NDP Chooses its New Leader:Thomas Mulcair 33 881 votes

The Canadian social democratic movement has had 10 leaders in its history ever since the CCF was founded in 1932 in its founding convention in Calgary. All of them including Hazen Argue who switched to the Liberals after the CCF was disbanded and replaced by the New Party which became the New Democratic Party were people of exceptional quality dedicated to building a different more progressive kind of Canada. They have now chosen their 11 th leader for the first time drawn from their MPs in Quebec. Although David Lewis was originally from Montreal and a graduate of Baron Byng high school and a friend of A.M. Klein and Irving Layton two Montreal poets who along with Mordechai Richler formed an extremely creative literary circle in Montreal, Lewis was elected in Toronto and despite his best efforts never was able to make any sort of breakthrough in Quebec. The new leader Thomas Mulcair is a native Quebecer, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister a great grandson of a former Premier of Quebec, Honoré Mercier and as we say in Quebec enraciné in the history of the Province. How well he will do in the rest of the country, particularly given his moderate but clear commitment to Quebec nationalism remains to be seen. But félicitations et bonne chance M. Mulcair. As well congratulations to the other excellent candidates, including particularly Nathan Cullen for his intelligent campaign and open approach that placed the good of Canadians above pure narrow partisan loyalties.

About haroldchorneyeconomist

I am Professor of political economy at Concordia university in Montréal, Québec, Canada. I received my B.A.Hons (econ.&poli sci) from the University of Manitoba. I also completed my M.A. degree in economics there. Went on to spend two years at the London School of Economics as a Ph.D. student in economics and then completed my Ph.D. in political economy at the University of Toronto. Was named a John W.Dafoe fellow, a CMHC fellow and a Canada Council fellow. I also was named a Woodrow Wilson fellow in 1968 after completing my first class honours undergraduate degree. Worked as an economist in the area of education, labour economics and as the senior economist with the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation for the Government of Manitoba from 1972 to 1978. I also have worked as an economic consultant for MDT socio-economic consultants and have been consulted on urban planning, health policy, linguistic duality and public sector finance questions by the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan,the cities of Regina and Saskatoon, Ontario and the Federal government of Canada. I have also been consulted by senior leaders of the British Labour party, MPs from the Progressive Conservative party, the Liberal party and the New Democrats on economic policy questions. Members of the Government of France under the Presidency of Francois Mitterand discussed my work on public sector deficits. I have also run for elected office at the municipal level. I first began to write about quantitative easing as a useful policy option during the early 1980s.

View all posts by haroldchorneyeconomist →

2 Responses to NDP Chooses its New Leader:Thomas Mulcair 33 881 votes

circuit says:

March 27, 2012 at 11:57 pm

Nice rundown. I didn’t know TM was related to Mercier. Just curious, do you think Mulcair will bring forward a set of progressive ideas, especially in regards to economic policy? I would like to see him take on 2 percent inflation targeting. I know this policy has been renewed for another 5 years, but now is the time to start the discussion. In my opinion, TM will probably follow most federal politicians by pushing for deficit and debt reduction, as well as near zero inflation targeting. He speaks about jobs but seems to lack a good understanding of a true balanced economic approach to fiscal policy.

haroldchorneyeconomist says:

March 28, 2012 at 1:39 pm

It would be nice if he did but I do suspect that he may need to rethink the usual anti deficit dogma that most politicians who are lawyers, accountants, and business people are afflicted with. At this point it is unclear what his position is although he clearly cares correctly about jobs and employment and is being guided by polling that tells him that Canadians also care about these issues. In this respect he is no different from a number of prominent politicians in the Liberal party, the Bloc and the NDP who seem to care about the unemployed but do not appear to understand the role that appropriate fiscal and monetary policy can and must play in lowering the unemployment rate. In certain cases they do understand but are convinced by polls that it is not a politically winning strategy that they can successfully explain to the public. i think that they are wrong about this and have thought so for a very long time.

	harold chorney on Larry Summers is correct about…
	Harold Chorney on Larry Summers is correct about…
	Spencer Hall on The Demand for Money and the i…
	Alex Benady on Dominic Raab eliminated in rou…
	haroldchorneyeconomi… on The Federal Reserve‘s obsessio…