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NDPers face awesome leadership choice

Don’t let mainstream journos shape your mood. The NDP leaders race culminating March 24 is one of the most intriguing in a very long while.

Not only are the stakes dizzyingly high, but the race isn’t running the familiar course with a clearly demarcated left, right and centre. Yes, the near unanimity on policy is disorienting, but it’s elevating, too.

The only profound conflict concerns Nathan Cullen’s call for teaming up with Libs and Greens in Tory ridings to offer a sole candidate. It alone makes this contest an NDP historic first, but the explosive idea destined for burial serves an important latent function: it’s the occasion for the other hopefuls to showcase their chops, and the talk about core values and principles is now approaching eloquence.

The other skirmishes, while they sound jarring and meaningful in real time, in the scheme of things won’t shake anyone’s soul. Brian Topp wants higher income taxes for those making over $250,000, Cullen $300,000. Paul Dewar aims to fix tax loopholes first.

Topp wants the proceeds of carbon trading to go to green projects, and he baits Thomas Mulcair for sending them to general revenue. And so it goes. There’s a trumped-up feel to these exchanges in a group all enthusiastically signed onto the same social agenda on climate justice, public services, higher corporate taxes, the green economy, ending disparities, proportional rep and more.

Mulcair’s got a special talent for friction creation. He says he wants to end the bad NDP habits of decades past and do away with sloganeering. “You’ll never hear me musing about shutting down the tar sands,” he warns. Well, yes, but none of the other candidates is musing along exactly these lines either. The consensus language is all about carbon pricing, pollution containment, refining in Canada and slowing, not stopping, tar sands development.

Cullen indulges in this kind of straw-manism, too, huffing about how the party is inherently inhospitable to small business and offering himself as a crusader for the entrepreneurial spirit. What? The party’s had a major orientation to small business for a good many years now.

There’s much chewing over the meaning of Mulcair’s constant references to “modernizing the party” and “refreshing our discourse,” though it has to be remembered that it was Jack Layton who tried, without success, to remove “socialist” from the party preamble. Nonetheless, Mulcair’s stance gives Peggy Nash the opportunity to affirm that “our values are where our strength lies,” and Topp the chance to charge him with being a follower of Blair’s Third Way. “If people want to vote Liberal, they will chose real Liberals,” he says.

Beyond candidate hot air, posturing and positioning, NDPers were (some have already voted) and are faced with an awesome responsibility: to find the person with the best connectivity to the two constituencies that stand between Opposition and the real deal: Quebec’s new NDP voters and the silent 40 per cent who sit out election day.

Here’s a guide to the complexity. (Churchill MP Niki Ashton and Nova Scotia pharmacist Martin Singh are also in the race.)


BRIAN TOPP

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RESUME Exec director of ACTRA Toronto co-founder FilmOntario deputy chief of staff to Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow campaign director under Jack Layton lead negotiator in the 2008 coalition deal former NDP president.

KEY BACKERS Romanow Lorne Calvert, former preem of Saskatchewan former leader Ed Broadbent MP Libby Davies and four other BC MPs United Steelworkers.

EMPHASIZES Climate change, cap and trade, social inequality, job creation, hike in corporate taxes

POSITIONING Not apologizing for the fact that the NDP is a democratic socialist party.

SAYS:

• “Tom should be in our party a little longer before he wants to lead us.”

• “I’m from the New Democratic wing of the NDP.”

• “Every New Democrat has the right to have a New Democrat to vote for in their riding.”

ATTRIBUTES Quebec-born involved in the party since 1980s fluent in French impressive policy wonk strong government experience sheen of the Layton association personally engaging gives tasty one-liners a skilled tactician has raised $183,000 support base in BC, with its 39,859 members.

TAKING FLAK FOR Having zilch parliamentary experience.

BAGGAGE Backed by only two Quebec MPs no seat deficit in the voice projection department doesn’t yet have the aura of one entrusted with major responsibility.


THOMAS MULCAIR

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RESUME Elected to Quebec’s National Assembly in 1994 for the Liberals provincial minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks won by-election in Outremont for the NDP in 2007.

KEY BACKERS Former governor general and Manitoba premier Ed Schreyer the Energy and Paperworkers Union former Ontario leader Howard Hampton UN climate change expert Andrew Weaver six BC MLAs.

ODD DONORS Anthony Munk of Barrick Gold Corp., Joel Reitman, CEO of MIJO Corp., Gerald W. Schwartz, CEO of Onex.

EMPHASIZES An end to oil and gas subsides 1 additional cent from the federal gas tax for transit cap and trade sustainable development.

POSITIONING I alone will banish party hackishness.

SAYS:

• “We’re one of the only social democratic parties to never have renewed itself.”

• “You’re not going to defeat Stephen Harper with a slogan.”

• “I’m not trying to move the party closer to the centre, but the centre closer to the NDP.”

ATTRIBUTES Raised in Laval, Quebec resigned from his Liberal cabinet after tussles with Premier Charest over saving Mont-Orford Provincial Park from condos in office he opposed the Rabaska liquid natural gas port and stood up to Coca-Cola on bottle deposits imposing, articulate, telegenic and in possession of a parliamentary seat has raised $206,000 42 MPs in his camp, 33 from Quebec sometimes wears Che Guevara beret has backers in BC, with its 39,859 members.

