‘We need a mass program of deshittification’: Avi Lewis on rebuilding Canada’s public services
‘We need a mass program of deshittification’: Avi Lewis on rebuilding Canada’s public services
Elections for a new party leader are coming up. I should look more closely at the candidates to see who best represents my vision.
Everyone who would consider voting NDP should.
This guy seems like a good fit for the party's usual theme, and a chance to rebuild accordingly.
The NDP's usual theme hasn't been at all democratic socialism for a while now. Lewis is bringing back unapologetically socialist policies to the foreground. It's a chance to rebuild the NDP as a democratic socialist party and take it back from the centrists who let themselves get outflanked from the left by Justin friggin Trudeau.
Revolution or Wealth Tax. Take a pick, future PM hopefuls
Honestly, I imagine that wealth taxes would be difficult / cumbersome to actually implement in a fair way -- and they'd likely get significant challenges.
A more traditional approach, that I believe worked fairly well though I'm not totally sure, is to jack up inheritance taxes. Much easier to apply a tax on wealth during a wealth transfer, as all items get accounted for at the time anyhow.
Another approach that would likely dramatically shift things, would be to alter how stock market securities get used to secure loans: regulate banks to prevent them accepting securities at value. Doing that would turn off the 'tap' of money for many rich people, and instead force them to liquidate some capital to afford their high-service lifestyles. Ie. Cases like Musk, where you see the "richest man in the world" taking out loans using his stock as collateral in order to pay for stuff, shouldn't happen: make him actually sell his stock to raise liquidity.
so idk, i think there are options beyond just those two.
I like his choice of words here. To be fair, I could back the vision of any of the current candidates be it Heather, Avi, Rob, Tanille, Tony, but members should democratically decide then start to coalesce around it and go boldly forth in that direction.
My only worry for Avi, is that if any part of this race gets even a slight tinge of meddling from the party management apparatus, it will cement the idea in the public view that he is the Nepotism-Dependent Party candidate. That would be a terrible look right when the party is trying to turn a page.
You're not the first person I've seen complain about nepotism in the party. Would you have any readings to share for someone who doesn't know anything about it and wants to be better informed?
No problem! On CBC's introduction of Lewis:
Lewis, who lives in Vancouver, is the grandson of former federal NDP leader David Lewis and the son of former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis.
So it's not disqualifying or anything, he's his own person as much as anyone, but he does come from multiple generations of high profile leadership within the NDP.
Secondly, several of the provincial NDP leaders had been acclaimed to their position i.e. ran for leadership or nominated without any listed rival candidates for leader
And in one of those cases there was animosity after Anjali Appadurai was disqualified from the race by BCNDP party execs.
That in addition to the federal NDP not performing well this year's election, in one part due to a fear of diet Maple MAGA but the other due to Singh and the party's workshopped messages weren't resonating with the public and some groups of voters taken for granted like youth and unions.
So I would imagine party members at large may be concerned with a potential continuation of "Let's fight the billionaires, corporations and wealthy in an unspecified manner!" "Let's say the word 'affordable' a lot but not connect it to anything concrete" (that's Poilievre's line right now) "We'll de-shittify your life somehow and make it better!" kinds of messages.
I wholeheartedly support Eby in BC, but every NDP-affiliated party should look inward, acknowledge and address reasonable concerns, and see how they could do better for Canadians as well as their members.
Canada (and every country on the planet) needs to introduce a proper wealth tax. Tax money out of the coffers of the rich and invest in its citizens. That will improve the situation for all.