Sid Ryan: This election was a disaster for the NDP and unions
Sid Ryan: This election was a disaster for the NDP and unions
In the 1960s, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress forged a bond and came together to form a new political party—the NDP. Both organizations need to rediscover that fighting spirit to become a political force once again. Otherwise, they will wither and fade into ...
The NDP has basically become indistinguishable from the Liberal party. And if there really isn't any difference between them, then why would people keep voting for the one least likely to win? It's redundant.
Did we collectively forget that the NDP brought dental care to those who couldn't otherwise afford it? Kinda a big difference, no? The Liberals certainly wouldn't have done it themselves.
It seems more just that the optics of confidence and supply is confusing to some.
Dental care that only a fraction of the population even qualify for? Meanwhile the rest of us are still dependent on our employers to provide us with private insurance that covers less and less every year.
I'm old enough to remember when the NDP was Canada's workers party. They barely even pay that legacy lip-service now.
If they funded it with taxes I would give them props. Future austerity with interest is an unsustainable program used only to drive short term votes, and is nothing like our universal healthcare, which was fully funded from the start so that it lasts.
That could be part of the calculation.
The irony of this is that propping up the Liberals in the previous term was supposed to pull the focus Left to progressive policies and bring legitimacy to the NDP as a party that is able to govern.
They succeeded on the first but have apparently failed on the second to the point where the Liberals have gotten all the credit (or blame, depending on your point of view).
Now we’re all set to see the same movie in this term.
It might not be clear on what are Carney’s intentions vs the backroom bargains that will be required for the NDP support this time around. But if he surrounds himself with the old Liberal guard as Trudeau did, I would encourage everyone to remember that the Liberal party has a very long history of saying one thing and doing another and that other thing isn’t always in the collective best interests of Canadians. This is why I don’t mind the dependency on the NDP.