7.31.2015

Tom Mulcair Makes Huge Blunder Just Before Official Campaign Begins

NDP leader Tom Mulcair's reaction to his blunder

Tom Mulcair has just made a huge blunder that could cost him, the NDP and Canada our future. The official campaign isn't even declared and Mulcair has already shot himself in the foot...at least...perhaps in the heart...no wonder Harper and his attack dogs haven't launched ruthless attacks on Mulcair...there's no need to.

i couldn't believe my ears when read this so i turned on the tube and the first story on CBC's Power and Politics is Rosie Barton interviewing Elizabeth May on her reaction to the news that the NDP has decided it will not attend any debate that Harper does not attend. Ms. May was livid saying twice that all the opposition parties had agree they would participate in the traditional consortium of major network debates, debates that have been the cornerstone of the election process here in Canada since 1968, debates that in 2011 were watched by 14 million Canadians.

i emailed Elizabeth immediately and she answered within minutes saying: "The NDP promised the other non-CPC parties that we would hang tough and leave an empty podium for Harper, and Mulcair throws in the towel in July for an October debate, thus ending ANY chance Canadians will get a real election debate. And keeping the Green Party me out. Shameful."

Ms. May argued on P&P that the Conservatives and NDP are in cahoots in an attempt to once again silence her in by far the largest national Canadian forum. i agree that both Harper and Mulcair fear Elizabeth and her ability, shown time and again in Parliament, to cut through the crap 'like a hot knife through butter'. Harper fears her questions about his rejection of science in service to his corporate benefactors especially in the fossil fuel industry, as he should. Mulcair fears that May's progressive positions on everything from her outspoken denunciation of Bill C-51, a denunciation that compelled Mulcair to go from a wishy-washy Liberal like whining to an opponent of the Secret Police Act that C-51 truly is, to May's recent call for a guaranteed living subsidy for all.

What an idiotic decision by the NDP 'brain trust'. Poll after poll has shown that Canadians from coast to coast to coast were beginning to coalesce around the NDP in their search for the best way to STOP HARPER. Now what? i suspect that it will mean a renewed rise by Trudeau's Liberals, a further splitting of the progressive vote and an even greater chance that Harper will win again in October.

IMO there's no greater argument for electoral reform in Canada than the current situation where over two thirds of Canadians do not support the Conservatives, where the only voice that speaks not for self-interest, not for the enrichment of the few, but for every living thing is silenced by an idiotic First Past The Post electoral system and a few power hungry individuals.