Canada

One endorsement that flew under the radar came from the largest private sector union in North America, the United Steelworkers.

The union, with its 225,000 members, announced in December that it was throwing its weight behind Ashton, who is a dockworker and the national president of the International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) in B.C.

Union members are already volunteering for Ashton's campaign, signing up members, organizing meet-and-greet events in local union halls and making phone calls.

It would be interesting to see if more unions join up Rob's campaign. That could be a big boost and offset Avi's funding lead. I won't be mad with either of them getting the leadership but I think I still prefer Rob.

Labour power - the ability to shutdown the machine that feeds the oligarchs as well as take the most of what workers produce - is the most fundamental and the strongest power we have for enacting significant change. It's the power that stops the shipments of weapons from Italy to Israel, without asking for a politician to turn against his defence donors. It's a power that can only be forcibly taken away at gunpoint. It's a power that's acquired without the consent of politicians or oligarchs. The way I see it, any campaign for systemic change needs to leverage labour power if it is to not be disrupted by the oligarch class. Oligarch-resistant political power is downstream from labour power.

My problem with the modern NDP is that I’d be happy voting for 2 out of the 3 frontrunners but as soon as I say which ones some random fellow NDP supporter will come out of nowhere to skewer me.

Is anyone paying attention?

Lol...no.

As a party you willingly sold yourselves down the river to prevent a Pollievre disaster. While many believed it was necessary (myself included), the consequence of that is that the NDP aren't even an official party anymore.

We are now effectively a two-party country, and people give the NDP leadership race as much attention as the Green Party.

ill just throw this out there. because in my point of view, i do believe canada, and generally the west itself has a nearing exparation date as far as the normal function of our society goes. we are entering into a death spiral that will likely see our entire way of life dramatically change, and we as a country may not exist in the same way every again. that being said.

i would care more if any of these individuals were actually consistent on issues that really matter.

some of them may be worker positive, others wish to centralise the party further right, others want stronger unions, and increased immigration. but none of them are nearly dramatic enough to fight the only fight that really matters. they care more about the economy and immigration than the environment, nationalising energy projects, or dismantling monopolies. none of them care about attacking the cancer that is oligarch influence in our country.

what we would end up getting is a milk toast feel good government which would spend more money on advertising what the right would inevitably call "woke bullshit" and rile them up about canada "doing a socialism" furthering the divide and increasing separatist support.

dont get me wrong, i love the idea of strong unions, immigration (when balanced with increasing living standards, and not done maliciously to the detriment of immigrants and canadians, stagnating wages, increasing the cost of housing, and creating scape goats out of people who just want a better life)

what we need is someone who will promise not to fuck with legal gun owners, and if anything roll back gun bans on "military STYLE guns" (especially right now when we face a potential invasion from the US) we need someone who is pro worker, pro union, and pro free healthcare. we need a new national standard of pay for healthcare workers and a federally implemented standard that dramatically cuts the progress of privatised healthcare at every corner. we need someone who will dismantle telecom monopolies, nationalise our energy sector, and telecom companies. develope domestic trade routes, international trade agreements. protect our private information, and remove surveillance technology from the police and csis against canadian citizens that would interfere with our constitutional right to privacy. while also ensuring that AI ethics are dramatically enforced by anyone wishing to make them available in canada. environmentally, and content wise. we need someone who will work to create a balanced and fair immigration system that allows our standard of living to increase in spite of new canadians coming over to make a new home. and we need someone to dismantle the system of realestate investment in canada, who will completely remove or severaly reduce corporate ownership of single family homes, farm land, and condominiums. there needs to also be an individual cap on home ownership as well. at the very max a normal individual can own no more than two residential properties in canada without licensing. ALSO, this is extremely upsetting to hear for landlords. we need combined ownership rights from renters and landlords. if you pay 90% of someones mortgage, then you should be entitled to 90% of the equity. we need to dramatically reduce the allure of landlording. it is parasitic. and destructive.

feel free to shit all over what i just said. but honestly our countries fucked either way with the current changes in the world, and perhaps when we rebuild, we rebuild it a bit more fairly once that child raping geriatric fuck down south chokes to death on a big mac.

oligarchs and billionaires should simply not exist, not in canada. not anywhere in the world. they are directly to blame for the negative influence in our country. and so, we should attack the system that allows it. if we corner off our country from them, that is one massive landmass of labour, and a millenias worth of resources they cant touch. fuck em.

Me, I'm paying attention. Avi seems like the only true leftist with a shot at winning. Rob is okay but he needs to drop the fossil fuel BS. Heather sucks and is a moderate and will only push the party further center. Tony and Tanille are precious but obviously don't have a chance.

We haven’t had a promising NDP leader since Jack Laydon. When you get another guy like him I might start giving a fuck.