Tag: NDP

Transcript of Jack Layton on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight

The following is a transcript of NDP leader Jack Layton’s appearance on CNN’s Lou Dobbs tonight on March 6th, 2008:

DOBBS: Let’s take a different perspective on NAFTA if we may tonight, this one the Canadian perspective. At least one Canadian perspective and one major Canadian political party that adamantly is opposed to the trade agreement and to the threat of the North American Union.

Jack Layton is the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party and he joins us tonight from Ottawa.

Jack, great to have you with us.

JACK LAYTON, CANADA’S NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADER: Good to be with you, Lou.

DOBBS: The Canadian perspective, on NAFTA a lot of grumbling here and a lot of talk if it should be omitted in our presidential contest as well. Your thoughts?

LAYTON: We think NAFTA is not working well for working families and the middle class. I will just give you a couple examples. Here in Canada we have lost a third of a million jobs in the last three years in the manufacturing sector. The kind of jobs that allow people to pay a mortgage, to raise their kids, to make contributions to the local hockey team — we love hockey here in Canada, and really to the backbone and to the community. And they’re now finding the jobs that are available when they get laid off — out of these plants because their jobs have now been sent off to a far-off land where wages are one one-hundredth of what they are here — the kind of jobs they can find in Canada are minimum wage.

They can’t pay their mortgages, they are really struggling and I know many American workers are finding exactly the same thing. I think it’s time we made a little common cause and make sure the trade deals are working for the people who make the economy work.

DOBBS: I think most Americans would not pay attention a great deal to the fact Canada is a parallel, if you will, universe in terms of these agreements. When you talk about a third of a million jobs, that goes beyond just NAFTA, that goes to Canada’s overall trade policies, does it not?

LAYTON: Yes it does. Just to give you some examples. We ship raw logs from our forest all the way over to China where they are turned into products and they come back and we buy them. We even find sometimes the products don’t meet our standards our here. I heard you talking about toxic toothpaste in the U.S.

We’ve been facing toxic toys here in Canada. There goes the jobs. The trees go and they take the jobs with them and I know the West Coast is experiencing many of the same things. We need some fair and sustainable trade. That’s what we’ve got to put together.

DOBBS: What a wonderful expression. Fair and sustainable trade. In other words, Jack, let me say, I think many people, are surprised as they listen to you talking about the problems with NAFTA from your perspective, those are precisely what we’re doing now.

We’re sending timber and bringing back lumber. We’re exporting soybeans and scrap and taking in computers from China. The principle source of our computers, our consumer electronics and we look like a third world country for crying out loud.

LAYTON: It’s these multinational organizations under this so- called phrase globalization feel they can consume and produce in their own interests. And they are certainly doing very well by it but it leaves a lot of people behind and that’s why we think a renegotiation of trade should take place and today in Washington, our trade critic, Peter Julian was there from our party working with Congress members and legislators from Mexico to set up a working group to set up a working group. That is a bit of good news today.

DOBBS: Real quickly, we are out of time. Jack Layton, Mr. Brodie, the prime minister’s chief of staff, some talk about him being the source of that leak of Obama-gate as it is called here? Your reaction?

LAYTON: I asked the prime minister today in the House of Commons to apologize to the American people for this kind of interference on the democratic process in the U.S. It’s not right, he hasn’t yet apologized and he hasn’t yet fired the source of the leak. So we’ll keep working on that on our end.

DOBBS: It’s nice and it’s absolutely reassuring, Jack Layton, to find that politics are not just a mess here but occasionally up north. We thank you for taking time with us and hope you’ll come back soon as we discuss these important issues for working men and women and their families and both candidates and the United States and Mexico for that matter.

LAYTON: For sure, Lou. Take care.

DOBBS: Thank you. You too.

Up next here, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at it again. Moving troops up to the border with Colombia, maybe he intends to use them. We’ll have that report.

And five years since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security a few questions remain like why aren’t our borders and ports secure? I’ll be talking with Congressman Lamar Smith about that.

We’re coming right back. Stay with us.

For whatever the depth of this “scandal” for all parties that message on it, it’s a good one for Jack Layton because it fits well into his message track as he advocates on his views regarding organized labour, manufacturing, and free trade. This sets Layton up firmly against our Conservative Prime Minister who stands opposed to Layton’s principled, however misguided, views on most, if not all of these issues. Jack Layton receives great profile here from CNN and if we contrast this to the faltering leadership of Leader of the Opposition Stephane Dion, we find Layton to be more of a credible voice for those that oppose the Conservative government’s agenda.

Also a scandal in Canada is that the news media is focusing more upon the leak on Obama’s position rather than the Chicago senator’s nebulous position itself. The preservation of NAFTA and full political disclosure of the candidates on the issue is in Canada’s best interest. While it is unfortunate that there is now a perception of interference in US electoral politics by Canadian government staff, Canada is better off for having the issue front and centre on the US political stage. Americans are now be able to evaluate the positions of their political candidates on such an issue of importance to Canada. It is to Canada’s advantage that U.S. candidates for president are now being vetted on their position regarding free trade with our country.

In the U.S., the scandal is based on full disclosure of policy in a political campaign (“keeping them honest”, as Lou Dobbs might say). In Canada, the scandal is the inappropriate nature by which Americans were given an opportunity to have an honest policy debate.

Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be affected by renegotiating or ripping up NAFTA. What’s got the Ottawa press buzzing is which one job close to the Prime Minister (in Ottawa or Washington) may be affected instead.

