Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Thursday, July 12, 2012

NDP steps into the heart of oil country for a conversation

Since Conservative Lee Richardson announced he would be stepping down from his post as MP for Calgary Centre, a handful of names have appeared as nominee candidates for both the Conservatives and Liberals. So far, though, nobody has come forward for the New Democrats.

Still, the NDP is not neglecting the riding. Wednesday night, Opposition House leader Nathan Cullen will be in Calgary to host a brainstorming session on how to proceed.

“I’m asking Calgary New Democrats like yourself and like-minded people to join me for an interactive workshop to discuss what it will take to win in Calgary Centre,” Cullen posted on the event’s Facebook page. “What can we do to give Stephen Harper a stinging message in his own backyard that his divisive politics aren’t going to cut it anymore?’

Calgary Centre has never been very kind to the NDP. In the 2011 federal election, the NDP candidate, Donna Marlis Montgomery, finished third behind Richardson and Liberal Jennifer Pollock. (Richardson, for the record, ran away with the riding, gathering 28,401 votes – a full 57 per cent of the total cast. He did much the same in 2008.)

The storyline in 2011 was a familiar one. While provincially, central Calgary has tended toward Liberal MLAs, neither party has been able to break through the long progression of conservative (in one form or another) wins since the riding was established in the late 1960s. Despite that, Cullen remains hopeful the conversation he has Wednesday will be worthwhile.

“There is something under the surface here, and what that is, we’ll find out,” Cullen told iPolitics this week. “I don’t think (there’s) any place you can take for granted anymore. I think the political winds have shifted, I don’t think we understand all of what that shift means yet, but it means that we shouldn’t take any of them for granted and just right them off one way or the other — a party who historically wins or a party who historically has not done as well.”

Cullen is also ready for one topic that he says he’s sure “will come up”: NDP leader Thomas Mulcair’s comments this spring that Canada is suffering from Dutch disease — that the oil industry might be artificially inflating the dollar and destroying manufacturing jobs in Ontario.

The Conservatives immediately framed Mulcair’s remarks as an attack on Western Canada, slammed the NDP for having an “anti-resource agenda,” and for endorsing what they called “job-killing policies.” Conservative ministers also reprimanded Mulcair for not having visited the oilsands personally (something Mulcair then almost immediately did).

However, Mulcair’s comments were supported by a study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released in June. It warned that the run-up in commodity prices is leading to an uneven economy within Canada. The OECD also said Canada needs to do more to develop non-resource aspects of the economy in order to maintain high levels of employment and an equitable distribution of wealth across regions.

Cullen, walking into the riding that hosts many of the oil sector’s head offices, says he’ll be “curious” to hear how it’s all playing in Alberta, but feels confident.

“We’re feeling quite emboldened, to be honest,” he said. “If the whole question around a balanced economy was a third rail for us, certainly our polling would have started to reflect that at least a little bit and that just hasn’t been the case.”

Recent polls have shown the NDP either tied or slightly ahead of the Conservatives nationally, but the party has yet to gain much ground in Alberta. A recent EKOS poll for iPolitics found that only 19.5 per cent of Albertans would cast a vote for the NDP, compared to 54.3 per cent who would do so for the Conservatives.

In the end, Cullen said, he plans to do more listening in Calgary than talking.

“I promote these kinds of conversations, where you go in with questions rather than just trying to convince people that you have all the answers, and that’s absolutely how I’m going into Calgary,” he said. “I don’t claim to have all the depth and profound understanding of where Alberta is right now politically, but we’re absolutely humble enough to ask those questions and convinced there is a mood change going on in the country.”

Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Colin Horgan

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