TAKING FLAK FOR Saying, “I’m an ardent supporter of Israel in all situations and in all circumstances.”

BAGGAGE Thirteen years as a Lib combustible temperament fuzzy calls for party renewal (thought Jack did that) fell short of the promised 20,000 new sign-ups in Quebec by 10,000 (for a total of about 12,000).


PEGGY NASH

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RESUME MP, Parkdale-High Park was a negotiator for the Canadian Auto Workers election monitor in post-apartheid South Africa created NDP Green Car Strategy with Greenpeace and the CAW was NDP Finance and Industry critic former party president.

KEY BACKERS Six Quebec MPs actor/director Sarah Polley councillors Adam Vaughan, Janet Davis and Gord Perks former NDP leader Alexa McDonough Fred Hahn, CUPE Ontario prez Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan Ken Lewenza, CAW chief MPP Jonah Schein.

EMPHASIZES Full employment, renewable energy, sustainability, value-added resource manufacturing

POSITIONING Fighter and scrapper – and bridge builder and uniter, too.

SAYS:

• “Our values are not for sale even to take power.”

• “I haven’t heard Quebeckers say the next leader has to be from Quebec I heard them say they expect the next leader to be bilingual and open to Quebec’s culture.”

• “We have to help people connect the passions they feel for social change with government action.”

ATTRIBUTES Stellar grassroots cred experienced negotiator forceful and animating bravely argued for decriminalizing Hezbollah youth following has ties to Quebec movements through feminist and labour activities thumbs-up from Pierre Ducasse, Layton’s one-time Quebec point person based in Ontario, where there are 36,760 members.

TAKING FLAK FOR Oddball remark at debate saying Quebec has jurisdiction to impose health care user fees has since reaffirmed her no-user-fee stance.

BAGGAGE French speaker but not in the Quebec mode hails from Toronto (will the party really pick another one of us?) tends to sound old-school, as in “We have to stand together. Are you with me?”


PAUL DEWAR

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RESUME MP, Ottawa Centre Tools for Peace worker in Nicaragua former teacher was Foreign Affairs critic part of fact-finding mission in Afghanistan pushed generic drugs for poor countries hosted Arts Summit.

KEY BACKERS MP Charlie Angus and five other MPs 13 Manitoba MLAs, nine of them cabinet ministers 10 former staffers of Rights & Democracy James Clancy, president of the National Union of General Employees Maher Arar.

EMPHASIZES A permanent infrastructure plan green energy jobs ending oil subsidies eliminating tax havens creation of a Centre for Peacebuilding and Human Security.

POSITIONING I’m the passionate guy who can fire up the party base to snag those crucial 70 new seats.

SAYS:

• “I said French is a challenge for me, and I put it on the table. I know I’m not going to fool anyone.”

• “Grassroots politics is core to our party grassroots politics is going to take us to the next level.”

• “Jack said we need to take better care of each other. At the core of our movement, at the core of my values is that notion.”

ATTRIBUTES Terrific NDP family pedigree major player in the Afghan torture issue astute world affairs observer deep peace-building consciousness base in Manitoba inspires confidence in the NDP as a movement.

TAKING FLAK FOR Naming Charlie Angus deputy leader in the event that he wins, effectively shutting out a Quebecker for second in command.

BAGGAGE No fluency in French lacks a Quebec foothold enviros still confused about his succumbing to a Tory bill not fully protective of Gatineau Park.


NATHAN CULLEN

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RESUME MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley since 2004 once a strategic planning consultant grew up in T.O. introduced the Phthalate Control Act and helped devise the party’s climate change bill chaired NDP’s Green Economy Task Force.

KEY BACKERS Ontario MP Brian Masse BC MP Alex Atamanenko BC MP Fin Donnelly Manitoba cabinet minister Jim Rondeau Ontario MPP Taras Natyshal four NDP BC MLAs

EMPHASIZES Joint nominations in Tory ridings with the NDP, Libs and Greens to select a sole candidate 25 per cent tax on oil sector.

POSITIONING Don’t bother voting for me if you’re still in sync with the NDP of the 70s.

SAYS:

• “Under the clear and present danger of Stephen Harper, it’s time to do something different.”

• “There are a few sacred [issues], but you should keep that list very short.”

• “For more than 50 years we’ve asked Canadians to think and vote differently. We must ask that question of ourselves.”

ATTRIBUTES Respected for challenging Northern Gateway pipeline deep green enviro bolstered by campaign of Leadnow.ca and Avaas for cooperation between progressives has base in BC, with its 39,859 members.

TAKING FLAK FOR Showing disrespect for the legacy of the party.

BAGGAGE Many fear his electoral plan would deflate NDP energy and push Libs to vote Tory bizarre comment that it was a “mistake” to have Gilles Duceppe onstage during the 2008 coalition suspicions about his wanting to limit use of the party whip to a few core values booed at T.O. debate.

ellie@nowtoronto.com

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