NDP to test Dion’s confidence, in himself

Five confidence motions are on the order paper today:

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto–Danforth) — That, in the opinion of the House, this government’s budgetary policies have been marked by an unbalanced approach of corporate giveaways to the big banks and big polluters and have failed to address the priorities ordinary Canadians care about, such as health care, housing, infrastructure, manufacturing and forestry, climate change, child care, Aboriginals, women, seniors, poverty, and therefore, that this House has lost confidence in this government.

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto–Danforth) — That the House note this government’s two years of inaction in the fight against poverty in Canada and failure to build on such initiatives as the Canada Child Tax Benefit, affordable housing, literacy, and the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative and that for these and other reasons the House has lost confidence in this government.

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto–Danforth) — That the House welcome the opening expressed by legislators and presidential candidates in the United States that the North American Free Trade Agreement should be re-examined with a view to ensuring respect of high environmental standards and basic workers’ rights as well as the sovereignty and democratic accountability of the three partners, ensuring that working and middle-income families, and not only corporations, are the beneficiaries of increased trade and investment.

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto–Danforth) — That the House regret this government’s failure to live up to Canada’s international climate change agreements, and it’s [sic] refusal to bring forward for debate and vote, the Clean Air and Climate Change Act, the climate change plan called for by a majority vote of the House, and that therefore the House no longer has confidence in this government.

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto–Danforth) — That, in the opinion of the House, this government has failed to introduce policies which will diminish the inequality between men and women, in particular by its refusal to provide adequate resources and policies governing child care; legal assistance; long-term care; home care; health care; support for women’s equality seeking groups; support for seniors; support for Aboriginal and minority women; pay equity; reform of employment insurance; support for preventing violence against women; public housing and transportation and other services so vital to the hard working women of this country, and therefore the House has lost confidence in this government.

It’s an NDP opposition day tomorrow and one of the confidence motions above will be picked to be debated. Late yesterday, a well-connected New Democrat told me that they’ll be advancing the fourth motion of those above (the confidence motion on climate change) for debate and make Dion vote against the motion, in order to allow the government to survive. This will embarrass Dion into accepting the Conservative government’s progress on climate change. A Liberal MP expressed in conversation yesterday that the reason why they didn’t defeat the Conservatives on the budget was because they “didn’t want cause a Harper majority”.

Budget notes

From conversation with some friends in the PPG,
– while detained in budget lockup, someone yelled out regarding CBC Newsworld being shown on the tv: “what’s this s**t? Turn it to TSN!”. The budget document/executive summary was easily consumed in 20 minutes and there was an NHL trade deadline looming.

– budget lockup means no communication with the outside world, so reporters complained of not having Google to check facts, do background, and put together the finer details on a story. One wonders how reporting was done before 1993. But seriously, something could be done about this. Wikipedia, for example, can be downloaded to an iPod (or laptop). Not perfect, but it could help fill in some blanks in background understanding.

– One reporter said to me “I’ve never seen the Liberal government so willing to publicly commit suicide so frequently and willingly”

from conversation with conservatives,
– conservatives are generally happy that the Conservatives have passed their first “conservative budget”. Debt reduction and the new tax-exempt savings account are the headlining items for the movement.

– conservatives are unhappy about the spending increase projected for 3.4% this year. That totals 14.8% government growth under Flaherty (source: CTF). Why can’t we rein-in government growth?

– Guaranteed Income Supplement raised to $3500 should help patch things up with seniors whom have been upset about income trusts, according to Bob Fife and Craig Oliver of CTV. This budget item sounds like creeping socialism. (UPDATE: Oops, that was poorly interpreted. The GIS tax exemption has been raised, encouraging seniors to stay in the workforce.)

– taming the EI beast is a welcome change. Capping EI surpluses and moving towards better fiscal management (and proper allocation) of the fund is long overdue.

– effective communications line of the day was from Stephane Dion’s team which described the budget as “a mile wide and an inch deep”. The line was often repeated on newscasts and in print. It’s a perfect descriptor for Dion to achieve his objective: diminish the significance of the budget and and his subsequent approval of it. It’s also important to note that the Liberals have claimed this to be a “watered down Liberal budget”. Is Harper as Tom Flanagan would put it “triangulating” the Liberals out of relevance? This was first done with the Afghanistan mission, now the budget. Liberals essentially support the Conservatives in coalition without any leverage.

– the NDP is using the Liberal support of the budget to make the argument of Liberal bankruptcy from the left; they argue voters who don’t agree with Harper’s government can oppose it with the NDP. But this isn’t exactly news. What changes will the NDP have to make in order to more effectively challenge the Liberals from the left?

– the only thing sustaining the Liberals is their brand.

Predicting the future
– In the absence of Liberal opposition, will segmented conservative interests in the party and in the movement start leveraging for their own agenda? With slim majorities we see maverick government MPs potentially holding the balance of power subject to their agendas (PM Chretien government with MP Paul Martin). With large majorities we can see whole factions form and break off (as with Reform and the Bloc from the Mulroney government). Harper has the power of majority with the psychology of a minority; the PM can govern on the agenda he chooses because the the prize of a majority is still in sight and this will generally keep maverick MPs and the movement tightly following Harper’s lead so that their agendas can be realized in the future.

Harper’s now in the sweet spot of governance; he sits opposite a neutered opposition but holds the incentive of untapped potential for his government and its MPs. I’m certain that the Prime Minister would be very satisfied continuing his government under this balance until the fixed election date in fall 2009.