CNN: "Senior Canadian mulls party defection" (Copps to NDP)

OTTAWA, Ontario(Reuters) -- A senior member of Canada's ruling Liberal Party said Thursday she might defect to the left-leaning New Democrats in what would be an embarrassing blow to new Prime Minister Paul Martin ahead of an election expected in May.

Sheila Copps, the most prominent figure on the party's left wing, says Martin's aides are trying to force her out of her parliamentary seat to make way for Transport Minister Tony Valeri -- who backs the fiscally conservative prime minister.

If Copps switched sides, it would boost the rising fortunes of the New Democratic Party (NDP). The Liberals have a big lead in opinion polls, but Martin aides admit NDP leader Jack Layton could threaten their hopes of a fourth consecutive parliamentary majority.

...

"I don't know what Sheila Copps will decide, but to Liberals who share Sheila's values... I say you belong with us," Layton told reporters. "I think Paul Martin is taking this country down a very dangerous course...that involves mimicking (U.S. President) George Bush and his politics," he said. No one in Martin's office was immediately available for comment.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/01/15/canada.defection.reut/

And from Layton's press release today:

This morning, I want to throw the doors of the NDP wide open to progressives of all stripes…

People who believe Paul Martin’s conservative choices are taking the Liberal Party and Canada in the wrong direction: A corporate drift away from Canadian values.

...

If you believe the great project of our time is a debt-to-GDP ratio of 25%, or that Star Wars missile defence talks are good or that we need more corporate tax cuts, vote for Paul Martin.

But if you believe we should invest in technology that does work and fights climate change instead of investing in Star Wars technology that doesn’t, you belong with the NDP.
http://tinyurl.com/3x86n

The real fight IMHO is around who will form the official opposition. If the NDP could capture that, that would represent the comeback of the century.

Martin is welcoming members on the right - Alliance and Progressive Conservative MPs - who are uncomfortable with the extreme right of the new Conservative Party, as he's squeezing out the left-wing of the Liberal caucus. CBC reported tonight that it was Copps who first approached Layton, and not the other way around.

Layton is playing it smart and knows what an opportunity this is. At the same time - and this is significant and extremely encouraging - he's not shifting the NDP towards the centre to accomodate them. He's the most left-wing leader the party has had in decades, and he doesn't shy from using the "S" word. "Socialist? I'm proud to call myself a socialist," he said in a recent interview.

Even if Copps doesn't jump it's a huge story, and looks good on us. It increases the likelihood that disaffected, small-l Liberals will think voting NDP is at last respectable. :)

The Rat Pack should have been NDP with NDPers? (back in the Broadbent daze--oh yeah--he disallowed that type of 'arrogance' and 'betrayal of party ideals')

But Dissent© in Canadian Politics should only be 'user friendly'

I nominate Svend as an honorary member of the Rat Pack, since Nunziata isn't coming back or whining about losing his Seat, like Copps Coliseum.

I think that they are being setup, but not by the Libs. Right now with the Conservatives getting ready for a leadership race the media is leaving them alone. I think that the media is setting up Layton, give him some air time and print....build him up...and then Stockwell Day him. Once Parliament convenes, and the Right's race gets going they'll have little time for Layton. My personal feeling is she's playing a game with Martin, and won't defect. Defecting rather than running as an Independent, wouldn't be in her best interest. Sheila Copps doesn't sell well as a victim.

He's a pro, and the media is kind to pros. He gives them good copy and knows the value of soundbites. He's become the first voice of reaction from the opposition, even though he represents the fourth party in parliament and doesn't hold a seat. He's been more visible in one year than the previous two NDP leaders had been in a dozen. And he's visible because the media has deemed him credible.

He won't be Stockwell Day'd. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't. He's too smart.

Stockwell Day did it entirely to himself. The media can't be blamed for that one. Layton is nothing like Stockwell Day thank goodness.

