Evening Star

Please read: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed that Ala Buzreba stepped down, especially considering that she was 17 when she sent those tweets. I think it is to the NDP's credit that they have not behaved in the same way. This is how I feel about this whole business, more or less: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/andrew-coyne-bozo-eruptions-or-no-let-voters-decide-if-candidates-are-idiots

Probably because it's trivial. She wrote some tweets with profanity and slang four years ago. Wow.

Do you think she should have been?

Including a whole 18% of Liberal supporters and 15% of NDP supporters!

If you want to argue against the NDP's policy book, or the way the party removed it from the website, or against what seems like an increasingly top-down structure within the NDP, those are all fair points to argue. We could even talk about whether this manifesto contains good ideas or not. It just doesn't seem that fair to make arguments about the NDP based on a non-partisan manifesto that was not written or signed by NDP candidates or leaders.

It states that one promise has been vague (although cybercoma has given an explanation) and the other will be delayed. That doesn't confirm what you suggest it does. I don't know yet how they plan to pay for everything (although they have mentioned some tax changes that should generate revenue). If so, when will the NDP release their costings for their platform? This is supposed to come on Thursday, according to the same CTV story. I actually do take issue with the way the NDP has removed their old policy book, especially before posting a platform and with the vagueness of their commitments so far. And I even agree that it does not seem that clear so far how their promises can be paid for. However, I also take issue with framing a story as that the NDP's internal documents essentially confess that they don't even have an idea themselves, when the substance of the story does not support that.

I just watched the CTV story. I don't see how it supports what you or the Liberal Party are saying. This was the CTV quote: This does NOT say "they have no idea how they'll pay for their promises". It says "they have not specified the size of the increase to health care transfers" and "most of the funding for infrastructure will actually come towards the end of the first mandate". Whether or not those are good things is up for debate but I think the Liberals are misrepresenting things. It's ESPECIALLY rich for Jean "Red Book" Chrétien to comment on parties making expensive promises during a campaign that they can't follow through on

The framing of the article is misleading that way. You can see the manifesto here. There is no reference to the NDP anywhere. Even in the article, it is mentioned that members of other parties are also signatories. The Globe & Mail ran the same story under a rather different headline: Leap Manifesto contrasts NDP platform with call for economic reform.

Many, if not most, of the signatories are entertainers. It seems like a real stretch to call Alanis Morrissette and Tegan and Sara prominent NDPers.

If any of the parties' platforms does come at all close to this manifesto, it would be the Greens' (possibly the Communists').

Jerry Bance was at least an actual Tory candidate. None of these people are NDP candidates or part of the NDP caucus. I've actually only ever read critical things about the NDP from Naomi Klein. A few of them are important supporters - mainly the Lewises and the union leaders - and KIS at least makes some reasonable points about how this might put Mulcair in a delicate position tactically. Anyone who presents this as the NDP's platform or agenda is being either ignorant or manipulative, though.

There was another thread on this about 15m ago. Was it deleted?

I dunno, exactly, but my point is that it is nothing new, not even new in the last 25 years. Ontarians are mostly looking at the Tories and Liberals outside of some blue-collar areas (mostly), like always. It is a more striking question to me why SK doesn't vote NDP anymore or why QC does or even why the Tories are more popular in ON than they were previously. If I had to speculate about ON and the current NDP: it might have something to do with ON being a centre for business and finance, it might have to do with people's attachment to the older parties and the Trudeau name, it might have to do with seeing the NDP as soft on QC sovereigntists/nationalism (which I think scares Ontarians more than Westerners BECAUSE they're neighbours), it could just be that the NDP platform has not been exceptionally exciting so far.

I don't think they've commented on that, as far as I know.

I was a little puzzled until I saw an explanation: they have only promised that their FIRST budget will be balanced.

That's definitely false. The Liberals won almost every single seat in Ontario throughout the Chretien/Martin years. Please go look up those results. Even in 2006, the LPC won more ON seats than the Tories. In fact, the Liberals' success during this period was almost completely based on their popularity in Ontario. They also won ON, or were competitive, throughout the PET years. It is certainly true, though, that the NDP has never had majority support in ON. This was just as true before Rae as it was after him, and this is why I don't see Rae's single term in provincial government 20-25 years ago as the main problem facing the federal NDP in ON. The problem goes deeper than that.

I don't buy this as the explanation in Ontario, to be honest. It's not as though Ontario was delivering plenty of NDP seats prior to Rae's government. (They won 13/95 ON seats in 1984 and 10/99 ON seats in 1988. Their 2011 number of 22/106 was much better, if anything.) They really suffered for a while in the 90s and early 00s but I don't believe that Rae is still hurting them, especially years after he publicly renounced the NDP. The simple fact is that the NDP has never had majority support in ON, federally. They are working to build this but I think they will shoot themselves in the foot if they keep assuming that they need to shake the ghost of Bob Rae. Voters under 25 were not even born when Rae was in power. And, as much as people who are not me dislike him, it's not even like he had one signature detested policy comparable to the NEP (unless you count the Social Contract/Rae Days, which was essentially an austerity measure, a cut to public service wages that saved $2B: it pissed off unions but should be celebrated by fiscal conservatives; either way, it's not something that had a disastrous long-term effect). Moreover, he was good to Northern Ontario, which has remained largely NDP territory.

Hm, OK, looking at your Abacus link, about half of Tory voters feel this way, which is more than for the other parties. That still means that half don't, though!

1988?

I dunno, it depends on which issues are most important to you but I think a lot of Tory voters could probably find some common ground in either the current Liberal or NDP platforms. We're not even really looking at Cameron vs Corbyn or Sanders vs Trump here.

I'll quickly add a slightly OT note that much of the teaching is done by contract and sessional faculty who make a small fraction of these numbers. Anyway, yes, nothing is truly free in the world but it is possible to advocate for fully publicly funded education that is free at the point of use. I don't necessarily want this but I do think tuition should be much lower.

Elitism is good, sometimes. But framing this as an elitist view seems to be based on the assumption that university is somehow superior to college or technical education or direct workforce experience. It is not, necessarily, and other options may well be more rewarding for many people.

I completely agree, but this is why I think it is important to develop apprenticeships and paid internships in order to provide other options.

I'm not sure I see the distinction but: the voters did toss out the federal Liberals after it became too much, right? And the BC NDP as well? So if they're all the same in the end, is it not reasonable that some voters might not want to vote for the Tories on these grounds? And I'm not sure that we can assume that much about what the current federal LPC and NDP might be like based on what a different Liberal Party with a different leader and caucus did 20 years ago or what provincial NDP governments might have done at various times.