Talk:New Democratic Party
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An event mentioned in this article is a June 17 selected anniversary
I can see why you'd want to work him in somewhere, but is it really "Tommy Douglas's Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF)"?
He didn't start the party (in the sense that you could perhapse rightfully say "Preston Manning's Reform Party"), and he was also leader of the federal NDP for a time wasn't he? - stewacide 02:03 Dec 22, 2002 (UTC)
Quick correction - Bill isn't the house leader, but the parliamentary leader. "House leader" is the official term for the party whip, IIRC. It's currently Libby Davies. - Montréalais
House Leader is someone who negotiates with other House Leaders and argues points before the Speaker. A Whip is someone who gets MPs in to vote and to vote by the party line. The current whip is Yvon Godin.
Removed today's edit by 24.235.186.61. Wild speculation about other people's personal opinions are irrelevant to explanation of party structure. -J. 142.169.111.110 00:29, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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Categorization
The article talks of the NDP as a federal and provincial party entity. The categorization has been changed to Canadian federal political parties. Is this the right thing to do? How should the NDP be categorized in this sense? --Timc 18:42, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
This article is largely about the federal party - the provincial parties each have their own article. I was trying to put all Canadian political party articles either into "federal political parties" or into a category for the individual province political parties. Perhaps most of the information here should be moved to New Democratic Party of Canada, and this should just be a barebones page talking about the different organizations. john k 18:46, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I can see what you mean. It might be less confusing to move it to New Democratic Party of Canada. As to whether this page should be a disambiguation page or a redirect, I think that warrants some discussion. Personally, I think it might be best to redirect to this article, because there are links to all of the provincial parties from here. --Timc 12:12, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
One problem is that the provincial parties are actually wings of the federal party, and if you belong to a provincial party you belong to the federal party. The same is not true of Canada's other federal parties. - Montréalais 16:04, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I'm not an NDP member, but is it true that there are "separate" (in name) parties, with shared membership? In that instance, a case could be made for classifying the New Democractic Party of Canada as a federal political party, and each provincial party as a provincial political party?
Well, I'll leave the debate to the Canadians, and see what emerges. john k 16:12, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
As for Quebec provincial parties, there are several people (including MNA Nathalie Rochefort) who are members of the PLQ and NDP. I can't think of any Péquistes who are also NDP members. - Montréalais
- With my deepest, deepest respect, I'll beg to differ! How about Pierre Ducasse, who has stated that he voted for the Parti Québécois in 2003 and for the YES side in 1995? How about Dr. Amir Khadir, the now official UFP representative? ...who was candidate for the Bloc Québécois and demanded to the Parti Québécois to become a PQ candidate before going to the UFP and supporting the NDP in 2004? The natural links are there. René Lévesque himself stated more than once that the NDP was a party where he would have seen himself and compared the PQ to the NDP when explaining the nature of the PQ to international reporters. I'll remind you that the original NDP provincial wing in Quebec was co-founded by none other than Jean Duceppe, the famous actor who also helped found the Parti Québécois. He was one of the strongest supporters of sovereignty and the PQ and is the father of... yes, Gilles Duceppe, who is member of the PQ and kind of a supporter. :) All I heard of people hesitating last election, in the sovereigntist side, was hesitation betwen the Bloc and the NDP. Even well-known people like the signer of Mes Aïeux (in an article of the monthly Le Québécois). I personally even spoke of it with the NDP candidate in my riding and he told me that they got along great with the Bloc. Rochefort in one strange case: to the left without beign for sovereignty. In Quebec, the two are quite natural allies. Jack Layton has had very good words about the Bloc and many PQ past ministers, and his respectful attitude (at last! we've been waiting for something like that since Pearson) for the sovereigntists, did not fall in deaf ears. This even prompted Bernard Derome, on the SRC, to tell Layton that it seems the NDP is federalist in Canada and sovereigntist in Quebec. You know, which supporters do you think Layton and the party hoped to gain the sympathy of by establishing a distinct Quebec NDP face (up to special logo witht the fleur-de-lys) and proclaiming proudly a Quebec nation? The true pool of potential vote for the NDP in Quebec is simply in PQ support, certainly not in the PLQ or ADQ, two parties completly disconnected witht he heart of the Quebec left: social-democracy and national sovereignty. Also, Mr. Layton himself commented on the Parti Libéral du Québec and Natalie Rochefort, and it was quite amusing. In a public chat for Cyberpresse.ca, he was asked how the Liberal Party could take Rochefort. Layton answered: What I'm wondering is what Nathalie Rochefort is doing in Jean Charest's Liberal Party! --Liberlogos 18:51, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Um, my question was not about nationalists/sovereignists who support the federal NDP, but about people who are members of the NDP and the PQ. - Montréalais