Keith Martin (the mp for our riding) just left the alliance to go to the Liberals which is another indication of how right the liberal party is swinging. I have a feeling that the riding now will go back NDP; it used to be Dave Barrett's riding and we are so burned here from the BC Liberals.

I was one of the probably 10 people who actually listened to Sheila when she was running for the leadership, and if she had got in I might even have voted liberal. She's actually quite the leftie herself and she should fit nicely with the NDP. I don't think its a setup. Paul Martin is turfing her and she's a career politician and I don't think that she will like the direction that he will be taking the party.

Incredibly, this is an unretouched photo:

Is that what is meant by the term "butt ugly?" LOL

It was splashed on the front page of the (Ugh) National Post next to a picture of Copps. My immediate reaction was, "WTF???? Who's this guy??? WHAT'S this guy???? Have I gone nuts... Oh, he's a cabinet minister."

Weird photo for sure. Figures that Izzy's crypto-fascist rag would run this pic above the fold.

decade or so in Canadian Politics, the last one, obviously being in 1993, before that 1984. Martin is moving to the right in order to smother the new CPC at birth, and because it's where he's most comfortable ideologically. I think he believes that he can leave space on the left because the NDP are less of a direct threat than the CPC (so he thinks). He also knows that a resurgent NDP will spell trouble for the CPC in the Maritimes and West, thus aiding the Liberals.
This kind of political repositioning is fraught with dangers, but Martin seems to believe he can get away with it. It'll be very interesting to see what happens.

she's already made up her mind to do it. At least, it would be the smart thing to do. It seems a losing strategy to win a very tough Liberal nomination by saying she's seriously considering leaving the party. I'm thinking she's already conceded that she will lose to Valeri, and will drop out of the race before the nomination vote and join the NDP. To wait until she loses will not look good on her, nor warm her to the local NDP who've been fighting her for years. (Story in today's Toronto Star: "Copps could face battle for NDP nomination" - http://tinyurl.com/39x3p)

If it's possible that Copps is using this toe-dipping as a way to gain leverage with the local/national Liberals, we should be very wary of her. Being stood up at the altar by Sheila would be worse than never having been asked to dance. ;)

But going public with it does look like a little more than an attempt to improve her chances within the party. Perhaps she floated the notion with the Martinites earlier and either realized they didn't care what she did, or thought that a little more pressure needed to be applied by doing it publicly.

There are indeed Liberals who would have fit somewhat more comfortably with the NDP, personally, but ran as Liberals out of pragmatism or ambition. I'd never really thought that Copps was quite one of them. She's a Liberal-red diaper baby; daddy was mayor of Hamilton and all that.

I don't see many Liberals as having real ideological reasons for their Liberal-ness. They're that way by default, at the voter level; or for the various perks, at the rank-and-file level (identification with the winner) and the middling level (status, connections). At the most senior levels, their interests are far more likely to be those of the economic élite to which they generally belong than to reflect any public-spirited desire to improve the lives of those who don't belong to it.

Frankly, I can't imagine what reasons most Liberals would give for being Liberal that would honestly coincide with the body of policies actually pursued by Liberal governments -- as distinct from any high-falutin' statements of principle that the Liberal party might happen to make. For instance, anyone who claimed to be Liberal because s/he passionately wanted to eradicate child poverty would really have to explain how any Liberal policy had actually moved Canada closer to that goal, rather than just point at the bit in the Red Book (the Liberals' book of campaign promises) that vows commitment to that goal.

I don't see Sheila any differently, really. She may espouse vaguely "left" policies (well, "left" by USAmerican standards ...), but she has been a player in a bunch of governments that have done nothing whatsoever to advance them, and have slashed healthcare funding, made thousands of people ineligible for unemployment benefits, etc. etc. etc. Is she lying to us, or to herself -- or is she just completely ineffective?


