Login / RegisterB.C. NDP leadership race brings forth ideas
Retired NDP cabinet minister Corky Evans never had a lot of patience with toeing the party line. In a recent e-mail to the Georgia Straight and three independent Victoria-based journalists (Paul Willcocks, Andrew MacLeod, and Sean Holman), Evans declared that when he first entered provincial politics in 1986, candidates were allowed to use their own words to express their beliefs.
But the former horse logger from the Kootenays claimed that this wasn’t permitted in the 1991 election, which the NDP won under Mike Harcourt’s leadership.
“Candidates were, essentially, instructed to read from the script or keep their mouths shut,” Evans wrote. “I remember going to candidate school in 1991 and being told ”˜Open your book to page 11. That is the script. All the rest of the book is background so you will understand what we are saying.”¦and any deviation from that script will be remembered and you will not like the reaction you get from us.’ ”
Evans claimed in his e-mail that he never really mastered the art of spin or sticking to the “message box”.
Yet he acknowledged that the public doesn’t like to hear a party or a government speak out of both sides of its mouth. That’s why politicians keep their mouths shut until the “Centre”, as he called it, tells them what to think.
“This is ironic, given that elected people are essentially in the business of ideas,” he noted.
However, Evans claimed that there is one period when new ideas can be discussed candidly—during a party leadership race. At that time, he maintained, candidates are expected to say what they think.
Evans should know. He ran twice for leader of the B.C. NDP, losing to Glen Clark in 1996 and to Ujjal Dosanjh in 2000.
“This is not just true of the front runners,” Evans wrote. “In a leadership contest even candidates with no chance of winning are expected to be honest about their thoughts on a myriad of subjects.”
And he stated that for those who ignore the opportunity to discuss ideas now—while there are vacancies at the top of both the B.C. Liberals and the B.C. NDP—then, “like they say at weddings, we should ”˜forever hold our peace.’ ”
Too bad Corky didnt take the advice at the wedding! On many fronts!
These discussions have a place in our party. It is sad the media hungry dissidents have a need to "out" the party showing off our warts unnecessarily. Haven't they done enough damamge? What they fail to grasp is the public might enjoy watching us wash our dirty laundry publically but the members gets disspirited and go away. Quit scaring people off!
That would put him right up there with science based prominent greens like James' Lovelock, Cameron and Hansen. Steward Brand, Gweyth Craven's and many others.
seth
Frankly, we need a new political operating system for this province urgently. We can't continue to run 'windows 3.1' political operating systems when there is much better 'software' we can either borrow from other jurisdictions or create ourselves. How to do it, legislate a Provincial Constitutional Constituent Assembly, members to be directly elected by citizens in each constituency of the province via a STV system (not FPTP, or MMP), gender balanced, significant FN membership, strong legislation to provide funding, mandate, research & administration monies, deadlines of say 18 -24 months from inception, legislation that specifies that all groups, including political parties, labor unions, corporations, churchs, NGOs, churches, lobbyist or trade associations etc. have equality of access to make representations to the constituent assembly, strong legislation to regulate advertising.
Then, when the draft constitution is written, put it to the people of BC in a referendum, and if gets 50% plus 1 - it becomes mandated into law, unchangeable except by referendum again.
That is how I see it. Other countries have done it, it is time we get on with the job. Finally, whilst the thought has crossed my mind, I am not again running for the NDP leadership. To those who shall, best of luck.
Anyone seeking leadeship should be aware that policy developers in the party are moving into the streets to be heard and the result will be a well supported platform for both the consideration of a successful leadership candidate and the due dilligence of each and every British Columbian to ensure its succesful delivery.
This election will be won if the NDP can mobilize the 50% of voters who stayed home, conversely, the BC Liberals will win if they can keep them at home, assuming there is not a third party of substance.
Party talking heads, from either of these parties that tow the line will vote for their given party, that is not in question. The recent BC Liberal MLA Bill Bennett and BC NDP MLA Jenny Kwan both spoke to the STRUCTURAL and PROCESSUAL components of concentrated control of the leadership as problematic. Any non talking head with a degree of objectivity can see this.
I had an opportunity to actively participate in the 10 community forums organized by the Vancouver School Board on the potential 5 school closures. I attended all of them and witnessed a open, transparent consultation process. Many felt the process was a done deal, that the VSB where just going through the motions. To many peoples surprise, the VSB chose not to close them for sound logical reasons. They listened and adopted many of the recommendations. They are open to working with the communities and their community driven solutions. Both BC NDP MLAs Mr. Dix and Mr. Simpson where active participants and witnessed democracy in action.
Whoever leads the BC NDP, needs to capture the energy and leadership displayed by the VSB and reconstitute it province wide to all various interest groups. This leader must inspire people to get off their couch and actively engage their community as well find a way to deal with dissent within the party and community.