Terrorist vs. Member
I am curious about the change in Rose's description from "FLQ terrorist" to "FLQ member." Is there a question over whether he was a terrorist? Surely the problems with the NDP weren't caused by him merely being a former FLQ member, but an active participant in terrorist activities. HistoryBA 02:20, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Timc: your change works for me. HistoryBA: I agree with you. Bonhumm sent me an e-mail, so we are beginning a discussion on this issue. I'll post his comments here when I receive them, unless, of course, he posts them here him/herself. Kevintoronto 13:49, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You guys can stop scratching your heads about those byzantine terminolgy debates because, in any case, the mention of Rose is irrelevant in the NPD article in the first place, for the simple reason that the whole sentence where he is mentioned is false. Clearly, someone has been writing some incredible political fiction story there. Let's put some order into this. Here's the real story as it really happened, in chronological order (the chronology is important, as we shall see, in order to get an accurate picture). And, before someone asks, let me mention that I have direct personal knowledge of these events, because I was there when the provincial and federal parties decided to sever their ties. Should anybody need further confirmation or details, they can find it directly in the archives of the parties for the years mentioned below. Here is a short account of what happened: - 1989: The provincial party further clarifies its position in the canadian constitutional debate by clearly declaring in favor of the independence of Quebec. - Autumn 1989: Provincial elections in Quebec. The platform adopted by the provincial NDP centers around social-democracy, ecology and the independence of Quebec. - 1989: Discussions take place inside the provincial NDP as to the relevance of keeping organisational ties with the federal NDP. Different groups inside the provincial party had different, and somewhat contradictory, motivations for favoring that option (a summary of those different motivations and their interrelations would be interesting but, for the sake of brevity, I will not enter into this explanation here). Anyway, eventually, a majority of the officers of the provincial party came to favor the option of a complete separation of the two parties. Thus, the provincial party's officers suggested that option to the federal party's officers. A proposition to this effect was drafted in order to be presented to the convention of the federal party held in the autumn of 1989 in Winnipeg. - Autumn 1989: the Winnipeg convention of the federal NDP officially confirms the separation of the two parties (it takes the form of a modification to the constitution of the federal party, providing for the existence of a Quebec section dealing exclusively with federal politics, instead of an affiliated provincial party involved in both provincial politics and federal politics, as was the case until then and as it is still the case in the other provinces). - 1990: The convention of the provincial party also officializes the separation, and modifies its own constitution accordingly, removing any reference to federal politics and to the federal party. - From that point, the two organizations are definetely fully independent. The provincial party reorganizes its functioning along purely provincial lines and the Quebec section of the federal party reorganizes its fuctioning along purely federal lines. - Autumn 1994: Provincial elections in Quebec. Paul Rose appears in the picture, as a wannabe NDP candidate in a riding (IIRC, he was not allowed to run as candidate because of his parole status). - Late 1994 or early 1995: The provincial party changes its name from NPD to PDS. Ideas about a name change had been surfacing at regular intervals for many years inside the provincial party. They finally decided to proceed to a change at that point in time. - 1996: Paul Rose becomes leader of the PDS. - Important points to note: Firstly, the origin of the debate on the separation of the two parties resided essentially inside the provincial party. The proposition for the separation of the two parties was presented to the the federal party as a proposition coming from the provincial party. This was in no way thought of as an expulsion. It was done of a mutual accord of the two parties. (Purely technically, one might call it an expulsion only in the sense that the provincial officiers should logically have waited for the provincial convention