Skip to main content

“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” ~~ John G. Diefenbaker

ROTHENBURGER -- No matter who they come up with to replace Myhill-Jones, it’s going to be a two-party race, and the NDP isn’t going to be in it


An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

OH, HOW FAR they have fallen.

The recent resignation of Gina Myhill-Jones as the NDP candidate in Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo is symbolic of the general state of the New Democrats’ fortunes in Canadian politics right now.

Myhill-Jones was a candidate who did little more than fill a place on the ballot for the NDP. No matter what her convictions and party loyalty, she was never going to rise higher than a third-place finish at best.

The loss of even a place-holder candidate is a severe embarrassment for the party but it’s typical of what’s going on at the national level.

Former NDP candidate Gina Myhill-Jones
Gone are the heady days when Jack Layton led the party to official opposition status in the Orange Crush of 2011, with the NDP taking 103 seats in the federal election.

The NDP’s star burned bright but briefly, turning into an Orange Crash in 2015, and there’s been no sign of resurgence since, certainly not under the leadership of Jagmeet Singh.

National polls show the NDP hanging on to third place some 20 percentage points behind both the Liberals and Conservatives and barely higher than the Greens.

If the election was held now, the New Democrats would hold roughly 20 seats, likely losing a few to the Green Party.

In Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo, their chances look similar to the national picture. No matter who they come up with to replace Myhill-Jones, it’s going to be a two-party race, and the NDP isn’t going to be in it.

The local election will be between the Liberals and Conservatives, just as the federal election will be.

Far from being the threat they once were, the NDP is on the brink of annihilation, and there will be some deep navel-gazing to be done after it’s all over.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and former newspaper editor. He publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board.

He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GORDON F. D. WILSON: When The Trick Masquerades as The Treat

Thirty-seven years ago, Halloween 1987, I became the leader of the BC Liberal Party.   British Columbia was badly polarized. Social Credit held one side and the NDP the other. It had been twelve years, 1975, since Liberal MLAs Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer, and Alan Williams had walked away from their party to join Social Credit, one year after the lone Progressive Conservative MLA Hugh Curtis had abandoned his party to sit with Bill Bennett, the son and heir apparent to long-serving BC Premier, WAC Bennett.   An unwritten agreement by the biggest Canadian political shareholders, the federal Liberals and Conservatives, decided that if British Columbia was to remain a lucrative franchise from a revenue perspective, they couldn’t risk splitting the electoral vote and electing the real enemy, the NDP, so no resources would be used to finance either a Liberal or Conservative party provincially.   “There are two sides to every street,” I was told by a very prominent Canadian businessman who cont
Post a Comment
Read more

FORSETH: You Have To Be A Bit Crazy

  Ward and his wife Carleen celebrating his win on election night.   In March of this year, I took on the role of Campaign Manager for BC Conservative candidate Ward Stamer.  It’s the third time I’ve had the opportunity as I took on the role for Peter Sharp in 2013, and for Dennis Giesbrecht in 2020. Now let me tell you, in the past, a BC Conservative campaign team generally consisted of myself, the candidate and one or two helpers – and very little in the way of a campaign budget. Thankfully, a benefit of having spent 30+ years in the broadcast media afforded me the ability to do ad copy and write candidate speeches, and prep both Dennis and Peter to deal with the media – it’s also something I have always enjoyed. That was part of my duties this time around as well, however having a team of a dozen and a half volunteers meant that for the first time we had people available to ID our supporters, put together and install campaign signs, distribute campaign literature, and help out at ou
Post a Comment
Read more

Rustad will support policy for 'everyday' people, otherwise work to bring down NDP

  Conservative Party of B.C. John Rustad Tuesday (Oct. 29) said his party would support government policies that support "average, everyday working" persons in B.C., but also repeated earlier promises to bring down the B.C. NDP government under Premier David Eby. "If there are things that are moved forward that will improve lives for those people, we would be looking at support it," Rustad said. "But if he's going to carry forward with the destructive policies that he has, then yes, we are going to look at every opportunity possible to bring him down as soon as possible."  CLICK HERE for the full story
Post a Comment
Read more

Labels

Show more