New Democratic Party

This feels like it's happened before … it's Groundhog Day and the Liberals have just broken a promise!

| February 2, 2017

So long, electoral reform! Welcome back, first-past-the-post!

Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party, said yesterday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement that his clear promise of electoral reform back in the 2015 federal election campaign was going over the side left her feeling "more deeply shocked and betrayed by my government today than on any day of my adult life."

Those of us who are old New Democrats, or old Tories for that matter, may not feel quite so much shock.

It is Groundhog Day, after all, and we've seen this movie before -- over and over and over. Every time we're persuaded to vote Liberal for one reason or another, as a matter of fact.

Happy New Year! Here are Alberta Diary's top 10 political predictions for 2017

David J. Climenhaga

| January 2, 2017

Happy New Year!

This New Year we're going to keep it simple and start off 2017 with Alberta Diary's Top 10 political predictions for the year ahead of us. Here they are:

1. Thanks to whomever replaces him -- Charlie Angus, c'mon down! -- Thomas Mulcair will start to look pretty good as federal NDP leader. It'll be too late, of course.

2. Jason Kenney will win the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party on the first ballot in Calgary on March 18. The PC Party is not doomed, however, despite Kenney's plan to dismantle it and merge it with the Wildrose Opposition, because many Wildrosers will be unconvinced by his rhetoric and that of his backers that resistance is futile.

The Top 10 Alberta political news stories of 2016

David J. Climenhaga

| December 27, 2016

2016: It was the International Year of the Bean. I kid you not …

OK, technically, it was the International Year of Pulses. But you can take it from me, I'm an old agriculture reporter for what used to be a major metropolitan newspaper, and pulses have got nothing to do with heartbeats. It's a bean thing. In plain English, it means the International Year of the Bean. If you don't believe me, you can ask the United Nations.

Canada's Conservatives have bulldozed their greatest strength into the ground for the sake of Trumpism

David J. Climenhaga

| December 21, 2016

Alberta’s most extreme right-wingers are not just talking these days as if it's only a matter of ticking the weeks off their calendars until they automatically defeat Premier Rachel Notley and the province's NDP government, but as if the same thing is bound to happen soon in Ottawa as well.

Soon enough, they seem to reckon, prime minister Kellie Leitch, Chris Alexander or Brad Trost will be Making Canada Great Again.

Taking forward the political vision that inspires the Leap Manifesto

Roger Annis

| October 14, 2016

Author and environmentalist Naomi Klein published a feature article in The Globe and Mail' on Saturday, Sept. 24 in which she defends the Leap Manifesto against its detractors. Her unique argument in this essay explains that Canada's "founding economic myth" has been that of the "good" created by the vast pillaging of the country's natural resources following the arrival of settlers from Europe. She argues that the myth's endurance helps to explain the failure of Canada's contemporary capitalist elite to making the necessary political and economic changes in the face of the global warming emergency.

Nova Scotia's NDP scores a decisive victory

Christopher Majka

| September 1, 2016

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A Nova Scotia day dawns like any other...but yet not quite. Today Nova Scotia has a new legislator from the riding of Halifax Needham. On August 30 the New Democratic Party's Lisa Roberts won a resounding victory in a byelection to replace former NDP MLA (and former interim NDP leader) Maureen MacDonald who resigned from politics on April 12 of this year.

Columnists

The time is right for the NDP to return to its socialist roots

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There's been a strange summer-long silence from the NDP. Last week, after the near terror event in Strathroy, they should have been vocal on Bill C-51, the terror bill. The Liberals looked paralyzed and the Tories had their hard line. The NDP should own this, it was their only winner last election. But they went quiet. Then there's the strange case of their leadership race. What leadership race?

Tags:

NDP socialism New Democratic Party federal NDP leadership Bill C-51

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Does the federal Tory pivot toward Alberta show they've given up on power in Ottawa?

David J. Climenhaga

| July 11, 2016

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As they survey the rubble by the Rideau left by the toxic Stephen Harper Imperium, one wonders if Canada's federal Conservatives have completely given up on holding power in Ottawa.

We need a referendum on electoral reform? No! We need a national referendum on the TPP!

David J. Climenhaga

| June 13, 2016

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Lately it has been very hard to avoid noisy demands for a national referendum on the federal Liberal government's electoral reform plans. These demands all emanate from the Conservative Party and its wholly owned subsidiary, the Canadian Perpetual Outrage Industry.