The Liberal candidate in Victoria dismissed the idea of a coalition between her party and the NDP, while the NDP candidate said the way to solve what many see as a vote-splitting problem is to fix the voting system.
“I have to say it is highly unlikely,” said Anne Park Shannon, responding at an October 6 all candidates' debate to a question from former Green Party candidate Stuart Hertzog about whether a coalition is possible after the election. “The Liberals and the NDP are very different.”
The Liberals are a party of the centre, she said, with a track record of balancing the economy with social programs. Much of the NDP's agenda would not fit with the party's plans, she said.
The NDP incumbent, Denise Savoie, said she has heard party leader Jack Layton speculate on forming a coalition with the Liberals after the election, and hers is a party that is willing to collaborate with other parties to move progressive policies forward.
The real solution though, she added, is bringing in a proportional representation voting system so that each party gets a share of the seats that better reflects the percentage of votes they capture. That's something the NDP supports, but the Liberals do not.
* * *
Earlier in the evening, Shannon introduced Liberal leader Stéphane Dion at a rally at the Leonardo Da Vinci centre in Victoria West. Here are notes from that event:
* Wiry campaign worker Kit Spence got into a confrontation, complete with swearing in Italian, outside the hall with a much beefier guy who was pulling down Liberal signs set up on the boulevard. Another organizer rushed to Spence's defense brandishing a cellphone: “The police are just a phone call away.” All was defused with no blood shed.
* Saanich councillor and Capital Regional District director Vic Derman was at the event handing out material on greening the city. A cached version of the Elect Briony Penn website lists Derman as endorsing Penn, but interestingly his name has more recently been removed. Derman said he didn't know his name was on the site and it was probably included in error. He does like Dion's environmental policies, he said, and supports a carbon tax. There are pictures around of Derman with prominent NDPers, but he said he has always been an independent as a politician and a voter.
* Candidates Keith Martin and Briony Penn danced energetically to Holly Arntzen, Bill Henderson and Patrick Godfrey's folky groove. Penn departed for an all candidates' debate at a local school before Dion gave his speech, leaving Martin with sweat still beading on his forehead as he spoke with Dion at his side.
* Dion's best line: “[Stephen Harper] may speak better English than I do, but I speak the language of truth better than him in both English and French.”
* His second best line: “The only job a vote for Jack Layton will save is Stephen Harper's job.”
* Third best: “The speech I will deliver today has been inspired by a day I spent in Sidney. But maybe I need to say Sidney, British Columbia, Canada, not Sidney, Australia.”
* His worst double entendre: “You will never have a greener Prime Minister than me.”
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.
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G West
3 years ago
This is a surprise!
Mon dieu, we've been trying to tell people Liberals aren't interested in a coalition for months, nay years.
The only way Dion and the scumbags from the BCLiberal mau-mau team will consider a coalition is if the NDP elects more members than the Liberals do.
SO - for all you dreamers of a cooperative approach to deal with Harper - there's only one sensible way to vote. And it's not Green and it's sure not Liberal.
However, the Liberals are a party of the RIGHT, not the centre, and always have been.
It's just a fact that truth in advertising means nothing to them...and never has.
Luke Skywalker
3 years ago
Are You Kidding?????
The Liberals are also the party of:
1. Former BC NDP Premier Ujjal Dosanjh;
2. Former ON NDP Premier Bob Rae;
3. Former BC IWA leader Dave Haggard who was supported by former BC NDP Premier Dan Miller;
4. Former BC NDP Premier Harcourt's Assistant Shirley Chan, tacitly supported by Harcourt;
And Manitoba NDP Premier Gary Doer is no different than, and operates exactly like, the federal Liberals:
As for Greater Victoria, good news for the federal Liberals today:
To summarize, the federal NDP is a party of the left... the party of Svend Robinson and Libby Davies... not a party of the centre... the party of Ujjal Dosanjh, Bob Rae, Shirley Chan, Mike Harcourt, Dave Haggard, Dan Miller, et al.
G West
3 years ago
Nope. I disagree
The Liberal establishment is a party of the right. We've been through this before and you don't really understand prairie politics very well at all luke.
And furthermore, it’s a corrupt party in its connections to the Campbell family.
The Liberals are a party of the right with a few deluded matrons who thing they're social activists. They aren't; they’re simply Grace McCarthy in a hurry.
And you only need to remember what Paul Martin did to social programs to balance the budget, or what Stephane Dion has promised to do about Income Trusts.
Anne Park Shannon will be lucky to place second in that riding - she's has no connections to Victoria because she is a simple retired deputy minister from Ottawa.
Budd Campbell
3 years ago
Such a humourist!
* His second best line: “The only job a vote for Jack Layton will save is Stephen Harper's job.”
Yeah, I've just got to admit, that's a pretty hilarious line alright, Andrew. Really genuine political humour.
Budd Campbell
3 years ago
KEEP GOING, LUKE.
The Liberals are also the party of:
1. Former BC NDP Premier Ujjal Dosanjh;
2. Former ON NDP Premier Bob Rae;
3. Former BC IWA leader Dave Haggard who was supported by former BC NDP Premier Dan Miller;
4. Former BC NDP Premier Harcourt's Assistant Shirley Chan, tacitly supported by Harcourt;
As you well know, Shirley Chan was never Harcourt's assistant when he was in provincial politics, only at the civic level, and what's more, you fabricated the bit about "tacitly supported by Harcourt". Her Liberal loyalties wouldn't have allowed her to work for him as leader of the BC NDP. Shirley's husband Steve Hopkins is a well-known teacher-baiter and teacher-hater, a real Liberal in the Ross Thatcher mold.
Ujjal Dosanjh was holding discussions about joining the Liberals as early as 1996, long before he became leader of the BC NDP. By the time he did get the BC NDP leadership, and control over the party's strategy for the 2001 election, the Liberals already had a bulging, inducement riddled file on him, the kind of thing Dosanjh himself would later call a "warm, furry carpet" in his Grewal recruitment talks. How did all those inducements affect Dosanjh's conduct of the 2001 election campaign when he was still nominally in the NDP?
Dave Haggard was trusted by Premiers Harcourt and Clark. In return, he turned many of the FRBC programs into a patronage system for his members. And when the agency was cancelled by the Liberals, he made no attempt to defend it, since he knew it had received poor reviews from the Auditor General.
When Bob Rae was Premier of Ontario, Liberals ridiculed him as an arrogant and irresponsible buffoon. Now he's a star. Officially. A star.
Every time your party show cases any one of these incredible people, I'm pleased. And I hope you'll soon be showing us a lot more of Liberal Idol Justin Trudeau. Does he do guitar or anything?
Luke Skywalker
3 years ago
Budd...
The point is ... you have former BC NDP MLA's Dosanjh, Miller, McWilliam, Barlee, etc. either supporting and/or running under the federal Liberal banner, not the federal NDP banner.
For that matter, Harcourt would never run as a federal New Democrat. His sympathies lie with the federal Liberals, if that's not obvious. Even when he ran for mayor, he never ran under the left-wing COPE banner.
You never see federal Liberals deciding to run under the federal NDP banner.
But I digress.
G West
3 years ago
You never see federal Liberals deciding to run under the federal
Oh really?
You don't think Thomas Mulcair was a federal Liberal?
He certainly was a provincial one...in fact he was Quebec minister of the environment.