A bit of a stick in the eye from Bob to Jack. More than likely. There are no comments on Summervilles blog from this summer criticizing the party. And he moved to B.C. interesting no? All the media reprots have him still in Ontario. Maybe all the Federal nominations in B.C. are wrapped up? This gets more and more interesting all the time.NDP STAR BOLTS: Former Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae, now a federal Liberal leadership hopeful, is combing his old stomping grounds for support and enjoying some success. Victoria's Paul Summerville is signing on as a supporter of Rae's Liberal campaign, at the expense of his NDP membership card.
Summerville moved to Victoria after a career as a Bay Street economist. He was touted as a local provincial NDP candidate in the 2005 B.C. election but no nomination windows opened for him. He ran for the NDP federally last winter in Toronto, but lost to Liberal Carolyn Bennett.
He told the National Post this week that he parted ways with the NDP this summer and has posted comments critical of the party's economic policies.
Provincial New Democrats are consoling themselves that while he is no longer a member of the party, he still supports the B.C. NDP.
Stephen Gordon of Worthwhile Canadian Initiative live blogged from the convention, unlike the NDP Blogs or the Dippers. And as an economist he too was concerned about Summervilles reasons for leaving the party.
Summerville apparently wrote this on his blog, but it disappears. If it ever had been there. His blog sort of is updated then articles disappear. This is from the Canadian Poltical Candidates blogaggregator; Confeederation.ca which has a feed from his blog.
The question is did this resolution ever get put into the resolutions book or is it his fantasy resolution and excuse for quiting? Because he announced his quitting before the Convention! The resolution is not that far out in right field not to be acceptable to the party.
For me not being at the Convention and watching it on CPAC and despite not being able to read the resolutions on line or see them when debated during the convention, some of these ideas appeared in the Sustainable Economics panel.
Among the many economic resolutions that the NDP are likely to vote on this weekend none will be more definitive than those on the role of Bank of Canada.
Over the last 15 years most countries have ceded control of monetary policy to independent central banks.
Whatever one might feel about the performance of central banks, eliminating political interference with the economic cycle, at least as far as monetary policy is concerned, has like safe sex, been widely accepted as a good thing.
The fate of any NDP resolutions in Quebec this weekend regarding the Bank of Canada therefore will be a critical litmus test of the party’s economic policy.
Suffice it to say that any government that did anything to reduce the independence of their central banks would face a bond market meltdown.
On that likelihood alone, a party that toys with central bank independence does not deserve to be taken seriously.
Instead, the party might consider the following resolution:
WHEREAS the Canadian economy is less than 2% of the global economy and shrinking; and
WHEREAS the rules of the global market economy are largely agreed upon; and
WHEREAS economies that embrace and enforce those rules tend to be prosperous; and
WHEREAS countries that invest consistently in key elements of social justice principally education and health tend to have economies that are able to adapt to change and increase prosperity; and
WHEREAS the speed of change in the global economy is accelerating;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the NDP supports the following economic policies and goals:
1. Price stability rooted in an independent central bank;
2. No deficit spending except in the case of a recession;
3. Annual repayment of the national debt by 1% of GDP per year;
4. Work with the provinces to reduce inter-provincial barriers to trade, investment, and the movement of labour;
5. Simplification of the income tax system with the explicit goal of reducing tax levels on middle income Canadians;
6. Increase the tax exemption for small businesses;
7. Cut child poverty in half by 2017;
8. Design national education strategies that encourage children to graduate from college or universities, increase the number of Ph.D.’s to 1.5% of the population, and double the amount of investment that companies spend on training;
9. Work with the provinces to streamline the applicability of non-Canadian professional designations to assist immigrants to live successfully in Canada in their chosen professions; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that these economic policies and goals are executed within the context of a sustainable environment that includes support for the invention, development, production, application and trade of leading edge environmental technologies.
end/
Oh well.
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