Scott Piatkowski

Liberals try to create confusion on a federal minimum wage

Scott Piatkowski — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 08:33:10 +0000

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Harper throws stones, shatters own glass house

Scott Piatkowski — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 00:17:14 +0000

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Mulcair isn't pandering for Quebec votes

Scott Piatkowski — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 16:58:16 +0000

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Why the NDP's Catherine Fife won the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection

Scott Piatkowski — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:51:23 +0000

As a rule, we New Democrats love byelections. Both our national leader Tom Mulcair and our Ontario leader Andrea Horwath were first elected in byelections. Both of those byelections were breakthroughs, one establishing a beachhead for the party in Quebec and the other restoring official party status at Queen’s Park.

Unlike general elections, where the NDP is outspent by the Conservatives and Liberals in the vast majority of ridings, byelections allow the party to compete on a level playing field with the Liberals and Conservatives. They offer an opportunity to concentrate organizational and financial resources in one riding, rather than spreading them across 107 or 308 ridings.

Thinking of voting Liberal to stop the Conservatives? Think again.

Scott Piatkowski — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:13:27 +0000

At his opening campaign event at the end of March, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff told voters that they had just two options in this election. They could walk through the blue door or they could walk through the red door. This phrasing represented new imagery, to be sure, but it is essentially the same message that the Liberal Party has been serving up to Canadians for years. To be blunt, after losing their grip on power and patronage, it's all they have left.

Getting Iggy with it: How the NDP should respond

derrick — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:57:15 +0000

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

For the most part, the NDP’s strategy towards the Liberals has not changed with the palace coup that made Ignatieff the Liberal leader.

By now, unless you have been without TV or Internet access, you’ve probably seen the Conservative ads attacking new Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. The ads portray Ignatieff as a rich, arrogant elitist who spent most of his adult life outside of Canada and who speaks French with a Parisian accent.

Their approach is interesting in that what they are saying is essentially the truth -- something normally quite alien to the Conservatives -- and because elitism is a quality more often associated with the Tories themselves.

The good, the bad and the ugly of the election results

Scott Piatkowski — Wed, 04 May 2011 16:54:55 +0000

Since Tuesday, catching up on sleep has taken precedence over catching up on blogging. Of course, that doesn't mean that I don't have a lot to say about the outcome of the vote. So, somewhat belatedly, here is my take on the highlights and lowlights of the 2008 Federal Election results.

The good

Jack Harris winning three-quarters of the vote in St. John's East (the highest percentage of the vote gained by any candidate in any riding) and Thomas Mulcair holding on to Outremont. This election marked the first general election that the NDP has ever won a seat in either province (they had won two previous by-elections in Newfoundland and one in Quebec, but did not hold the seats in subsequent elections).

Newsflash: It was all Chretien's fault

Scott Piatkowski — Wed, 04 May 2011 18:33:09 +0000

The Liberals have been having a great old time blaming the NDP for putting the Martin government out of its misery (and consequently, holding them accountable for everything from the lack of childcare spaces to poverty in First Nations communities). It's a meme that's been repeated by everyone from Bob Rae to Martha Hall Findlay to Ken Dryden -- and one that I took the time to thoroughly debunk in a previous post.

Liberals' latest campaign tactics betray their desperation

Scott Piatkowski — Wed, 04 May 2011 18:28:40 +0000

Post-debate polls show the Liberals holding onto second place by as little as two percentage points over the NDP, but there's something in the Liberals' tactics that shows that they've all but given up on defeating the Conservatives. Instead, they're increasingly aiming their fire at Jack Layton in an attempt to stave off an embarrassing third or fourth place finish for Canada's Natural Grovelling Party.

For what it's worth…

Scott Piatkowski — Wed, 04 May 2011 16:48:23 +0000

Everyone else is offering their post-debate analysis, so here’s mine:

- Harper is still working too hard to appear mellow in order to expand his base and I don't think that it's working. He probably didn't lose too many votes, and he definitely didn't gain any. He's going to win the same percentage of the vote, from mostly the same voters as he did in 2006. There were signs of the old cheap-shot artist a few times, mostly directly at Layton and Dion, but he dialed it back right away - almost as if he remembered what he had been told to do in the debates.

Pundits' Guide weighs in with a caution against strategic voting

Scott Piatkowski — Wed, 04 May 2011 18:25:47 +0000

Pundits' Guide, a project of Ottawa number cruncher Alice Funke, has rapidly established itself as the go to site for policy wonks and election geeks in search of meaningful information on the federal political scene.

Today, Alice provides a powerful counterpoint to those who are advocating strategic voting on October 14. Here are the major highlights of her argument [full text at the link; some bolding is hers, some is mine]:

Snappy answers to stupid Liberal talking points

Scott Piatkowski — Wed, 04 May 2011 18:21:18 +0000

Back when I read MAD magazine on a semi-regular basis, one of my favourite features was "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions." I'm not sure whether this was the beginning of my penchant for using sarcasm or whether I had "the gift" before that and merely fed it through my youthful reading choices.

In any event, there is nothing like election time -- and, in particular, nothing like hearing Liberal talking points ad naseum -- to bring out my snappy answers. Here are a few that I've been muttering under my breath and/or shouting at my television (depending on where I am at the time that I hear them):

The NDP "brought down the Martin government"

Harperâe(TM)s excuse for election call doesnâe(TM)t wash

rabble archives — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:44:45 +0000

Friday, September 5, 2008

According to Stephen Harper âe" who was in favour of fixed election dates until he wasnâe(TM)t âe" the sudden election call is necessary because the opposition parties would not promis

I was expecting to be spending most of September 8 in Guelph, working Election Day for Tom King, the NDPâe(TM)s remarkable by-election candidate in the riding next door to where I live.

It now looks almost certain that the three federal by-elections scheduled for that date (the others were to take place in the Montreal-area ridings of Westmount-Ville Marie and Saint-Lambert) and the one scheduled for September 22 in Don Valley West will be cancelled in favour of a general election to be held in mid-October.

Assessing Hampton's years at helm of Ontario NDP

rabble archives — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:44:45 +0000

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

What held Howard Hampton back as leader of the Ontario NDP? I'd put his lack of success down to three main factors: Bob Rae, Mike Harris and the media.

I wasnâe(TM)t a Howard Hampton supporter during the last Ontario NDP leadership contest (in 1996), but I quickly became one after he was elected leader. Iâe(TM)m not talking about merely a âeoerally behind the leader for the good of the partyâe type of support; but genuine fondness, an admiration for both his work ethic and his leadership ability, and an eagerness to do everything I could to support his efforts.

Thatâe(TM)s not to say that Iâe(TM)m trying to convince him not to quit, a decision that he announced last weekend.

How Dalton got his majority back

rabble archives — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:44:45 +0000

Friday, October 12, 2007

Ironically, the election results (which handed McGuinty two-thirds of the seats with less than half the popular vote) helped to prove the case for the electoral reform thatâe(TM)s not going to h

By conventional journalistic standards, it was unusual to hear CBC reporter Keith Boagâe(TM)s initial take on the Ontario election results.

Leading off The National, he explained to viewers that Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty might have expected to be on the defensive or even to lose the election. But, said Boag, âeoehe got away with itâe . The comment was as stunningly accurate as it was unexpected. The bigger question is, how did he get away with it?