The New Democratic Party will keep its name, for now, as leader Jack Layton wrapped up the party's annual convention by urging delegates to "build a better world" for the next generation of Canadians.
Too bad. We get the same old NDP party with the same old name. I was hoping for a new name but the same old party.
I honestly can't see how changing their name to the Democratic Party will help them win a federal election. Perhaps they are hoping to tie their name with the US Democrats and win over voters with mass confusion?
Next of Kin, you should sign up for the parties emails. They've been pushing the Obama style "hope and change" pretty hard, pity they don't have anyone with his appeal to back it up though.
M1891/30: A bad day on the range is better then a good day at work.
As disappointing as it must be to get your hopes raised by a figure like Barack Obama and then dashed by his toothless, mealy-mouthed doormat politics, it sure isn't any more inspiring to have an utter dearth of confidence in all parties from the get-go as is the case here in Canada and of which the NDP are a notable example.
Cpl Kendall wrote:Next of Kin, you should sign up for the parties emails. They've been pushing the Obama style "hope and change" pretty hard, pity they don't have anyone with his appeal to back it up though.
I had a look at their website and there are pleanty of "winning from the ground up" slogans, etc. I really can't see them extending their base; they are popular in Hamilton but that is due to labour. Outside of their turf they must be as popular as the rhino or the marxist/leninist party.
Federally, they place a fairly close second in many places throughout Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where they are also main contenders provincial (being the government in Manitoba and official opposition in Saskatchewan).
TithonusSyndrome wrote:As disappointing as it must be to get your hopes raised by a figure like Barack Obama and then dashed by his toothless, mealy-mouthed doormat politics, it sure isn't any more inspiring to have an utter dearth of confidence in all parties from the get-go as is the case here in Canada and of which the NDP are a notable example.
As an American, I'm painfully aware that our parties don't have the level of power over individual members that leaders in a Westminster style system have.
That said, there are instances where I'm damn glad they didn't have that power.
On the other hand there a plenty of instances where it would have been better if they'd had that power.
That lack of party discipline makes it hard to explain to anyone who has no clue about the US system just how Senator X can get away with sabotaging a piece of legislation that President Y of his own party wants to see passed.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
As an American, I find it confusing you can't divide Canadian politics into "Cartoonishly Evil" and "Less Bad". I looked at Canadian parties and found all of the major ones had good and bad policies in their platforms.
While I immediately figured out what I was doing wrong (trying to tell whether the NDP or the Liberals were the 'Good Guys'), it speaks volumes as to the American political system that I was immediately trying to determine which was was the reprehensible party that it's a moral failure to vote for and which party is the Correct Party.
Heh, out here in the eastern part of the country (Quebec and the maritimes, not sure about Ontario), the conservatives and Harper in particular are often depicted as the Devil Incarnate. I really don't like them myself but it gets tedious after a while to look in the newspaper and look at yet another cartoon of Harper dressed as Satan.
It looks like the name change is all but dead for now. Jack Layton down-played it at the last convention. Interestingly enough, the new name might have caused a stir in Quebec as the abbreviation for Democration Party would be PD (Parti Democratique). PD sounds too much like the Quebec word "pede" which is a derogatory word for homosexual. Source.