Let me say this once more. The FIBERALS, leadership candidates and caucus, should have a string attached to the back of their heads. When the BCBC puts forth legislation for the FIBERALS all they have to do, the BCBC, is pull the strings, the FIBERAL bobble heads will bobble. A voice chip could also be planted in the bobble heads as well. As soon as the heads bobble it will chant "Yes Masters". Sound effects like cheering would be a nice touch as well.
Charlie, I think you're actually hopeful that the NDP could produce some sort of change. They are way past that. This is a dead organization. They are pure Third Way Clinton/Blair triangulation: pit the hard right against the lamest liberalism and then seek a position in the middle, i.e. further to the right. The best thing that could happen to the NDP, and to people who do want change, is a total collapse.
Unfortunately Corky, then as now, disagreeded with a lot of what the caucus decided. And spoke out about it.
Unless of course it was his fiasco about the 6 mile ranch, or his "job" as the cabinet minister in charge of the house when he allowed a major bill to go into the trash bin because he "was thinking about my ham sandwich at lunch".
Folksy as always but hardly someone that should be making major decisions.
"When we compare ourselves with these other jurisdictions we note that, you know what? There's work to be done here, and the Government's not doing it."
Oh yeah - that's the leadership style British Columbians are demanding--and thank you Michael for letting us know there were tough leaders around to protect the citizenry.
---Casper Milqutoast and the great weightlifting adventure: A short story and part of a series of stories by BC Journalists relating to some very bad political actors------------due out next spring 2011 - you don't want to miss it---- Next up Christy Clark's flatulence in a bag - helping the RCMP and police "On the back end".
Unbelievable.
At the end of Page 2 in this article Charlie cites a comment by Dix about what happened in 1992 after the NDP was elected. This provides some valuable context for understanding how the government stumbled into a series of actions that became a criminal conspiracy when they decided to amend one little piece of their new Labour Code without bothering to consult (or even inform) the Legislature. I have more than sufficient evidence of this, including documentation of a very clumsy attempt in 1998 to cover up what they had done by preparing another version of the legislation for a proper amendment process. Had the government taken that through the Legislature I would not be talking about this now. I'm still not certain why they didn't do that, but it's now clear how and why the whole farce was kicked off in 1992 - by Minister of Labour Moe Sihota.
What Dix and the others need to realize is that it's very foolish to presume that old, seemingly long buried skeletons won't eventually be dug up by someone with a shovel and the requisite interest. I recommend to them that they do a full survey of the graveyard to see what else is waiting to re-surface. As for the Liberals, well that won't be necessary because they're still standing in the middle of their own graveyard with a lot of the plots wide open.
For me, I get a whole new perspective from meeting people personally. Evans is like Vander Zalm in this sense. There is an absolute buzzz around them - charisma. Dianne Watts is another - comes off so genuine like your (girl) friend at school - real. Evans - is also a kind of stream of consciousness - he is absolutely fearless - which is really liberating from the mainstream gift rapped awfulness we have been enslaved by through the Campbell era.
Personally, as a watcher of politics - I refuse to accept the latter style any more.
For those unfamiliar, under mixed member proportional, each voter would actually get two votes, one for a candidate in their riding (elected by first-past-the-post), and one for their party of choice. The party vote is used to ensure that regardless of the results from the ridings, each party will still get a number of seats equal to their popular vote, seats filled via party lists put forth by each of the parties.
One very interesting result with this system is that it can result in positive strategic voting. By this, I mean that a voter, if they so chose, could vote for a candidate in their riding that was NOT from their party of choice, because they are assured that their party will still get the same number of seats.
This has the effect, also, of liberating the parties from an admittedly self-imposed box where they frequently choose the "safest" candidates they can, safest meaning some combination of white, male, heterosexual, middle-aged, and middle-class. Being freed from the winner-takes-all first-past-the-post races will make it easy for parties to put forth candidates from marginalized groups both in the riding races and on their party lists (significantly more so than under STV).
MMP also ensures that there is exact proportional representation in the legislature, something that STV is unable to do. So let's not pretend that STV is some sort of political godsend (how's Ireland doing these days?) and MMP is evil, because that is entirely untrue, and what is more, the familiarity and simplicity of MMP would appeal to many more British Columbians.
He has excelled at charming people, until they finally figure him out.
He showed us what a gutless wonder he truly is at the Council meeting. He didn't have either the courage or the courtesy to tell Delegates why Carole James Leadership needed to go over the cliff. He has no problem finding the "media need" in order to feed his ego in order to spew his B.S. on any topic and yet he can't find his cahones enough to talk to a room full of New Democrats. Corky is Old news and frankly I dont get why anyone, especially the STriaght, takes his bait. He forced the Democratic out of our party. He blew up the party without a plan. He owes all New Democrats a HUGE apology! He should go back an suck on his MLA pension, after all he did retire, right?.
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