to officially adopt a resolution on the matter before presenting the proposition at the federal convention. They did it in the opposite order, probably for the practical reason of not having to wait until the next federal convention. So, technically, there existed a period of a few months at the end of 1989 and the beginning of 1990, between the dates of the two conventions, during which the constitution of the federal party had alredy been modified while the provincial party had not yet definitely adopted the change.) Secondly, the acceptation by the federal party of the proposition of separation of the two parties has nothing at all to do, at any moment, with any point of the political programme or of the political platform that had been adopted by the provincial party, be it about the matter of the constitutional question and the independence of Quebec or about any other matter. The federal party fully respected the right of the provincial parties to freely and democratically define their political platforms and to elect their officers. The political positions of the provincial party were not an issue for the federal party when considering the proposition about the separation of the parties and, IIRC, were not mentioned or considered in the debate that took place at the federal convention. Thirdly, Paul Rose was not a member of the party and was not even remotely in the picture at that time. He became involved with the party only several years later, around 1993-1994. He became leader in 1996. Note that that is six years after the two parties have definitely severed all their ties. Rose is not in any way or manner connected with the separation of the two parties that occured in 1989-1990, unless you want to have time flowing backwards. I notice that the same false statement has been reproduced in the articles about the NDPQ, the PDS and in the article about Rose, although with different variants and contradictions with other elements of those same articles. Apparently, copying has been done from one erroneous article to the other without bothering to verify the facts. Strange process at work there. Someone started from a few disconnected facts (the two parties separated at some time, provincial party had positions on independance, Rose was leader at some time), each of which could be true taken in isolation and in its appropriate context, mixed them all together in disorder and out of context, added pure fictional speculation of his own to try to artificially connect them together with an inexistant relation of causality and to try to fill in the gaps, and in the end of the process managed to produce a complete falsehood, oblivious to the contradictions or to the fact that the dates don't match. Not to mention that it makes the federal party falsely look as some dictatorial organization that tries to dictate to the provincial parties what policies they can or cannot adopt or which officers they can or cannot elect. Anyway, all that to say that IMHO the terminology debate is not really the problem here. -J. 142.169.105.155 14:10, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Democratic socialism
Links that demonstrate that the NDP is "democratic socialist", including encyclopedia articles, a 1993 statement by the NDP national convention, and something from the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation.
Also.. to quote from the NDP Constitution: "The New Democratic Party believes that the social, economic and political progress of Canada can be assured only by the application of democratic socialist principles to government and the administration of public affairs."
Douglas-Coldwell Foundation (http://www.dcf.ca/federalndp/Default.asp?pg=8)
The Canadian Encyclopedia (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=J1ARTJ0005699)
Federal NDP (http://action.web.ca/home/ndpnpd/en_aboutus.shtml?x=30832&AA_EX_Session=3f91b8d87cf3a90ac8b7006d68c57c89)
Encyclopaedia Brittanica (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9055455)
Kevintoronto 15:20, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Stanley Knowles
As this is a historical look at the party, shouldn't Stanley Knowles be in it? I'm not sure how many other (if any) other party leaders of any kind have been made officers of The Order of Canada. He was an important figgure... Weaponofmassinstruction 03:39, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Populism
Michaelm: please explain your justification for adding populism to the description of the NDP's roots, or remove it. Thanks. Kevintoronto 13:35, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
colour
I'm wondering if there should not be a difference in the CCF colour compared to the NDP? The PC's and the New Cons are different because they were different parties. Anyone who knows something about history know that the CCF and the NDP are different (not just a name change)
ex
| Party | Party Leader | # of candidates | Seats | Popular Vote | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Previous | After | % Change | # | % | Change | |||
| New Democratic | 000 | 000 | 000 | 000 | 000 | 000 | 000 | |
| Cooperative Commonwealth | <center> J.S. Woodsworth | 000 | 000 | 000 | 000 | 000 | 000 | 000 |
- Please continue this discussion at Talk:Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Thank you.