01.15.2013 02:04 PM

Labour legend Hargrove on Pupatello

Quote:

Former CAW president Buzz Hargrove isn’t a Liberal, but if he had a vote in the current Ontario Liberal leadership race, it would go to Sandra Pupatello.

“She’s the one with experience and she knows how to work with people,” Hargrove said Tuesday of the former Windsor West MPP and Liberal cabinet minister.

“She’s not a left politician,” Hargrove said Tuesday, referring to Pupatello’s reputation as a centrist in the race compared to more left-leaning candidates such as her main rival Kathleen Wynne.

“But (Pupatello) also knows in order to make a province like Ontario work you have to be working with the labour movement, not slapping it in the face as Mr. (Conservative Leader Tim) Hudak is guaranteed  to, or as Mr. (Premier Dalton) McGuinty did to the teachers,” said Hargrove, who retired as CAW president in 2008. “She’s smarter than that.”

16 Comments

  1. Neil says:

    Now Warren did Buzz not endorse Mr. Paul Martin as well?

  2. doris says:

    Senator Hargrove was not a leftist either – just a run of the mill business union operator. Now he is a true member of the establishment elite i=on his fat CAW pension cosying up to Ernie Eves in the afternoon drive home show this week.

  3. Yes he did endorse Paul Martin because he did not want Harper to win but he was ceremoniously stripped of his NDP membership for it. Thanks to you know who, did not like Paul Martin because he wanted to be PM. Buzz is an honest individual who did go to the wall for his members for many years says this wife of a CAW retiree. I notice that present President of CAW is also endorsing Sandra. The CAW membership is not only NDP anymore. The CAW withdrew support for the NDP when Buzz was removed from their membership. I was there when it was done.

  4. Philippe says:

    That’s guy’s poison. It’s like being endorsed by Glenn Beck. Too extreme.

  5. Bloody Bounder says:

    Thank you Buzz. I hope Wynne’s supporters hear about this announcement.
    The Canadian Labour movement has matured in recent years, and is beginning
    to realize that while the Liberals are not perfect, they are a hell of a lot better
    than the Hudak Conservatives or the Harper Conservatives when it comes to
    dealing with unions and collective bargaining. I have met many NDPers in my
    lifetime who hate Liberals more than they do Conservatives, and who are still
    convinced that a social revolution is just around the corner. All Progressives
    need to unite behind the Liberals, both federally and provincially.

    PS: Doris, jealousy is the root of all evil. One of the reasons why I am a Liberal
    voter, despite being on the left-wing of the party, and having many socialist
    convictions, is because the grassroots of both the Conservatives and NDP are
    filled with angry, spiteful, jealous, envious people who work in blue collar jobs.
    The NDP is filled with ignorant, common, uneducated, low class, blue collar
    left-wing populists who blame everything on “bankers, stock brokers, Bay Street,
    corporate profits, and ivy league intellectuals” and the Conservative Party is filled
    with ignorant, common, uneducated, low class, blue collar, right-wing populists who
    blame everything on “gays, feminists, unions, social workers, teachers, and ivy
    league intellectuals”. Despite both the NDP and Conservatives are arguably polar
    opposites ideologically, both attract the same ilk of ignorant simple minded masses,
    albeit for different reasons, and both offer a populist, knee jerk reactionary, scapegoating,
    easy answer type of paradigm to complex socio-economic issues. Despite the NDP
    is supposed to be the most progressive political party in terms of anti-racism, homophobia,
    ect; I have talked to blue collar redneck white trash in both the Conservative Party and
    the NDP who while polar opposites on all the issues, seem to share the same contempt
    for women, gays, minorities, urban dwellers, cosmopolitans, the university educated
    and immigrants. The Conservatives and NDP may be at opposite ends of the political
    spectrum, but events for both seem to have their respective parking lots filled with
    pickup trucks adored with NASCAR bumper stickers.

    • doris says:

      It must be wonderful to be filled with so much knowledge of society unfortunately your intellect comes across as an elitist rant against uneducated lower class people. Good job you didn’t identify ethnic origins or the whole post could be interpreted as racist

  6. Bloody Bounder says:

    “…unfortunately your intellect comes across as an elitist rant against uneducated lower class people.”

    Yeah and your point?!

  7. Billy boy says:

    @bloody bounder: Sometimes the Real pretentions of Liberals surfaces and you’re it. I’ve long argued that Liberal multiculturalism, Liberal progressivism, and Liberal claims to social, economic and environmental justice are simply Orwellian doublespeak aimed at stealing votes from progressives while masking Liberals latent hatred for immigrants, the poor, and the marginalized. Liberals are simply the nice face of neoliberalism and the assault on the welfare state. Worse, Liberals are disingenuous practitioners of pragmatism. Essentially Liberals are wanton, arrogant, and self-entitled opportunists that will promise everything to everyone in search of votes, but when all is distilled Liberals are no less beholden to big business than Conservatives. Liberals are creatures of middling intelligence who know just enough to speak up but don’t know enough to realize they know nothing. Always glad to see the true arrogant hateful face of Liberalism reveal itself. I hope others take notice.

