So, Adrian Dix is resigning from leadership of the NDP and it is a dominant issue. I suggest this is a profound mistake. What matters is what the party actually stands for, what positive differences does it propose?
Last May, there was a great void in our perception of what fresh approaches the party had for a province in considerable disarray, and voters, seeing nothing positive, stayed at home in droves. Changing the leader changes nothing.
The NDP retains a rigid silence on the Liberal/Conservative/Green acceptance of the total privatization of government debts. Why?
This ideology has crippled every budget in Canada for the last 38 years and has built enormous un-resolvable government debts from the usurious accumulation of interest-on –the-interest. Who is really pulling the strings? Does the totally different situation in neighbouring North Dakota, and Norway, and others who reject private finance hegemony, mean nothing?
Again, the NDP and the Greens proposed a new electoral system, but without specifics it got shuffled way down the list when it should have been the barn-burner. It left the impression that perhaps these parties weren’t all that serious — so, again, why bother voting?
It is common to hear that parties are bought and paid for by their big donors — why else would they do it if not for the pay-back? This matter, sidelining membership, is easily rectified by direct funding of parties from the tax base.
The result of the May election was due neither to voter apathy nor ignorance, but to despairing rejection. If the NDP listen , and think, they may yet revive.
Russ Vinden
Errington