Kindergarten's In Session! NDP Waste No Time In Getting Started with Conspiracy

Less than 48 hours after they secured the role of Loyal Opposition in the House of Commons, Thomas Mulcair, the NDP's senior Quebec MP, and previously a perceived voice of reason, crying out in the darkness brought to issues by the likes of Libby Davies, decided to open his mouth. If the results are any indication, the next 4 years are going to be interesting - so long as you aren't a member of the NDP, or especially it's leader.

Jack Layton has been given a strict timeline.  Four years to organize his kindergarten cadre into an effective opposition team, and then move beyond that to a point where the public will see the NDP as a real government in waiting. The latter is no small job for an experienced leader of a major party - but Layton has no experience in government at this level.


He has been a city councillor in Toronto, and then leader of the fourth tier party in the House. Now he will have to learn that some of the more crackpot statements, ones that might have been quickly left behind before as the media focused on the governing and leading opposition parties, won't pass unnoticed now. And as we have learned from Wikileaks, the actions of the Opposition party are noticed, and noted, by other countries. It's part of any embassy's job - informing their superiors of who might end up in the highest office in the land.

So when a senior member of the NDP makes a boneheaded comment to the media about the truthfulness of the President of the United States, Layton needs to worry. And he needs to act, quickly and decisively. That means a public slap-down of Thomas Mulcair after he suggested there were no pictures of Osama Bin Laden's body, implying that the story of his demise was not true. It means that, from here on in, any time a member of his caucus says something of like stupidity - such as Libby Davies questioning Israel's right to exist - they need to be publicly castigated. In the meantime, he needs to be explaining the rules to his caucus.

The first rule they learn needs to be this: don't say anything about the United States that wouldn't have every member of the Republican Party shouting "Amen!". If they don't think what they want to say meets that standard, then ask Jack.

Second, they need to remember that, if all goes according to party plans, the NDP will one day be the governing party in Canada. In order to accomplish this, they really ought not scare the voters. So, if they are going to talk about matters concerning the economy, if what they want to say couldn't have come from the mouth of the Governor of the Bank of Canada themself, ask Jack.

Third, on any issue to do with the Middle East, ask Jack.

What it all comes down to is this. The NDP has one chance to make a good impression on Canadians. In four years, the Liberal party, if they have half a clue (okay, the jury is currently out on that one...), will have rebuilt enough to challenge for the role of lead opposition party. So by then, the NDP has to be in a position to go back to the people who voted them in and present themselves as a government in waiting. A party that can be trusted with the reigns of government. If they haven't established themselves as such by then, the odds are they won't get another chance. There are no guarantees of winning power - but if they have established themselves as a government in waiting, they will likely be able to remain the main alternative to the Conservatives, simply waiting for their opportunity to arise.

Or they can follow the lead of Libby Davies and Thomas Mulcair back to third, or fourth, party status.

Conspiracy theory: NDP deputy leader Mulcair doubts U.S. has bin Laden photos - thestar.com

Libby Davies as a Minister in a Layton government?

    Tim Powers published an article today in the Globe and Mail speculating on who might be in the cabinet if Jack Layton were to form a government.  I just about choked when he mentioned Libby Davies as Minister of Foreign Affairs.  This is, after all the NDP MP who demonstrated a remarkable ignorance of history when she stated that the Israel has been occupying Palestinian territories since 1948 (the year Israel came into existence) and that "it’s the longest occupation in history".  She was caught on video making these comments at an anti-Israeli government protest in Vancouver on June 5, 2010.


    Now, were Ms. Davies to have checked her history, she would have found the Israeli military didn't move into the West Bank and Gaza until 1967, as a result of an imminent threat of attack by Jordan, Egypt and Syria.  So, for example, Tibet, which has been occupied by communist China since 1950, has been occupied far longer.  In history, other longer occupations include the German annexation of Alsace-Moselle (from 1871-1918), the Russian (Soviet) occupation of the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia)(1940-1991, broken by the German occupation of the area from 1941-1944), and the Allied occupation of Berlin (1945-1990).


    She also would have found that from 1948-1967 the West Bank and East Jerusalem were occupied by Jordan. 


    The key point here is that, for all that Jack Layton wants to show his party as being ready to lead, this is a party which has not yet shown itself to be "a government in waiting".  Had a member of the Liberal or Conservative caucus displayed such blatant bias against the existence of the state of Israel, along with a ridiculous lack of knowledge in the areas of history and geo-politics (and an apparent unawareness of the existence of Wikipedia, where she could have checked her facts before embarrassing herself), said member would have at the very least been publicly admonished and demoted by the leader of their party.


   
Instead, the only member of her party to call her out was Thomas Mulcair, who earned the enmity of other NDP MPs and supporters for his efforts.  And the question also must be asked - was Jack Layton's refusal to remove her from the post of deputy leader (a position she holds to this day) a sign of tacit agreement on his part with her basic views (if not her blundered exposition of same)?  Is an NDP government one which would take the side of Palestinian radicals (aka Hamas) against Israel, for all the talk of "even-handedness"?


    The fundamental question the voter is led to is this:


Is the NDP under Jack Layton fit or competent to lead Canada as Prime Minister?  The evidence says not.