with the party (2004).

28 Comments

  1. AP says:

    And the federal NDP is no better. You can’t even get a copy of the NDP Constitution off its web site. Of course the NDP web site also ignores the fact that the party is a member of Socialist International.

    http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=1780

    • Michael says:

      Well of course you can’t. If people actually knew what they stood for, they mught not vote for them.

    • The Doctor says:

      Yes, I love watching the mental and rhetorical gymnastics that certain NDP supporters do in trying to square that circle, i.e., claiming that the NDP is not socialist, while being a charter member of Socialist International.

      • AP says:

        Jack Layton has the deer in the headlights look when Peter Mansbridge asked him about that. Jack then sputtered put the usual “social democrat” line as if that means a damn thing

  2. Marc L says:

    Is that all? Go see the part of the document on the economy. Pages and pages of doozies about economic planning, industrial policy and other failed Socialist ideas from the past.

  3. smelter rat says:

    OMG!! The Ruskies are coming!!! Hide your children!! Run!!

  4. Catherine says:

    The column leaves the impression that the provincial NDP isn’t at all organized – that’s a good thing for the other two parties, but some of these vision tweaks or whatever they’re calling them are interesting – I’d like to see them run with some of these because the mood right now is sooo volatile almost any thing goes.

    ““Acquire, administer and finance our own ‘non-corporate’ program(s), if not our own media, by sharing, cooperating and pooling our collective resources with our present left-of-centre, noncorporate allies . . . and implement a strategic plan to acquire and share better media coverage” (passed in 2002);”

    – don’t we already have lots of these or are the new viewing numbers coming out of SunNewsNetwork have them feeling a tad lonely?

    ” Elementary schooling for immigrants entirely in their mother tongue, where numbers warrant..”

    – who’d have thought that it would be the NDP and NOT the PCs or Liberals catching Ontario up to the 21st century school choice movement? Didn’t I also read something this weekend suggesting that the NDP might be looking to actually to a faith-based thing in the reverse and propose one public system sans the Catholics? Two very contradictory items.

    “• Industrial democracy to ensure “direct worker control” and “joint decision-making” in provincially owned corporations….”

    – this one might just fly.

    We’ve been the public auto-insurance route before – not going there again.

  5. dave says:

    I thought that the Ontario NDPgovernment backed away from public auto insurance in the early 1990’s because, under NAFTA, if some economic activity is taken from the private sector into the public, then compensation has to be paid to the private sector for lost (future) profits.
    The payout would have been huge.

    (Manitoba and BC opted for public auto insurance before NAFTA. This might even have been one of the incentives to the corporate boardroom to pre empt this sort of thing with a clause in NAFTA)

  6. smelter rat says:

    Lucky for Manitoba. We have some of the lowest auto insurance rates in Canada. And it’s no-fault to boot.

  7. Darren K says:

    Come on you guys, every party has the same fucking policies. They are simply this:

    1. Get Power – At Any Price
    2. Rape the public purse and get as much personally as you can
    3. Keep Power as long as possible so you can continue Policy 2, as outlined above.

    Wash, Rinse and Repeat.

    I don’t give a shit about what’s on their web site, or their constitution – that will be changed on a moments notice to achieve the above ACTUAL Policies. There is no difference. Each politician lies, cheats and steals. Power goes to their head, and they start to believe they are invincible – see the sexual scandals involving people in power (Wiener, Clinton, Sports figures – and yes, Corporate Management etc). Maybe it was once different. Guys like Trudeau, Stanfield, Pearson, Broadbent, Chretien, Turner – the old guard if you will – they seemed to put the needs of the public first, and their own needs last. Today, we have $50 million bucks being spent to build a few toilets in disguise of some border improvements for the even dumber G8/G20 event. Who got the cash, even the AG couldn’t find out.

    In the USA, they wanted to impeach a guy for a Blow Job. Then they re-elected a War Criminal to 2 terms of government.

    Do you really feel it is different here? Do you really think the parties stand for anything – not in their own personal self interest?

    You guys are dreaming

    • AP says:

      This sounds like something Antonio Montana would say.
      “First you get the money. Then you get the power. Then you get the women”

  8. DL says:

    “claiming that the NDP is not socialist, while being a charter member of Socialist International.”

    Look at those other scary, terrifying, far left parties that are also “charter members of the Socialist International” like the British Labour party, the Australian Labour Party, the Israeli Labour party, the German Social Democratic Party, the Socialist Party of France, the Social Democratic party of Sweden etc…etc…etc…

    • AP says:

      So I guess its just a joke right? The NDP is a member of Socialist International but it means nothing.

      Second who said anything about it being scary or terrifying?

      The reason Jack Layton doesn’t say he’s a socialist, leading a socialist party, made up of socialists who espousing socialist policies is because he knows that he would never win power.

      Rule 1 in the NDP: Never say we’re socialists

      Rule 2: See Rule 1

      • DL says:

        The NDP is a social democratic party. It is the Canadian equivalent of the Labour Parties of the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand as well as all the social democratic in Europe. While it may have been more explicitly “socialist” in the 1930s – that is not what the party is about today. Parties evolve – the Conservatives certainly don’t go around bragging about being Straussian extreme rightwing neocons or about being a party of Christian fundamentalists…I’m sure if we dug up a Conservative party platform from 70 years ago it would be full of anachronistic stuff about the British empire!

      • New Craig Chamberlain says:

        And hide the Constitution.

        But, hey, by all means, Jack, go ahead and clear the air about your party’s membership in Socialist International. No, really, write to it today and let them know your party’s membership MEANS NOTHING.

        I dare you. I double dare you.

        Liberals have long let this slide. Time to dial down on this, Bob.

  9. Convention resolutions are not party policies.

    • sharonapple88 says:

      Which is probaby why they tried to add the last part…

      • A caution that any NDP government “must follow the established fundamental policies” of the party. Any “significant variance” must first be cleared with the party (2004).

  10. ben burd says:

    Take a look at some of the wacky policies that all parties put into a convention let’s just pick on the ndp this week because they are the threat, what was hidden in the tory resolution sheets last week?

  11. Greg says:

    Public auto insurance sounds pretty good to me.

    • Paul says:

      Think about this carefully: would you really want your auto insurance claim processed with the fairness and efficiency of ODSP or the Workers’ Compensation Board?

  12. Ryan says:

    Wow and government spending would of course go through the roof. This is pretty funny stuff but in an NDP utopia it would all be good.

    • MCBellecourt says:

      You mean it isn’t already, on all levels? Money’s gonna get spent. It’s what’s being spent ON that should concern everyone.

  13. The Danforthist says:

    It is true that convention resolutions aren’t party policy. More to the point, it is the individual parliamentarians, not the convention delegates, who have a democratic mandate from the electorate.

  14. DL says:

    I thought it was the other way around. Layton was willing to form an alliance with the Liberals in December of 2008 – and Ignatieff reneged on it! Its worth speculating on whether not going through with the coalition of Dec.’08 wasn’t the “original sin” of Ignatieff’s leadership. If he had followed through on it – its hard to imagine the Liberals not being in a far better position than they are in today!

  15. sezme says:

    Ha ha! Weak sauce!

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