Dear NDPers,
When I was young and growing up in B.C. I used to vote for you people. Then, Mike Harcourt sold out over Clayoquot Sound, went from being a Green to a hippy kicker as soon as he came into power and had to choose between the unionistas and enviros. And this NDP preference--for choosing free beer for autoworkers at union meetings over protecting our shared environmental heritage--was confirmed when Carole James vowed to repeal the B.C. carbon tax in 2009, by Jack Layton in the 2008 federal campaign, and by Andrea Horwath's current campaign for Ontario Premier.
No wonder Mr. Suzuki can't stomach you anymore. And, as I say, this isn't being purely partisan. I used to vote NDP. You have truly disappointed me. It has become evident over time that your enviro wing served the same purpose as the SoCon wing of Canadian Conservative parties. You gave them sweet words, but when push came to shove it was always the autoworker slamming a six-pack in the parking lot of his plant in Oakville at lunch that won out over the well-being of the noble fox snake.
So, people talk about the LPoC losing parts of its base, but an equally important historical fact about voting behavior in the past decade is that the NDP has lost about 10% of the national vote that it might harvest to the Green Party and Liberals. If you ever want to form a government nationally you will have to win that back somehow. I don't see any evidence that you are even trying. Andrea Horwath sure isn't.
5 comments:
You're bang-on with that post.
I'm sorely disappointed with the NDP's retreat from the ecological high ground, too, but by the same token I have to ask if Dr. Suzuki can reconcile his endorsement for the Premier's environmental stance with the way McGuinty has weaseled his way out of an official inquiry into the stormtrooper assault made on the civil rights of his fellow Canadian citizen at the G20 last year, or the fact that McGuinty's done nothing to insure our rights to freely and openly protest are protected from such assault in the future? Just askin'...
The dippers out here claim to have gotten the eco-message after dumping James but I'm not convinced.
Suzuki's a tedious windbag. He's not only drifted away from the NDP -- he's conducted an extended flirtation with Walmart. If those are what his new friends are like, I'd think the NDP should be complimented by his departure.
I personally think Suzuki and self-promoting windbags like him have done the environmental movement much more harm than good. The problem is that before he discovered the virtues of big business, Suzuki used to run around with his hair on fire about everything. I'm still waiting for that nuclear war he promised me. This is why it's been so hard to get people excited about global warming. We've got a real wolf now, so to speak, a real crisis, but since the boy who cried wolf has deafened and dulled everyone in the past, no one believes it.
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