    • bill says:

      Kind of glad you didnt filter Bloody and Billyboy.
      Reading crap like that should make all of us want to work harder at being…you know..normal.

  8. Bloody Bounder says:

    Billy Boy,

    Let me guess you are a highly assimilated, unilingual, unhyphenated, Canadian born and bred, WHITE MALE, most likely
    of British Isles ancestry. I bet you also do not have a University degree or any post-secondary education. You most likely work in a blue collar job, and you view working in “the real world” with your hands no less, as something akin to a spiritual experience. You believe that “an honest days work” with blood, sweat and tears to be almost redemptive. I am sure you self-identify as a “Tim Horton’s Dad”. You may even be an Alpha White Male competitive hockey brute. I bet you are also easily amused with both the mundane and the mediocre. You are no doubt an average “workin’ joe” and proud of it aren’t you?!.

    You just despite the money changers, the career politicians, the bankers, the Bay Street crowd, the academics and
    the downtown Toronto elite, because you know that you are far too common to ever hope to fly in such social circles.
    Just like Doris, you are an adult who is still primarily motivated by childlike competitiveness, jealousy, and envy.
    You are most likely a grown adult, but like so many ignorant, common, uneducated, uncouth, unrefined, tactless,
    spiteful, jealous, envious, frugal, sour, dour, White working class Canadians you vote not for what benefits you, but against what you perceive as “others getting a free ride when I have to get up and bust my ass”. It amazes me how petty, ignorant and selfish most human beings are in general and as a world traveller who has lived in six different countries, who speaks three different languages and holds dual citizenship, I can honestly attest to the fact that White working class North Americans in blue collar vocations are some of the most selfish, ignorant, inhospitable, simple minded, petty, childish, immature human garbage on the planet.

    In most other cultures, especially in most South Asian cultures, being a University educated professional is quite often a family expectation. This also more often than not carries over to the large and growing South Asian diaspora here in Canada. In many cultures, working in some manual labour job in a blue collar vocation is actually something to be deeply ashamed and embarrassed about. Most countries and cultures outside of North America deeply revere and hold in high regard hierarchy, elitism, class and caste. In North American popular culture, being employed in some blue collar job is often regarded as “a real job in the real world” and there is no shortage of television shows, magazine publications and talk radio shows which promote the supposed virtues of blue collar culture. Furthermore, North American culture, especially right-wing politics here, tends to view being University educated as something negative, and akin to being “snobbish and elitist”. How many times have we heard right-wing populist talk radio show host blast Liberal Arts degrees as “useless” and for “artsy farsty pussies”. In the rest of the world, your sort of blue collar common mentality is shoved into the shadows of most other societies. Your vocation, class, and mind set would be considered a pariah in most other countries and cultures.

    Have you ever visited a matrimonial web site for Indians or Pakistanis?. Quite often, the University degrees and suffixes are listed before the income, height, weight or preferred social activity of the person behind the profile. The way you think is that of a North American working class blue collar White person, and such convictions, values and mind sets are by no means universal.

    I used to be a card carrying member of both the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. My politics are socially liberal, economically progressive and environmentally aware.
    I strongly support both unions and the social safety net. In fact, I believe the latter should be expanded to include
    a national Pharmacare programme and a national daycare programme. I always give money to the homeless,
    I donate to the Food Bank several times a year, and my support for women’s rights, gay rights and abortion rights
    are well known on this blog. However, I am an unapologetic classiest, and it is only in North America, where it is un cool
    to be an intellectual, to be upper crust, to be posh, refined, couth, tactful, ect. In Europe, and most other countries in the world there is not the sort of sickening class mobility, which allows the ignorant, common, uneducated, low class, unrefined, uncouth, tactless masses access to (usually by way of easy credit and air miles) to things such as dining in upscale restaurants, flying first class, ect. Also, in North America, unlike Europe or Asia, people in general, and common low class people in blue collar vocations in particular, for lack of a better word, do not know their places. It is ONLY in North America where you have loud mouths on talk radio shows and populist blogs, ect.

