B.C. NDP leader John Horgan distanced himself as best as he could from the federal partyB次元官网网址檚 decision to dump moderate leader Thomas Mulcair and spend the next couple of years debating the far-left crackpottery known as the Leap Manifesto.
B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 a document that I donB次元官网网址檛 embrace personally,B次元官网网址� Horgan told reporters at the legislature. B次元官网网址淚 believe there are elements in the document that make sense, and there are elements that make no sense in British Columbia.
B次元官网网址淪o we wonB次元官网网址檛 be proceeding under any Leap Manifesto in the next 12 months under my leadership.B次元官网网址�
Horgan didnB次元官网网址檛 specify what part of the manifesto he likes. Presumably itB次元官网网址檚 not the part about tearing up CanadaB次元官网网址檚 free trade agreements, converting food production to local agrarian collectives or unilaterally dismantling our energy industry and replacing it with community-owned windmills and solar panels.
It canB次元官网网址檛 be the demand to stop all pipelines, because while the B.C. NDP doesnB次元官网网址檛 like oil, Horgan is in favour of natural gas exports to Asia. In general, that is. HeB次元官网网址檚 now on record with the federal regulator that heB次元官网网址檚 against the Petronas-led Pacific Northwest LNG project with a terminal at Prince Rupert.
The Leap Manifesto is the brainchild of anti-capitalist Toronto author Naomi Klein, with support from Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Its campus-radical cluelessness is perhaps best summed up by the format, which consists of 15 B次元官网网址渄emands.B次元官网网址�
HereB次元官网网址檚 demand number six: B次元官网网址淲e want high-speed rail powered by just renewables and affordable public transit to unite every community in this country B次元官网网址� in place of more cars, pipelines and exploding trains that endanger and divide us.B次元官网网址�
This demand effectively declares all of rural Canada irrelevant. By even considering it, the NDP risks doing the same.
HereB次元官网网址檚 number 11: B次元官网网址淲e must expand those sectors that are already low-carbon: caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public interest media.B次元官网网址�
And how will B次元官网网址渨eB次元官网网址� pay all these state-funded ballerinas and bloggers? Financial transaction taxes, increased resource royalties (until resource industries are killed off), a B次元官网网址減rogressiveB次元官网网址� carbon tax, and that old standby from the Occupy tent, higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
ItB次元官网网址檚 hard to tell now, but the NDP was created to give political power to industrial workers. Horgan was asked if the partyB次元官网网址檚 effort to win back industrial workers could be hampered by this potential lurch to the urban left.
B次元官网网址淭he difference between my hardhat and the premierB次元官网网址檚 hardhat is that my hardhat has union labels on it, and hers doesnB次元官网网址檛,B次元官网网址� Horgan replied.
As this statement was being made, the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council was meeting in Victoria. Its president, Tom Sigurdson, would use that event to host B.C. Liberal cabinet ministers and blast Horgan for opposing Pacific Northwest LNG.
In the 2013 election, then-NDP leader Adrian Dix made a mid-campaign decision to come out against the Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion. Since then the NDP has opposed construction of the Site C dam on the Peace River. Horgan is in favour of hydroelectric power, you understand. Just not this project at this time.
Perhaps the most stunning thing about the federal NDPB次元官网网址檚 fling with the Leap Manifesto was that it was staged in Edmonton. It came as a direct rejection of Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, who faces the grim reality of an oil and gas slump.
Notley has promised a carbon tax and the end of coal-fired power generation, moves that no NDP government has proposed, much less implemented.
Her own pretending-to-be-green party ignored and betrayed her.
Horgan wandering around in a hardhat is looking like a tougher sell every day.
Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca Twitter: @tomfletcherbc
