Quote:
Originally Posted by Firebot
Since you are asking directly, Rob Ashton is the clear and obvious leader if you want to go to a predominantly pro labour party again. Being a union leader pretty much his whole life with ILWU, he is the epitome pro labour leader.
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Would you join the party to vote for him?
If he were the leader, would you vote for the NDP in a general election?
My hot take is that this race is likely to come down to Rob v. Avi and I think either way you are upgrading on Singh (who was already an upgrade on Muclair). I am super curious how Rob's platform will look as he starts to release it.
I am more of a populist than a pro-labour person. They are similar concepts but I think populism is a broader umbrella because you are looking at both inside and outside of working. Or if you like venn diagrams, I think the Pro-Labour circle would be inside the populist circle:
- Pro-labour = Workers vs. Owners = focus on workers rights and supporting workers against the owners in the workplace
- Populist = People vs. Elites = focus on people's rights and supporting the people against the elites in all facets of society
Some of my key issues that I would want tackled:
- Electoral Reform - We need to get out of the FPTP system and while the Liberals and Conservatives have been making promises for the last 70 years, neither have delivered in their various times in power because they want to maintain their multi-party system that acts like a 2 party system.
- AI legislation - We need to put taxes on AI as automation and AI continues to replace workers and with those taxes stand up a Universal Basic Income (and a more aggressive re-skilling program). This is linked to jobs and the economy but it is very specific as AI is just starting to disrupt markets. Autonomous Driving will be a massive example of jobs disappearing.
- Affordability Crisis - We need to get essential costs under control (Housing & home building, Food, Utilities & Telecom, Insurance) and if the market is failing Canadians then we should look at standing up public options for each
- Independence from the US - We need to nationalize key industries and protect our country (no foreign land ownership, no foreign news outlet ownership, no foreign AI, etc)
- Energy transition and innovation - Canada should be a leader in the energy innovation and transition, not a resistor
I think Rob could land on the right side of most of these issues but we'll have to get to know him more first . Listening to a couple of Avi's interviews, he has already called out a few of my big issues and has proposed solutions that I think are good.
Most of the criticism I am hearing from the guys who hate Avi in this thread is fluffy. A lot of focus on what he drinks which drowns out the few points about his policy proposals. To me, if Avi were to deliver electoral reform, I could forgive him for enjoying Lattes over black cups of coffee. However, I admit I have a lot more I need to learn about him as I wasn't aware of his opinion of the A-NDP.
Then, when I see the american-owned national post attacking Avi, it actually makes me think higher of him. The speed in which they are trying to link Avi to Singh is almost as fast as they moved to make Carney into the same person as Trudeau. It makes me wonder why they would bother to take the time to attack him and none of the other NDP leadership candidates.