    As I said, I am very left-wing when it comes to socio-economics, but I strongly believe in Monarchy, statism, elitism,
    and class structure. I remember the good ole days when Conservatives were defined by aristocratic gentleman statesman such as Red Tories Robert Stanfield, Joe Clark, Larry Grossman, Bill Davis, John Robarts, and Flora MacDonald. I left the Canadian Conservative movement when all of the Redneck White Trash from the Reform/Alliance wing took over my party. Back in the old days, you would see BMWs and Benz outside of PC Party events, and most of the grassroots were middle and upper middle class University educated professionals such as doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, ect. When Manning and Day federally and Harris, Hudak and Klein took the reigns of power, the benevolent, classy, posh, refined, upper crust, noblesse oblige Red Toryism was replaced by a nasty, spiteful hyper-competitive, crass, unrefined, uncouth, tacky, Blue Collar Conservative Populism, and along with it came the pickup trucks outside of Reform/Alliance/Conservative events. The middle and upper middle class professionals at the grassroots left en mass for the Liberals (myself included) and we were replaced by house painters, plumbers, electricians, dry wall hangers, inbred looking farmers, ex-jailguards with the faces of pigs, and Alpha White Male ex-cops who all wanted too “fry the bad guys, bust the unions, deport the minorities, end bilingualism, end multiculturalism, divorce Quebec, push the gays back in the closet, and get rid of the do gooder welfare state”.

    Without exception all of those rank and file Reform/Alliance grassroots members who proposed such things were fat, ugly, redneck white trash who were all high school drop outs. The right-wing populist Blue Collar Conservative now rules the Canadian Conservative and American Republican movements respectively. The elite in society (and all well functioning nation-states, empire and civilizations have a wise guiding elite) abdicated power to ignorant, common, uneducated, unrefined, low class, blue collar, tactless, uncouth, knee jerk reactionary common redneck white trash in North American society, with their strong predilection towards simple minded answers to complex socio-economic issues along with contempt for women’s rights, gay rights, abortion rights, immigration, bilingualism, multiculturalism, Quebec, progressive taxation, gun control, ect.

    Even the NDP and to a lesser extent the Liberals (Last summer McGunity, Horwath and Hudak were all competing over who could lower the cost of booze the most for Joe Six Pack Public in a carven pandering to the lowest common denominator in society). Back in the era of Conservatives such as John Robarts & Bill Davis, Liberals such as David Peterson and NDPers such as Stephen Lewis, Joe Six Pack Pickup Truck would be a career ruining embarassment to be seen with in public, much less to agitate for his creature comforts and animalistic instricts.

    I could care less if you think I am a snob, an elitist, ect. Again, if you travel the world, you will soon see that it is ONLY North America which views elitism, classism, statism, paternalism, nepotism, poshness, gentile ness, and aristocraticy to be negative and/or weak. The reason for all of that is because both Canada and the USA were historically founded by the lowest of the low peasant outcast from Europe, many of whom were mean minded, spiteful, superstitious, pious, frugal, sour, dour, Cromwellian Protestants.

    So Billy Boy (even your handle betrays a White working class blue collar mentality) you alert all of your fellow redneck white trash to this posting all you want. Just don’t even embarrass yourself by visiting Europe or Asia with your lowest common denominator mentality, trust me, you would find nothing but contempt and disdain for your ilk in such places. You would do well to stick with the Holiday Inn, the 24/7 drive threw windows, the NASCAR rallies, the WWE events and of course the sacred Friday evening trips to the LCBO.

    Here is an idea Billy, immerse yourself in the study of a second language, learn to play an instrument such as the piano or violin (sorry but drunken air guitar does not count), replace your Molson X with a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, replace your pack of Player’s cigs for a nice Cuban cigar, take in live theatre in downtown Toronto, attend the ballet, read a novel (sorry but Stephen King does not count), and for the love of God, stop going to NASCAR rallies and watching both WWE and Storage Wars!.

  9. Billy boy says:

    @bloody: Hope you didn’t spend too much time letting this drivel drool out of your utterly misinformed and imbecilic mind. My guess is you copy and paste this inane crap whenever someone either stands up to you or dares to disagree with you.

    To begin. The operative word of your opening salvo is indeed “guess”. Your inferences about who I am display the inductive skills of a petulant 2 year old. Other than your assumption that I was born, all of your inferences are wrong. I am a Euro Canadian who spent most of my childhood in Europe. I have two postgraduate degrees (one is a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies. I own a home in the centre of hipsterdom. I drink only fair trade coffee made by wonderfully eccentric indie baristas. I seldom drink alcohol but when I do it’s Veuve Cliquot to toast to a markedly blessed life. I am equally at home in World Literature, Classical Music, Punk or hip hop. And if you could muster anything more than ad hominem straw man arguments, or otherwise were of any consequence, I might muster up the energy to rebuff the rest of your inane rambling.

    Peace be with you, you arrogant prick. You should learn the difference between distinction and refinement and your brand if smug self entitled hubris.

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