Comments on: Fifty years of Alberta NDP.

By: TomG

TomG — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:50:23 +0000

Aside from the Alberta NDP, the only organization with a greater legacy of failure over the past fifty years is the Toronto Maple Leafs. THAT is sayin’ somethin’…

By: Susan Wright

Susan Wright — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:33:13 +0000

Alvin has a point. There hasn’t been any real progress over the last four decades (other than the 86 to 89 blip which wasn’t sustainable). One thing that could change this picture is the emergence of dynamic candidates who attract the issue voters, not the party line voters. If it is true that voters are moving away from party loyalties to vote for the candidate that best reflects their values, elections in the future might turn into jump ball…but this will take time, meanwhile the PCs continue to drag this province anywhere they choose. So the idea of inter-party cooperation should not be dismissed out of hand.

By: fifty years of alberta ndp. | daveberta.ca - Alberta politics | What's News in Alberta | Scoop.it

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 04:07:14 +0000

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By: Alvin Finkel

Alvin Finkel — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 02:47:39 +0000

I hope that those who are allowed to be members of the NDP will look seriously at your historical charts, Dave. They show that punching above its weight has rarely caused the voters to pay the NDP much attention (except in the mid-to-late 80s when a prolonged recession made many Albertans wonder whether they lived in the promised land). The NDP needs to be as open as possible to discussions of why it does poorly in Alberta elections (as opposed to babbling about “doubling” its seat count from 2008 to 2012–2 to the 4 that they also won in 2004)and what it could be doing differently. Instead it is closed to debate and a number of people, including myself, who are viewed as rabble-rousers, have been denied membership (in my case, despite having been a member from 1969 to 2010 without interruption).

Such hypocrisy too! I am unwanted on the NDP ship because of my public role in Change Alberta, which made note of which left-of-Tory candidate had the best chance of winning in 42 seats where that might be at least of some small interest (we were right in 39 of them, that is 93 percent). The NDP denounced the whole idea of Change Alberta, but then lobbied us like crazy (as did the Liberals and Alberta Party) for “endorsements.” In fairness, the NDP were fulsome in our praise when we did suggest that their candidate was the progressive in the lead in seats that they hoped to win. But they went ballistic about our refusal to manufacture a potential lead for Lori Sigurdson (NDP) over Arif Khan in Riverview. ‘She’s a social worker, and he’s a businessman,’ they said; ‘so she must be better’ (and maybe she was; but that missed the point: he was progressive enough and all our sources showed that he had a far better chance of winning).

Anyway, I wish them luck. Most of all, I wish them some commonsense–and, thinking of the Don Getty picture, I wish them a new quarterback. The old one works hard and knows his stuff but he inspires no one outside of the small hardcore of the party.