Blue to Orange

Running in Stratford but from the Conservatives:

I spent years in the Conservative movement because I believed in what it claimed to support; economic competition to create good jobs, ending corporate welfare and I believed good fiscal management was an absolute necessity. I loathed communism and I have always hated undemocratic institutions like the Senate. I support a strong military and believe our veterans should be cared for when they come home broken from combat. Most of all, I was a Conservative because defending the rural communities and the way of life that I cherish meant everything to me.

It still does.

I joined the NDP because I still hold all of those beliefs but now realize they will never be achieved in today's Conservative or Liberal parties.

Both represent corporate socialism for the multinationals including $34 billion a year for fossil fuel subsidies according to the IMF. The NDP opposes it.

There's your term for the day: "Corporate Socialism." Ethan Rabidoux is quite right, the Liberals and Conservatives do support, regardless of rhetoric, good old fashioned corporate socialism. This is something the NDP opposes. That's because they want the qualifier removed. The Left and Right of Canadian politics want to continue with the partial socialization of Canadian life, are we really to believe that the NDP isn't still really, trully, in favour of going the whole nine yards?

As the article goes onto note Thomas Mulcair sat in the cabinet of Jean Charest, who once upon a time sat in the cabinet of Brian Mulroney. So yeah they're all part of the delicious gooey center of the chocolate chip cookie that is Canadian politics. But beyond the gooey center there are some burnt dark bits that it would be advisable to break off first.

I'm sure that Angry Tom is as placid as a mewing kitten when it comes to ideological questions. But Tommy's Deputy Leader is Libby Davies, a woman who makes Rosa Luxemburg seem like Nancy Reagan. There are certain things we should just say no to. An NDP government is certainly one of them. Beneath the smiling Laytons, the reasonable Mulcairs and the bright young things in orange scarves there is still the old syndicalist Tommy Douglas quoting party. 

 

Comments

[John Chittick]

The socialist education system in Canada has obviously failed to provide basic economic literacy sufficient to equip huge chunks of the electorate to recognize laughable drivel produced by the watermelon theocracy of the IMF. Red Tories have always been interchangeable with the NDP, skipping the mushy "middle" of the liberal-conservative continuum.

[Dennis]

I read the IMF report highlighted in the article. Turns out, not unexpectedly, that most of the "subsidies" are defined as untaxed, supposedly undesirable externalities like carbon emissions. A subsidy is therefore defined not as an undeserved payment to someone or some entity but as a foregone tax on that entity's activities. Similar to saying that anything less than a 90 percent tax rate is a "subsidy" to the rich. I find it astonishing that this guy was ever a member of the conservative party in the first place.