Comments on: Layton’s NDP lost

By: blogging a dead horse

blogging a dead horse — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:55:09 +0000

Check out military analyist Steve Staples blog. He had an interesting seat in all this.

It turns out that he and others acted as go-betweens between the Liberals and NDP to craft a better motion, but the Liberals wouldn’t play ball. They were more interested in politics than having their motion pass. Staples writes:

“The Liberal motion was uncritical of the military mission and supported its continuance unchanged . . . We urged the Liberals to make a small amendment to their motion in order to win NDP support, and Former UN Ambassador for Disarmament Peggy Mason actually suggested specific changes to the language that would likely have been palatable to both Liberals and the NDP. We sent the suggestions to every Liberal and NDP Member of Parliament. The NDP even proposed an amendment during the debate, but the Liberals rejected it.”

http://ceasefireinsider.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/what-was-stephane-dion-thinking/

By: canuckistanian

canuckistanian — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:05:11 +0000

well, i think we can stop speculating about the “backroom deal” between the ndp and the conservatives…or we can just assume the ndp have lost there frickin’ minds! either way, not good.

By: Jan Johnstone

Jan Johnstone — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:09:07 +0000

So does that mean the libs are for the continued tortore, killing and so on of Afghanistan detainees until 2009 in the South? And of course, after that when you want them moved to 2010 to somewhere else in Afghanistan? Just wondering?

By: Werner Patels

Werner Patels — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:09:45 +0000

Layton did the right thing — it was a principled move, and his stock has gone up YET AGAIN! He’s the best leader we have in the House right now (in fact, he is the best and most professional leader of any political party in Canada right now).

By: Lance

Lance — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:50:38 +0000

The NDP made the correct choice. Now they are the only ones who can campaign on Afghanistan. It’s a dead issue as far as the Liberals go. They endorsed it, nothing left to say.

Dumb on their part.

Cheers,
lance

By: Sean. S.

Sean. S. — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:36:48 +0000

My original post did have me scratching my head, as you will see in the updated one I have exercised some of those demons from my head.
If you actually read into the motion and the NDPs reason’s for voting it down (which I originally didn’t, which is bad on my part) you will see that they were forced to take a principled stand…which unfortunately meant the perceived bad optics (on first glance at least) of supporting the Conservatives.

So I think it would be wise to define the meaning of the first line of your post, since you are implying that the NDP did something against its own principles/policy, which it didn’t…