As an aside, I have just realized that my PAC (automatic monthly membership payment) expired in 2002 when I didn't update my credit care info (I did get to vote in the 2002 leadership race ... guess I counted as paid-up for a year), and it's too late to renew and I won't be able to vote at my riding's upcoming nomination meeting. It's a rather important one, although I haven't kept up to date on the likely outcome, and I'm peeved and annoyed with myself. :(

.

Anyone know how I can get a hold of her? She is a new poster here, but I can't seem make the search thingy work for me.

Liberal Party = Democrats?

New Democrat Party = Greens?

???? = Repukes?

Paul Martin is leader of Liberal Party and is a CONSERVATIVE?

Can someone help me oot, eh?

(Last line in Canadian is in respect, not in making fun)

NDP (New Democratic Party)= Socialists / Social Democrats

PC (Progressive Conservatives- yes we know it's an oxymoron = Moderate Conservatives

CA (Canadian Alliance)= Radical neo-conservative
PC+CA = CPC (Conservative Party of Canada - result of a recent merger of the CA and PC = Conservatives

Liberals= The broad centre of Canadian Politics, ranging from left of centre (Trudeau, maybe Chretien) to right-of-centre (Martin)

Almost as funny as Progressive Conservatives... Canadian politics for you.

Martin is right wing. He loves those cronies in the Liberal party. The media is doing a good job of letting the public know this change in the Liberal party.

I was interested in Martin at first but reading several pieces in Maclean's swayed me the other way.

As the Liberals move more right to combat the new Conservative party it leaves the Left wide open for the NDP, and the majority of the Canadians are left leaning. We simply despise tax breaks for the corporations and the rich at the expense of health care, and education.

if we had any confidence in them. I agree with a lot of their left-leaning ideology, but the fact is they're barely even trying to win election. The Liberals are just too big right now, though that might change if Martin embarasses himself too much.

than I'd dared hope. And he's done it without shifting the party to the right.

The Liberals are too big right now, but its dominance could be misleading. I think Martin's building his house on sand, and seemingly overwhelming power can vanish quicker than we might think. Let's remember:

1988, Progressive Conservatives: 169 seats
1993, Progressive Conservatives: 2 seats

There have been a number of right-leaning parties in Canada, and it's easy to get them confused.

Until recently, the big fish was the Progressive Conservative party. By the end of the Mulroney administration, the party's good name had gone down the crapper, at least at the federal level.

Out west in the Prairies, where you have the real right-wingers, Preston Manning founded the Reform Party. IIRC, you once had a RW party with that name in the States; from what I've heard, they're pretty similar. Many PC'ers left to join the Reform Party, and they quickly became the leading right-wing party in federal politics.

The Reform Party recently suffered from some nasty infighting. A splinter group called the Canadian Alliance party, led by Stockwell Day, broke off and then consumed the Reformers. Most of the old Progressive Conservatives have since joined them.

The Canadian Alliance is currently the big right-wing party in Canada, though there are still a handful of PC holdouts, most notably former Prime Minister Joe Clark. The Alliance, like the Reform Party before it, has a similar reputation to the neocons in the States; both Manning and Day are well-known fundamentalists. Not many overt ties to big business, though most of their voter base lives in oil-producing areas.

In addition to all this, there's the Bloc Quebecois, a pro-separatist party from Quebec. Ideologically, most of them are right-wingers (their founder, Lucien Bouchard, was a former PC member), but they were only big in national politics for a short while, until the mainstream conservatives got their act back together.

"Ideologically, most of them are right-wingers (their founder, Lucien Bouchard, was a former PC member)"

Absolutely not. Ideologically they're very much on the left. Bouchard may have been briefly a PC Minister, but that had more to do with his personal relationship with Mulroney and what he thought he could bring Quebec.

The Canadian Alliance is currently the big right-wing party in Canada, though there are still a handful of PC holdouts, most notably former Prime Minister Joe Clark.

There is no longer a Canadian Alliance party as after their merger (or some would say takeover) of the Progressive Conservatives the two parties merged and now call themselves the Conservative Party of Canada