I didn’t expect much when the text of Jack Layton’s keynote speech from NDP convention in Halifax showed up in my inbox Sunday evening. I wasn’t disappointed.
Trying to convince the party faithful that the NDP can win the next election doesn’t make for the most scintillating prose.
There wasn’t much to take away from the weekend for those watching on the CBC or CPAC. Party higher ups saw to that. The NDP in danger of becoming boring? We may have well reached that point.
The only story making any headlines, a move to drop the New from New Democratic Party, never came to a vote.
Fun-loving Jack’s treading carefully on this one. But if the plan is to perform major brain surgery, to change the party’s mindset, why not ditch the old label and start anew without the New?
Perhaps it’s just a question of logistics ie: too close to an expected runoff in the fall for the NDP to seriously consider the question – for now.
Whatever. The NDP seems keen enough about cleaning up its image. All of a sudden, the party of conscience is musing aloud about phasing out taxes for small business.
Unlike the previous NDP convention where Layton called for an immediate troop pull out from Afghanistan, there was no boffo moment at the Halifax confab.
But for part of the party’s traditional base, the motley-crew of activists pushing issues like decriminalization of pot, the weekend was a watershed moment.
The NDP has officially, it seems, severed its ties to its radical fringe, killing a motion calling for an end to marijuana prohibition even before it got to the convention floor. It never came to a vote on the convention floor, hung up by a procedural oversight, or shenanigans by party brass, depending on your perspective.
No more hippy dipping for the Dippers. We’re a serious party now. Focussed on winning.
The grumbling among the pro-pot crowd in Halifax got louder over the treatment of former NDP candidate Dana Larsen.
Larsen, some of you will remember, ran for the NDP in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country last time out.
Larsen was bounced after an embarrassing video surfaced on the CBC of him bonging up a storm, partaking in the earthly delights of the tree of knowledge, as it were.
Seems Larsen continued his pro-pot activism within the party, signing up support for that aformentioned motion to end pot prohibition for the Halifax gathering, post political daze. His End Prohibition group boasts some 800 party members.
Only, he says he was stripped of his observer status by convention organizers before he could get in the front door . And left to wander on the sidewalk outside to tell his story when he arrived in Halifax last Friday.
The NDP convention Facebook event page quickly filled with posts condemning the party’s decision. Larsen’s lobbying efforts around the pot prohibition issue – he helped cover some delegates’ travel expenses – are reportedly what got him the boot, seen by party brass as vote buying.
The new NDP? Seems like so long ago that Layton was shooting his own pro-pot video on Pot-TV. Back then, in 2003, the NDP leader was calling on young people and drug reformers to join the party. What a difference six years in Ottawa makes.
